FIRST CROP — PROGRESS. S05 



in. We managed to get in thirty-five acres of wheat the first 

 season ; doing all the work with our ox team. We were too 

 poor to own a pony for riding purposes. We went to mill, to 

 market, to church, and to visit friends with our ox team. I 

 might tell many amusing incidents of our pioneer life, if my 

 article was upon that subject. The first year we were upon 

 the farm we had nothing to sell. My only income was my 

 salary as a teacher, and a small pittance which the Government 

 gave me as a pension. That year we made and raised enough 

 to keep just soul and body together — poor and hard as it was. 

 Our first wheat crop was a very good one, for the ground 

 was fresh and the season fiivorable. The crop yielded eight 

 hundred and sixty bushels. After keeping seed and bread out, 

 the remainder was sold, and after paying out all expenses, it 

 left us a profit of over three hundred dollars. This, with my 

 wages of three hundred dollars for six months' teaching, gave 

 us, as we thought then, a good capital to begin with. Our 

 first investment was in fruit trees, which however, should have 

 been planted earlier, for it took years before we could 

 realize anything from them. A portion of this money we also 

 spent in building a more comfortable dwelling. The house 

 we were living in, had been put up by the original squatter, 

 and was of round, unhewn logs, the cracks daubed with mud, 

 and had a stick chimney for a fireplace. The whole tiling 

 would not make a comfortable stable in an old settled State. 

 The remainder of the money was spent for domestic stock, and 

 a few necessaries of life. 



PROGllESS. 



The second year we broke more prairie, which went into 

 sod corn ; and we also put in that Fall forty-five acres of wheat, 

 all the work being done by the boys and the single yoke of 

 oxen. The wheat crops were then sown broadcast, on account 

 of the ground being too soddy to use the drill. I taught again 

 that Fall and Winter, and the bo^'s went to school. In the 

 season following, our crops were very good, and we had a 

 bountiful supply of most every thing. Prices were generally 



