"We'll have a five-foot walk against the north wall of this house, and a ten-foot space north and south through the centre for heating plant and food. This will leave a space at each side ten by twenty feet, to be cut into five pens four feet by ten, each of which will mother a hundred chicks or more. There must be plenty of glass in the south wall, and we'll use overhead water pipes in each hover. "There's no hurry about the poultry-houses. You can build one in the early summer, and perhaps another in the fall. I expect you to do the carpenter work on these houses. I'll see the mason at once and have him ready by the time you've dug the hole. The incubators will be here in good time, and we want everything ready for work as soon as the eggs arrive." Sam was pleased with his job; it was exactly to his liking. He took real delight in caring for fowls, and he was especially anxious to prove to me that it was not so much lack of knowledge as lack of capital that had caused the downfall of his previous efforts. Sam could not then understand why one man could sell his eggs at thirty-six cents a dozen when his neighbor could get only sixteen; he found out later. The mason's work for the incubator house and the foundation wall for the brooder house cost $290. The lumber bill for these two, including doors and windows, was $464. The five incubators, $65, and the hot-water heater for the brooder house, $68, made the total $897. Add to this $400 paid during two months for eggs, and we have $1297 as the cost of starting the poultry plant. CHAPTER XIX FRIED PORK I had given Nelson this sketch as a guide in working out the plan for the cow barn: Length over all, 130 feet; width, 40 feet. This parallelogram was to be divided lengthwise into three equal spaces, one in the centre for a driveway, and one on each side for the cow platforms and feeding mangers. Twenty feet at the west end of the barn was partitioned off, one corner for a small granary, the other for a kitchen in which the food was to be prepared. These rooms were each thirteen feet by twenty. At the other end of the building, ten feet on each side was given over to hospital purposes,--a lying-in ward ten feet by thirteen being on each side of the driveway.