38 . Third Annual Report 



Let me go back a little. 



The first summer after wc moved on to the farm there was 

 very Httle I could do; there were acres there that scarcely had a 

 green sprig on them. I happened to be going across the farm 

 of my next neighbor one morning, and found him starting to do 

 some plowing. He called me over and told me he had found it 

 was too hard work for him and wanted to know if I wouldn't plow 

 it and raise any crop I wanted to. I asked him what he would 

 let me have the land for, and he said $5 an acre. I thought it 

 was pretty steep, but I was anxious to do something, so I agreed 

 to it. I ploughed narrow furrows and a little deeper than it 

 had been plowed before. After I was through plowing I took 

 an old A spiked-tooth harrow and harrowed the ground over to 

 break up the lumps ; I also had a roller and I rolled it and broke 

 the lumps somewhat more, then harrowed it up again and again 

 rolled it and kept that up until I got it to looking pretty well on 

 top, then I left it a while ; I couldn't do any more it had got so 

 solid. After a rain and the ground had got just dry enough 

 I went over it again with a harrow with a plank across and I 

 rode and tore the earth up three or four inches deep. The neigh- 

 bors said : "Terry will do most anything if you will let him ride." 

 I builded better than I knew. I had been brought up to do my 

 work well, whatever I did, so I continued that work by spells 

 in the neighborhood of two months until about the first week 

 in June, when I sowed Hungarian grass seed. By that time I 

 had the soil in as good condition as I could get it with the im- 

 plements I had. The owner complained bitterly ; he said I was 

 ruining the ground, and that nothing would ever grow on it 

 again, and that it would all blow away I had made it so fine. I 

 wish you could have seen that crop. It stood about 4^ or 5 feet 

 high and as thick as it could grow. I remember that hay was 

 scarce that year, and brought $18 a ton. I thought I did pretty 

 well. I figured I got about $70 an acre from the land, and paid 

 $5. I didn't know how to farm, but I kept on thinking. The 

 next year I had some ground ready to plow for corn ; I wanted 

 to put the same tillage on it and I began as early as I could. This 

 land, remember, was not worth much of anything. I kept work- 

 ing it for two months. The neighbors planted their corn and it 

 came up and was two or three inches high before I put my seed 

 in ; they said there was no use for me to plant so late, it wouldn't 

 amount to anything, and would simply waste the land and my 

 time. But I wanted to get the same results that I had with the 

 Hungarian grass, and I didn't know how I was going to get 

 them, but I was going to do the best I could. I got the results, 

 too, a crop that was considered by everyone as wonderful. That 

 was my first work in tillage. 



