518 



HOUSTON COUNTY, MINNESOTA. 



five acres of sweet corn. I also raise two acres of field corn to 

 furnish feed for horses and chickens. 



It may appear that some seasons I claim more acres of 

 crops than I have of land under cultivation. This is accounted 

 for by the fact that I take two crops per year from some of the 

 ground, and a part crop from portions of the orchard. As far 

 as possible every thing is planted so as to admit of using a horse 

 in cultivating. Crops Avhich require to be closer, I plant with 

 a Planet Jr. combined drill and wheel hoe, and cultivate with 

 the same machine and a double wheel hoe. I raise all plants 

 required for transplanting, and have large quantities for sale, 

 using for the purpose seventy-five to one hundred sashes on 

 hotbeds and cold frames. My earliest tomatoes are sown in 

 shallow boxes in the greenhouse, about the last of February', 

 and at intervals during March. When about two inches high, 

 they are put out into other boxes of fresh soil, one inch 

 apart, and when four or five inches high they are transplanted 

 .into hotbeds or cold frames, according to the lateness of the 

 season. * When all danger of frost is past, I take them up with 

 a trowel and plant them out where they are to fruit. Cabbage 

 and cauliflower plants I start in the earliest hotbeds and after- 

 ward transplant into cold frames before planting in the open 

 field. 



Besides myself and oldest son I employ two men for seven 

 months, and hire most of the picking of fruit done by women 

 and children. 



Looking back, I see that with more capital at the start, 

 much more could have been accomplished. Perhaps, too, if I 

 had spent less money for books and papers, and less time in 

 studying them, and toiled early and late, and saved, I might 

 have been rich in the eyes of the world, but, alas! "poor in 

 spirit." I am satisfied. My boys have grown up and have 

 never shown a disposition to spend their evenings and leisure 

 time in evil company, loafing about the stoves and shops of the 

 village, and I believe the world is no worse for my having 

 lived in it fifty-four years. 



