234 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



before Mr. Boiling commenced improving it, was 7,000 

 bushels. Mr. B.'s largest crop, was 17,000 bushels. The 

 increase of one crop alone, is sufficient to pay for all the 

 improvements of the fertility of the soil, and leave a 

 handsome surplus. The wheat barn, which cost $8,000, 

 is 36 by 80 feet, three stories upon one side, besides a 

 cockloft floor. To the same building is joined a sawmill, 

 grist mill, plaster mill, and bone mill, besides the thresh- 

 ers and cornsheller, all of which are driven by a sixteen- 

 horse-power engine, costing $1,600, and all built in the 

 most permanent and substantial manner. 



The team force upon this place are 39 horses and 

 mules, and 36 oxen — always runs twelve plows, three 

 mules to each, and as deep as they can pull it through a 

 free, clayey-loam soil, which is comparatively level. The 

 other stock upon the place, 125 head of cattle, 150 of 

 sheep, and 140 hogs. 



Corn is planted from April 25th to May 5th, 514 by 11/4 

 feet apart, covered with a harrow, the lumps scraped off 

 with a board, tended with double-shovel plow, and the 

 corn stalks cut and spread like straw upon the surface to 

 rot. But it is found that this system of shading the 

 ground with straw, is more beneficial than a good dress- 

 ing of manure without shade, (a) ^ 



In summer, the stock are all grazed upon the appropri- 

 ate parts of the place, under charge of a herdsman, much 

 cheaper than they could be by a vexatious system of cross 

 fences. 



Mr. B. has 4,000 acres of timber land, which he offers 

 for sale at the very low price of $20 per acre. The timber, 

 so near such a navigable river, would more than clear the 

 land, and then the soil would be as good as that which he 

 has in cultivation. The farm, including, say 500 acres of 

 timber, is valued at about $40 per acre, $132,000 



180 negroes, at $300 average, each, 54,000 



125 head of cattle, at $10, 1,250 



^ The editor identified this system: "(a) This system of shading 

 the ground, is called 'Gurneyism.' a notice of which is given at 

 p. 205, of our fifth volume." 



