THE PINES STOCK-FARM. Hg 



SAMUEL DYSART, 



FRANKLIN GROVE, LEE COUNTY. 



Mole Drains Not Durable — Forestry — Soil and Grasses — Mixed 

 Husbandry — Sowing Salt on Wheat Lands lliglihj Recom- 

 mended — Rotatioyi of CrojJS — Manner of Seeding Grass 

 Lands — Gray Willow Hedges — Orchards — Home — Live Stock 

 — High Feeding. 



THE PINES STOCK-FARM. 



I was born and brought up in Huntingdon County, Penn- 

 sylvania. My father was a farmer, who visited this country in 

 1848 and entered a large tract of government land, of which 

 I was assigned 320 acres as my portion on which to build up 

 my future home by my own industry. In March, 1855, then 

 in my 21st year, I located on my present farm, which at that 

 time was open prairie, without any improvement further than 

 a comfortable dwelling house, and GO acres of breaking which 

 had been done tlie previous year. A few years later I bought 

 the west half of the southeast quarter of section 14, as shown 

 on the plat, which made 400 acres, as the farm is at the pre- 

 sent time. The land is moderately rolling, with sufficient ele- 

 vation to give good drainage. The sloughs marked on the 

 plat, when I first located on the farm were boggy, and had water 

 in them most of the year, but by the use of the mole ditcher 

 and the cultivation of the adjacent land they became dry, and 

 now they are all tillable or good pasture land. The large 

 slough passing through the eastern side of the farm has a fall 

 of over 20 feet in the mile. Up to the present time I have 

 depended on the mole drains and open ditches, but the former 

 are not durable on account of crawfish filling them, and the 

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