Remember that this wheat is grown on the farmer's own freehold, which may have cost him twenty or twenty-five dollars per acre. Do not forget also a taxation of about fifteen thousandths a year on the total value of the farmer's estate, as arranged between him and the assessor--land, stock, implements, and everything else he has beyond about three hundred dollars' worth of excepted articles. But add no rent or tithe, and recollect that in this calculation the farmer's own labor and that of his team are charged at market price against the crop. The charge for warehousing the wheat till it is sold is four cents a bushel; and the wheat-sacks, holding two bushels each, will cost from ten to twelve cents each. Add, therefore, still nine and a half cents a bushel for subsequent charges, and the farmer who kept accounts would find his wheat, in the warehouse and ready for market, represented to him an outlay of forty-one cents and a quarter a bushel. If he sells at eighty-five cents a bushel, that gives him a profit of $8.75 per acre on the portion of his farm in wheat. CHAPTER VI. The farmer's sports and pastimes--Deer-hunting tales--A roadside yarn-- Still-hunting--Hunting with hounds--An early morning's sport--Elk--The pursuit--The kill--Camp on Beaver Creek--Flounder-spearing by torchlight --Flounder-fishing by day--In the bay--Rock oysters--The evening view --The general store--Skins--Sea-otters--Their habits--The sea-otter hunters--Common otter--The mink and his prey. The Oregon farmer has one great advantage over his Eastern or European brother. Starting from the first of January, he has until July comes a good many days wherein he can amuse himself without the detestable feeling that he is wasting his time and robbing his family. The ground may be either too hard or too soft for plowing; or he may have sown a large proportion in the autumn and early winter, and so have little ground to prepare and sow in spring; and he has little, if any, stock-feeding to do as yet. A good supply of hay is the only addition to the pasture-feed that he need provide; so long, that is, as he is content to work his farm in Oregon fashion. Many a one is within reach of the hills where range the deer, and shares in the feeling strongly expressed to me the other day, "I would rather work all day for one shot at a deer, than shoot fifty wild-ducks in the swamps." As I was riding out to the hills not long since, I met an old friend of mine returning from a week's hunt in the regions at the back of Mary's Peak. [Sidenote: _A ROADSIDE YARN._]