Jack London's Ranch AlbumPage 3 of 3
The Pig Palace
Jack's beautiful and highly practical Pig Palace was built in 1915. It drew wide attention for its unique design and efficiency. The rounded structure in the middle was the feed room. Each sow and her brood enjoyed their own "apartment" with a sun porch in the front, which served as their dining room, and an outside run in the back. One man could easily care for over two hundred Jersey Duroc hogs. The opening of one valve filled all the water troughs in each suite.
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"Among other things I am starting to build a piggery that will be the delight of all the pig-men in the United States. It will be large and efficient and cheap in relation to the size of it."
September 21,1914
"I designed those hog houses and pens myself."
1916
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"By early 1911, Jack had planted 25,000 eucalyptus trees. The total later reached 65,000 trees but his dream of using them for hardwood lumber did not become a reality. (Get more information about London's efforts to grow these trees by clicking on the thumbnail picture)
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"As usual I am plugging away, head over heels with the ranch. . .I am building, construction, and making the dead soil live again. My terraces are beginning to show up. . . .My first silo is a success and I am building two more silos this winter. I have a fairly decent brood-barn, with liquid-manure tank attached, and I have just finished my concrete dipping tank. . ."
"....No picayune methods for me, when I go in silence, I want to know that I left behind me a plot of land which, after the pitiful failures of others, I have made productive. . . .Can't you see? Oh, try to see!--In the solution of great economic problems of the present age, I see a return to the soil. I go into farming because my philosophy and research have taught me to recognize the fact that a return to the soil is the basis of economics . . . I see my farm in terms of the world, and the world in terms of my farm . . . Do you realize that I devote two hours a day to writing and ten to farming?--my thought-work, my preparation, at night, and when I am out-of-doors....."
Book of Jack London ~Charmian Kittredge London
More Photos
MANURE PIT: used to develope fertilizer...14k
