694 ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO. 



things. Every stump that the two 3-oke of oxen, doubled, 

 could pull out, without delay or repeated working, was quickly 

 taken out and burned. Such as would not come out, no time 

 was lost on trying to dig them out, bnt they were left to decay. 

 If a fence rail got out of place I put it back myself when 

 passing. If a corner sagged, or length was plainly out of line, 

 sometime in passing with several men it was lifted in a moment 

 to its phace. Pieces of rubbish I picked up and did not 

 fillow them to begin to litter up a place, whether about the 

 farm liouse, barns, or other buildings. It is easy to keep 

 every thing looking neat, if you only try. 



CLAY SOILS. 



I always plowed my corn-stubble ground for oats in the 

 Fall, hurrying off the corn for that purpose. The frost disin- 

 tegrates or slacks the hard clay lumps into a mellow ash heap. 

 The frost does all this work for you, and far better than you 

 can, mellow it if Spring-plowed, though you harrow it all Sum- 

 mer. Besides, you get your oats in a month earlier in our lati- 

 tude (N'orthern Ohio), and they get a start ahead of weeds and 

 grow rank. The effect of Fall plowing of clays I found to be 

 fully equal to manuring, if not more. I have thus got oats in 

 as early as last days of February — unprecedented in that 

 latitude. Even if the ground should freeze some after that, it 

 won't hurt them. This always gave me more lime in Spring 

 for corn plowing, etc. Indeed, driving my farm work, or an- 

 ticipating it in these waj'^s, alwaj^s seemed to make it easier, and 

 I got so much more done Avith a small force of regular hands. Yet 

 the farmers alongside, who saw this constantly done, arc to-day 

 letting their corn stand unhusked, for cold winter work, its 

 fodder spoiling : they Spring plow clay corn stubble for oats, 

 get the seed in late if a rainy Spring, and secure a small crop, 

 even, if dry, thus crowding every Spring to get both oat and 

 corn plowing done. 



FOOT-ROT IN SHEEP. 



When superintending the farm of fifteen hundred acres, I 

 had a flock of twelve hundred grade sheep. They had the 



