302 THE FAT OF THE LAND 



hens laying eggs when not otherwise engaged, 

 three thousand apple trees striving with all 

 their might to get large enough to bear fruit, 

 these made up my ideal of a factory farm ; 

 and it looked as if one year more would see it 

 complete. 



No rain fell in October, and my brook became 

 such a little brook that I dared to correct its 

 ways. We spent a week with teams, ploughs, 

 and scrapers, cutting the fringe and frills away 

 frqm it, and reducing it to severe simplicity. It 

 is strange, but true, that this reversion to sim- 

 plicity robbed it of its shy ways and rustic 

 beauty, and left it boldly staring with open eyes 

 and gaping with wide-stretched mouth at the 

 men who turned from it. We put in about two 

 thousand feet of tile drainage on both sides of 

 what Polly called " that ditch," and this com- 

 pleted the improvements on the low lands. The 

 land, indeed, was not too low to bear good crops, 

 but it was lightened by under drainage and 

 yielded more each after year. 



The tiles cost me five cents per foot, or $10C 

 for the whole. The work was done by my own 

 men. 



