PLANNING FOR THE TREES 79 



and it was then left to itself, not to be trampled 

 over by man or beast, except for the stretching 

 of fences or for work around some necessary 

 buildings, until the middle of the following 

 May. 



We did not sow any wheat that year, there 

 was too much else to be done of more impor- 

 tance. There is not much money in wheat-farm- 

 ing unless it be done on a large scale, and I had 

 no wish to raise more than I could feed to advan- 

 tage. Wheat was to be a change food for my 

 fowls ; but just then I had no fowls to feed, and 

 there were more than two hundred bushels in 

 stacks ready for the threshers, which I could 

 hold for future hens. 



The ploughmen were now directed to com- 

 mence deep ploughing on No. 14, the forty acres 

 set apart for the commercial orchard. This tract 

 of land lay well for the purpose. Its surface 

 was nearly smooth, with a descent to the west 

 and southwest that gave natural drainage. I 

 have been informed that an orchard would do 

 better if the slope were to the northeast. That 

 may be true, but mine has done well enough 

 thus far, and, what is more to the point, I had 

 no land with a northeast slope. The surface 

 soil was thin and somewhat impoverished, but 

 the subsoil was a friable clay in which almost 

 anything would grow if it was properly worked 

 and fed. It was my desire to make this square 

 block of forty acres into a first-class apple orchard 



