THE MAIN IDEA. I39 



from it have been returned in the shape of improvements, such 

 as building, fencing, and drainage. Wheat, corn, hogs, grass 

 and pasturage have received special attention at his hands ; 

 and now I will describe some of the methods by which these 

 have been cultivated, raised, and harvested. 



MY MAIN IDEA 



in managing these crops being to still keep the farm up to, or 

 near to its original fertility and productiveness, I have followed 

 closely the following rotation. 



Beginning with sod, it is plowed in the Fall, if possi- 

 ble, to the depth of seven or eight inches, and planted the 

 following Spring to corn. This is kept in corn three years, 

 then changed to wheat, and run the same length of time to that 

 crop, then seeded down to grass for meadow and pasture. It 

 is then kept down to grass four years, and all the manure, long 

 or short, rotted or unrotted, that can be made is applied to the 

 grass land. This is hauled at almost an}'- time during the 

 season when it will not interfere with the advanced growth of 

 the meadow ; the pastures are neither pastured nor the meadows 

 cut very close ; the object being to form as fast as possible a 

 heavy sod to be plowed up again for the above rotation. This 

 system of cultivation has kept the farm in a high state of pro- 

 ductiveness. 



"WHEAT 



is very often lodged ; one year I had twenty-five acres of it 

 on the farm, every particle of which was lodged. It was 

 cut with a four-horse McCormick self-rake reaper, without 

 binding ; was picked up from the gavels on wagons with a 

 Foust hay loading machine, and stacked with a derrick. This 

 wheat was sold with only a reduction of five cents from the 

 market price, and yielded twenty-five bushels to the acre. A 

 few failures have resulted from freezing out; but in the main 

 my wheat has done well. The ground is plowed as soon as the 

 crops are removed, then harrowed and rolled until seeding time 

 (which should be in this latitude from the eighteenth to the 



