THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 263 



&quot; Well, it may be so. If every thing works right you 

 may calculate on getting about three hundred thousand 

 pickles to the acre. Sometimes I have known em to get 

 four, but they must manure high and have uncommon 

 good luck to do that. A good many fall short because 

 they don t understand the business.&quot; 



&quot; About what do you get for your crop, taking them by 

 the season ? &quot; 



&quot; I sold them last year for fourteen shillings a thousand, 

 but some got as high as two dollars. I calculate I got a 

 thousand dollars for my two acres, and the expenses were 

 less than four hundred, and I had to hire every bit of la 

 bor. With good management and luck I should say a 

 man might clear about three hundred dollars to the acre, 

 to say nothing of the turnips, which come mighty handy.&quot; 



&quot; And what is the effect of the crop on the land ? For 

 I find that is a matter to be taken into the account. Some 

 crops run the land terrible hard, and if you don t manure 

 high, they ll make a desert of it.&quot; 



&quot; That s so. Tobacco, for instance. I ve tried it time 

 and agin, and it like to have spiled my farm. It took 

 about all the manure I could rake and scrape for two acres 

 of tobacco, and the rest of the land went dry. It aint so with 

 pickles. They are pretty much all water, and a good deal 

 of the strength of the manure goes over to the next crop. 

 Then if they are well attended to, they leave the ground 

 pretty clean. You see the weeds are all turned under the 

 last of June, and agin when you cultivate the last of July. 

 Then the turnips sown between the rows get the start of 

 the weeds, and when these are pulled in November, you 

 have a pretty clean field ; I have allers noticed that grass 

 and almost any other crop did well after pickles.&quot; 



Esther s apple dish got low about this time and Diah s 

 pond of pickle knowledge was in the same condition. I 

 pumped him dry. Yours to command, 



Hookertown, Feb. 10, 1865. TIMOTHY BUNKEK, ESQ. 



