THE FIRST VISIT TO THE FARM 17 



the pasture lands were too well seeded to dock, 

 milkweed, and wild mustard to be attractive, 

 and the fences were cheap and much broken. 



The woodland near the western limit proved 

 to be practically a virgin forest, in which oak 

 trees predominated. The undergrowth was 

 dense, except near the road ; it was chiefly hazel, 

 white thorn, dogwood, young cherry, and sec- 

 ond growth hickory and oak. We turned the 

 corner and followed the woods for half a mile to 

 where a barbed wire fence separated our forest 

 from the woodland adjoining it. Coming back 

 to the starting-point we turned north and slowly 

 climbed the hill to the east of our home lot, 

 silently developing plans. We drove the full 

 half-mile of our eastern boundary before turning 

 back. 



I looked with special interest at the orchard, 

 which was on the northeast forty. I had seen 

 it on my first visit, but had given it little atten- 

 tion, noting merely that the trees were well 

 grown. I now counted the rows, and found 

 that there were twelve ; the trees in each row 

 had originally been twenty, and as these trees 

 were about thirty-five feet apart, it was easy to 

 estimate that six acres had been given to this 

 orchard. The vicissitudes of seventeen years had 

 not been without effect, and there were irregular 

 gaps in the rows, here a sick tree, there a dead 

 one. A careless estimate placed these casualties 

 at fifty-five or sixty, which I later found was 



