1857.1 Correspondence of the Cincinnatus. 553 



tion and are subscribers to the Cincinnatus. The Messrs. Lewis are 

 eno-aged on the outskirts of the town, in the Nursery business, and 

 are worthy of extensive patronage for their pains-taking in furuish- 

 ino- the best class of Fruit Trees. As pomologists in the county, 

 they took first premiums. 



Indeed the display at the Decatur County Fair was a very fine one, 

 both in stock and products — the ladies contributing their share. — 

 Ex-president Wilson and his lady, it seems, are much in the habit of 

 carrying off the palm. Mr. W. has the second premium for best 

 cultivated farm and improved stock, and his lady took seventeen 

 premiums on pickles, preserves, etc. Mrs. J. Goddard was equally 

 successful, however, in obtaining as many for her handiwork. A 

 pumpkin-squash on exhibition weighed 204 lbs. A Mr. Barnes in 

 town, who is quite a genius, takes $10 premiums every year on a 

 gun of his manufacture, said to be worth §100 — a new "way of get- 

 ting the interest of one's money. What a relief it would be if many 

 ingenius affairs, we wot of, that won't " go off," could be made to 

 bring the interest of the money invested as easily ! 



In Bartholomew county are also some superior Agriculturists and 

 very excellent lands. In the vicinity of Hartsville, the seat of the 

 U. B. University, are several enterprising men — Wm. Fix, Enoch 

 Richmond and others — the go-aheadative kind, with neighbors who 

 begin to discover some difference between scientific farming con- 

 ducted by men who read, and " the way father farmed his old 

 farm," in whose steps they have been treading. " Yes," said Mr. R.> 

 " they are so ignorant as to believe my success is owing to some 

 secret art, and are offering to purchase it. The true secret is in 

 informing the mind, which," said he, "they don't do." I find 

 plenty of that class, not only in Hoosierdom but elsewhere. 



Another class are so conceited as not to be taught any more. In 

 an adjoining town, one sneeringly turned up his vegetable nose and 

 said, " you gentry come out here from the city to teach us farmers ! 

 You had better stay at home ; " followed by a hyena-laugh from his 

 compeers and a half dozen gawking children, giving evidence of 

 their not so much as seeing, let alone reading, a book very often. 



A few hundred yards from Clifford, on the Columbus & Shel- 

 byville Railroad, I " put up " with Col. T. G. Lee, a noted farmer in 

 the county, owning some hundreds of acres of excellent land. He has 

 the best Osage Orange hedge of any I've seen. It was three years 



