“The items of expense for the year were:—­

“Interest on investment $5,132.00
 New hog-house 4,220.00 10,000 bu. of grain 2,450.00
 Food for colony 5,322.00
 Food for stock 1,640.00
 Seeds and fertilizers 2,155.00
 Insurance and taxes 730.00
 Shoeing and repairs 349.00
 Replenishments 450.00

“Total $22,760.00

“The credit account reads:  first quarter, $2030; second quarter, $2221; third quarter, $5387; fourth quarter, $5957; total, $15,595.

“If we take out the $6670 for the extra piggery and the grain, the expense account and the income will almost balance, even leaving out the $4000 which we agreed to pay for food and shelter.  I think that’s a fair showing for the three years, don’t you?”

“Possibly it is; but what a lot of money you pay for wages.  It’s the largest item.”

“Yes, and it always will be.  I don’t claim that a factory farm can be run like a grazing or a grain farm.  One of its objects is to furnish well-paid employment to a lot of people.  We’ve had nine men and two lads all the year, and three extra men for seven months, three women on the farm and five in the house,—­twenty-two people to whom we’ve paid wages this year.  Doesn’t that count for anything?  How many did we keep in the city?”

“Four,—­three women and a man.”

“Then we give employment to eighteen more people at equally good wages and in quite as wholesome surroundings.  Do you realize, Polly, that the maids in the house get $1300 out of the $5300,—­one quarter of the whole?  Possibly there is a suspicion of extravagance on the home forty.”

“Not a bit of it!  You know that you proved to me that it cost us $5200 a year for board and shelter in the city, and you only credit the farm with $4000.  That other $1200 would more than pay the extra wages.  I really don’t think it costs as much to live here as it did on B——­Street, and any one can see the difference.”

“You are right.  If we call our plant an even $100,000, which at five per cent would mean $5000 a year,—­where can you get house, lawns, woods, gardens, horses, dogs, servants, liberty, birds, and sun-dials on a wide and liberal scale for $5000 a year, except on a farm like this?  You can’t buy furs, diamonds, and yachts with such money anyhow or anywhere, so personal expenditures must be left out of all our calculations.  No, the wage account will always be the large one, and I am glad it is so, for it is one finger of the helping hand.”

“You haven’t finished with the figures yet.  You don’t know what to add to our permanent investment.”

“That’s quickly done. Nineteen thousand five hundred and ninety-five dollars from twenty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars leaves three thousand one hundred and sixty-five dollars to charge to our investment.  I resent the word ‘permanent,’ which you underscored just now, for each year we’re going to have a surplus to subtract from this interest-bearing debt.”