194 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



spring, though we've had uncommonly heavy 

 rains throughout the winter and the early 

 spring months, the trouble with standing water 

 wasn't worth mentioning; and on that re- 

 claimed spot the wheat is heavier and finer 

 than on any other part of the field. 



We made that "go" mostly because we re- 

 fused to believe, as many of the neighbors said, 

 that the conditions were all hostile and that we 

 couldn't fairly hope to win in a fight. In par- 

 ticular they told us we were all wrong with 

 our deep plowing, that the way to handle wet 

 land was just to "skin" it with the plow. But 

 we knew of one example in the neighborhood 

 of a low, wet field that had been "skun," and 

 we didn't like the looks of it. Tenant farmers 

 have been handling the land for years, with 

 corn and corn and nothing but corn. It's a 

 long time since the plow has gone deeper than 

 three inches just deep enough to allow of 

 dropping the corn in a shallow bed. Almost 

 invariably the seed is planted in thick mud. 

 Though the soil is of a high type, that sort of 

 treatment makes it bake badly ; and the culti- 

 vator, instead of making a powdery mulch, 

 tears it up into tough clods that bake hard as 

 bricks. Cultivation must be abandoned before 



