16 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



at a convenient distance — say about four rods — so as to 

 give room for the team to come in with wood and water. 

 After four or five years the frames and fences might be 

 moved ahead, and another mile put down. 



Be very careful during the fall after the frames are 

 removed from the hedge, that the adjoining prairie does 

 not burn, as there is usually a good deal of dead wood in 

 the hedge, which it is very difficult to remove without 

 danger of tearing your shirt ; and should this take fire it 

 will be very likely to kill the hedge. In the spring you 

 need not take any pains to guard against fire, as the whole 

 concern — "lock, stock, and barrel" — will be "as dead as 

 a herring," and "fit food for fire." In the mean time, 

 the second experiment will be going on — unless indeed the 

 experimenter should be fully satisfied with the experi- 

 ment of fencing prairie in lat. 41-2 with a plant that will 

 not stand the winter of lat. 32, and can never be grown 

 here except in a hot-house, any better than can the most 

 tender varieties of your monthly roses, which require so 

 much care to preserve them in the parlor through the 

 winter. 



But upon the whole I don't know as it would be much 

 more expensive or inconsistent than our present mode of 

 splitting and hauling rails all winter, to be burnt up in 

 the fall. 



I wonder, Mr. Editor, if you really suppose you can 

 induce "our folks" to put the "fixings" around the school 

 house that you illustrate in your article upon that subject 

 in the March number.^ Why, do you suppose that the 

 children would learn any thing but play, if so much ex- 

 pense was devoted to making a play-ground, nicely fenced 

 and set with shade trees? I suppose you would recom- 

 mend the school house to be painted, and have green win- 

 dow blinds! And perhaps you would insist on having 

 comfortable seats, and not put 40 children in a log cabin 

 16 feet square, with 16 light of glass, and sorter warmed 

 by a smoking stove. Supposing you carried out all your 



* See "Situation of School Houses," Prairie Farmer, 6:87-88. 



