| Disbursements | |
| Cost of one ewe | $18.00 |
| Feed | 6.25 |
| Interest on note | .72 |
| Total cost | $24.97 |
| Receipts | |
| 1 ewe (inventory) | $18.00 |
| 1 lamb (sold) | 25.00 |
| 1 lamb (sold) | 22.50 |
| Wool (sold) | 6.50 |
| Total receipts | $72.00 |
| Total cost | $24.97 |
| Profit | $49.03 |
Investments paying 200 per cent were worth looking into, the farmers who lived in the locality of this club thought and interest in sheep raising increased.
Another boy in the Henry County club has developed a flock of thirty ewes, and plans to have more. His father has become so interested in his work that, although the boy is rather young, he is allowed to go to sales and do his own bidding on prospects for his flock. Practically all the boys engaged in the sheep-club work are keeping their foundation animals and at the same time are adding to their stock.
Previous to 1918, there were but few boys and girls organized into sheep clubs under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture and the state agricultural colleges. With the high price of wool and mutton, the sheep project, however, has become increasingly popular. Last year 257 such clubs were organized, with an enrollment of 3,613 members. During the year 8,005 lambs were raised by these young people, and 2,006 pounds of wool were marketed. The total value of the flocks at the end of the year was $131,173.40; the initial cost of the sheep, together with the expense of feeding them, was $37,082.82; the total profit made by the boys and girls who were members of the sheep clubs, and who continued the work throughout the year, was $94,090.58. The results the boys have been getting have opened the eyes of their fathers. The boys and girls in the sheep clubs are demonstrating in every state that sheep are profitable if well handled.
PLAN No. 757. BOYS’ YOUNG SOW MAKES NET PROFIT OF $385 IN LESS THAN 12 MONTHS
Three hundred and eighty-five dollars in less than a year—that’s the clear profit a young sow gave two boys who live in Harris County, Texas. Theorists in farm management and the like might figure up a pretty big bill of costs against the sow, to be deducted from the profit she has made, but the boys know that such figures would not tell the truth, because they’ve got the money in their pockets—or they did have it.
The sow and her progeny did eat sixteen bushels of corn, worth $24, and they did range over five acres of pasture, considered worth $25. These two items—a total of $49—have already been charged to the sow, and deducted from her gross revenue of $434. The remaining $385 is clear profit, because the rest of the feed consisted of slop and surplus milk that would have been thrown away had there been no pigs, and peanuts and sweet potatoes gleaned by rooting the patches after the crops had been harvested as carefully as possible. She farrowed her first litter of pigs April 4, 1918. One died and two were given in payment for the sow. The other four were grown, fattened, and killed to furnish the family supply of lard and pork. Another litter of six pigs came later in the year and are now on the farm—good-sized shotes in first-class condition. The sow will farrow a third litter of pigs before long. The account now stands this way:
The original sow, $60; six shotes, $60; 800 pounds of pork, $224; twenty five gallons of lard, $90. These four items make a total of $434 from which a deduction of $49 is to be made for corn and pasture. Those figures prove that hog raising on the farms of Harris County, Texas, is profitable. But the caution to be written at the bottom of this story is: do not carry figures too far. Making figures in arithmetic fashion, you would have this: If one sow makes a profit of $385, 100 sows would make a profit of $38,500. That is perfectly good arithmetic but it is not good farming.
The big profit in hog raising on southern farms, the specialists of the United States Department of Agriculture point out, is made where the farm family keeps enough hogs to consume all the waste products, to convert into money the things that would otherwise be lost, and that can be kept on a minimum of bought or stored feed. Every dollar got out of that number of hogs is practically clear profit. Beyond that point the profit dwindles.
The number of hogs that can be profitably kept is, of course, a matter that each farm family must determine for itself. In some cases it may be one sow. In others it may be six or a dozen or any number of sows. On every farm there is some waste that pigs could convert into money. On most farms it probably amounts to at least as much as on one farm, where, in one year, a boy made one sow produce enough revenue to buy a whole set of new furniture for mother or to keep sister in college for a year.