STONE WALLS VERSUS ROADS 15 



Stone Walls Versus Roads. 



Within a year a development began which, when completed, 

 changed the entire aspect of the farm. The first step was to make 

 stone ballasted main roads, well underdrained, utilizing material 

 taken from the three miles of stone walls that straggled irregularly 

 across ravine and pasture, swamp and hillock, some broad enough 

 to hold a coach and four on their ivy, woodbine, and blackberry 

 vine-clad tops. These old walls were the hide-and-seek rendezvous 

 and racing ground of the saucy fat chipmunk, and their deep, dank 

 recesses at times nesting places for the black snake the non-biting 

 constrictor that so realistically rounds out country life. Quite a 

 number of these walls were formed of two distinct evenly faced ram- 

 parts, the intervening space filled w r ith small stones, a good old- 

 fashioned way of clearing land, and far less shiftless than the piling 

 of stones on ledges that occasionally outcrop on the surface. 



Strenuous agronomical efforts required the erection of more hay, 

 storage, and cattle barns, also corn cribs, giving a comfortable and 

 roomy group of buildings, taking the place of hay ricks, canvas-capped 

 stacks, and rough-and-ready shelters. The recurring seasons of seed- 

 time and harvest caused bulging silo and o'erflowing barns, when 

 again came the lumber teams and carpenters to provide new buildings 

 for increasing crops and stock. 



D. L. Moody 's White Farm 



Dwight L. Moody, the Evangelist, once told me in most interest- 

 ing detail of his white farm no, not named for the fields of white 

 daisies, but from the stock, all snow white, including horses, dogs,. 

 cats, turkeys, geese, ducks, pigeons even mice and rabbits for the 

 children. Our love for peerless black Topsy and the herd of Dutch 

 belted cattle decided us to make the motif black and white, w r ith an 

 occasional exception in favor of some animal of rare merit. Much 

 against my will, the scheme had to include white daisies, as well as 

 wild carrot (Queen Ann's lace), the beautiful tracery of whose 

 bloom belies its pernicious, destructive habit. These two horticultural 

 vagabonds joined forces with the Canadian thistle, and, after several 

 years' struggle, succeeded in depleting by half the one hundred ton 

 hay crop, the financial back bone of our farm. 



First on the list of income producers came the dairy. The fore- 

 man had purchased in Vermont two carloads of native cows, but these 

 were gradually replaced by the herd of Dutch belted. 



Dutch Belted Cattle. 



How well I recollect when I first saw in one of the half dozen 

 agricultural papers to which we subscribed the beautiful outlines of 

 the Dutch belted (Lackenfeld) cattle, their jet black bodies com- 

 pletely encircled with pure white blankets. This led me to Orange 

 County, New York, where I joined the Dutch Belted Association, 



