AGRICULTURAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 87 



but that did, locate the soft, undeveloped muscles 

 of boys! It makes my sides quiver again just to 

 write about it, even while I rejoice that corn is 

 usually raised now by horse-hoe culture without 

 any use whatever of the hand hoe. 



The fields in our region were small from two 

 to eight acres. When I grew up I tried to account 

 for this practice which was almost universal in the 

 United States and Canada. As usual, my mother 

 solved the question for me. Each field represented 

 a year's clearing and it was about as easy to dis- 

 pose of the timber by splitting it into rails as to 

 log and burn it. If the year's clearing was fenced 

 by itself the grazing livestock would keep down 

 the vigorous growth of sprouts and weeds which 

 were certain to appear after the brush had been 

 burned and even while the new ground summer 

 fallow was being conducted, for not more than 

 half of the cleared ground was plowable the first 

 year on account of roots and stumps. 



The farm buildings on our place consisted of a 

 one and a half story house, two barns when I 

 was in my teens a wagon-house and a wood- 

 house. The barns, though of good size, were not 

 large enough to hold the entire crop without much 

 tramping of hay and much care in mowing away 



