FIRST YEAR'S WORK. 689 



grain crops, and made the period of the rotation (that is, the 

 time in which 3'ou got back to the original sixty acres, with 

 the same crop again), eight years, viz: four years in alternat- 

 ing with corn, oats, wheat, and meadow, on the same sixty 

 acres ; four 3'ears more in resting three years as meadow 

 and one year as pasture: making 8x60 = 480, or the five 

 hundred acres. 



Second^ though in carrying out of this plan it took the first 

 year to get fairly going, sixty acres were put in corn the first 

 season, and other smaller temporary crops were planted, pend- 

 ing the more rapid and extensive bringing of the five hun- 

 dred acres plow-land under cultivation that must follow in the 

 second year. Two yoke of oxen were bought, and the four colts 

 broken in, to give two more horse teams for the second year's 

 anticipated work, making four span of horse teams and the 

 two yoke of cattle then ready for the year's cultivation. During 

 the Winter these young horse teams got thoroughly broken for 

 following Summer's work, by sledding out wood in cutting 

 off timber. The previous Winter some three or four hundred 

 cords had been cut, and much of it hired hauled out. I 

 now hauled it out with our own teams much cheaper, and 

 gave the teams (necessary for the Summer farming) profitable 

 Winter employment, cutting and hauling out about eighteen 

 hundred cords, which gave many idle persons Winter work, 

 chopping by contract per cord. The receipts for this year's 

 operations footed five thousand dollars, and expenditures were 

 that amount, as we paid four hundred and sixty dollars for the 

 oxen alone, and bought several wagons, a reaper, a drill, harness, 

 implements, etc., etc., all extra outlays necessary in starting, 

 aside from the ordinary regular expenses, as hired help, rep.iirs, 

 running expenses, improvements, (limited carefully,) living of 

 the family, etc., etc. 



The second year the ball opened in earnest ; but we were 

 then read}'- for it. The sixty acres corn stubble of the first or 

 preceding 3'ear, were put into oats; sixty new acres into corn. 

 Only one hundred acres hay were cut — remains of the old 

 regime, — but on the completion of the period of rotation, two 

 44 



