In 1896 I was, however, a buyer of both corn and oats. In September of that year corn sold on 'Change at 19-1/2 cents a bushel, and oats at 14-3/4. These prices were so much below the food value of these grains that I was tempted to buy. I sent a cash order to a commission house for five thousand bushels of each. I stored this grain in my granary, against the time of need, at a total expense of $1850,--21 cents a bushel for corn and 16 for oats. I had storage room and to spare, and I knew that I could get more than a third of a cent out of each pound of corn, and more than half a cent out of each pound of oats. I recalled the story of a man named Joseph who did some corn business in Egypt a good many years ago, much in this line, and who did well in the transaction. There was no dream of fat kine in my case; but I knew something of the values of grains, and it did not take a reader of riddles to show me that when I could buy cheaper than I could raise, it was a good time to purchase. As I said once before, there have been no serious crop failures at Four Oaks,--indeed, we can show better than an average yield each year; but this extra corn in my cribs has given me confidence in following my plan of very liberal feeding. With this grain on hand I was able to cut twenty acres of oats in Nos. 10 and 11 for forage. This was done when the grain was in the milk, and I secured about sixty tons of excellent hay, much loved by horses. We got from No. 9 a little less than twelve tons of clover,--alfalfa furnished forty tons; and there was nearly twenty tons of old hay left over from that originally purchased. With all this forage, good of its kind, there was, however, no timothy or red top, which is by all odds the best hay for horses. I determined to remedy this lack before another year. As soon as the oats were off lots 10 and 11, they were ploughed and crossed with the disk harrow. From then until September 1, these fields were harrowed each week in half lap, so that by the time we were ready to seed them they were in excellent condition and free from weeds. About September 1 they were sown to timothy and red top, fifteen pounds each to the acre, top-dressed with five hundred pounds of fertilizer, harrowed once more, rolled, and left until spring, when another dose of fertilizer was used. I wished to establish twenty acres of timothy and as much alfalfa, to furnish the hay supply for the farm. With one hundred tons of alfalfa and sixty of timothy, which I could reasonably expect, I could get on splendidly.