The expenditure for equipment, from separator to sheep, was $354. I made an arrangement with a fancy grocer in the city to furnish him thirty pounds, more or less, of fresh (unsalted) butter, six days in the week, at thirty-three cents a pound, I to pay express charges. I bought six butter-carriers with ice compartments for $3.75 each, $23 in all, and arranged with the express company to deliver my packages to the grocer for thirty cents each. The butter netted me thirty-two cents a pound that year, or about $60 a week. In July I bought four thoroughbred Holsteins, four years old, in fresh milk, and in October, six more, at an average price of $120 a head,--$1200 in all. These reenforcements made it possible for me to keep my contract with the middleman, and often to exceed it. The dairy industry was now fairly launched and in working order. It had cost, not to be exact, $7000, and it was reasonably sure to bring back to the farm about $60 a week in cash, besides furnishing butter for the family and an immense amount of skim-milk and butter-milk to feed to the young animals on the place. CHAPTER XXVI LITTLE PIGS By April 1st all my sows had farrowed. There was much variation in the number of pigs in these nineteen litters. One noble mother gave me thirteen, two of which promptly died. Three others farrowed eleven each, and so down to one ungrateful mother who contributed but five to the industry at Four Oaks. The average, however, was good; 154 pigs on April 10th were all that a halfway reasonable factory man could expect. These youngsters were left with their mothers until eight weeks old; then they were put, in bunches of thirty, into the real hog-house, which was by that time completed. It was 200 feet long and 50 feet wide, with a 10-foot passageway through the length of it. On either side were 10 pens 20 feet by 20, each connected with a run 20 feet by 120. The house stood on a platform or bed of cement 90 by 200 feet, which formed the floor of the house and extended 20 feet outside of each wall, to secure cleanliness and a dry feeding-place in the open. The cement floor was expensive ($1120 as first cost), but I think it has paid for itself several times over in health and comfort to the herd. The structure on this floor was of the simplest; a double wall only five feet high at the sides, shingled roof, broken at the ridge to admit windows, and strong partitions. It cost $3100. As in the brood-sow house, there is a kitchen at the west end. The 150 little pigs made but a small showing in this great house, which was intended to shelter six hundred of all sizes, from the eight-weeks-old baby pig to the nine-months-old three-hundred-pounder ready for market.