MEMORIES OF THE 



then the other, then turning it over and driving them about 

 again, until they trod out the grain. This was practiced to quite 

 an extent, but was an unclean and wasteful method. Boys liked 

 it, as it was fun for them to get in the center, like a clown in the 

 ring, and hustle the colts. The colts also liked it, as they were 

 worked under the old Mosaic law regarding muzzles, and had 

 some fun biting and kicking each other as they went round and 

 round. 



"5 ^ ^ 



FALL WORK 



The fall work proper consisted of fall plowing, which was 

 necessary to be done in order to insure good crops upon that 

 soil; the picking up and clearing the fields of stone, which were 

 hauled into great heaps or where they were to be used in build- 

 ing walls for fences. Digging out rocks and breaking them up 

 was with father a kind of fad, and he had great skill and ex- 

 perience in the work. With no tools but common iron bars and 

 long wooden levers which he made for himself, log-chains and a 

 team of horses, he would take from the ground boulders that 

 weighed tons, get them onto a stone-boat and haul them away 

 where they were needed for fences. The uses of the stone-boat 

 were numerous, but that of moving rocks and stone was para- 

 mount. The stones and rocks have now lost their value for 

 fencing and are no longer hauled and carted around for that pur- 

 pose. It took centuries for farmers to learn that cattle should 

 be fenced in instead of out, and that one-fourth the fence would 

 do it. I think there are many acres of land on that old farm 

 upon which was spent labor enough, at a dollar a day, to have 

 purchased fifty acres of much better land. 



