THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 47 



" It was in the counties of Sandusky, Huron, Seneca and others 

 of northwestern Ohio, where I found fires sweeping along the 

 prairies and farms, destroying crops and timber, the trees having 

 in many instances dropped their foliage before their time. Water 

 was scarce for man and beast, and pestilence followed in the track 

 of the droughts and desolation. Three hundred graves of fathers, 

 mothers and children were unwet by the rains at lower Sandusky, 

 (now Fremont). The scum upon the waters of the river was so 

 thick that squirrels were said to have crossed it in droves without 

 wetting their feet. 



" Swamps and morasses were on fire burning to a depth, in many 

 instances, reaching the rock from three to six feet beneath the sur- 

 face, since a uniform lime-rock underlies whole counties of this 

 portion of Ohio. It was this rock formation that especially attract- 

 ed my attention. To obtain water from wells was stubborn work. 

 Great streams in some instances gushed out in copious flow, but 

 disappeared quickly as some deep fissure in the rock was reached in 

 the flow of their waters. 



" Thus early did I begin the observation and study of soils. Not 

 merely did I seek to know the surface. In streams, dry in their 

 beds, and in furrows of field and farm my studies went on. The 

 subsoils were especially observed. 



" Whence came the waters ? These I knew dropped down from 

 the clouds in the form of rains, dews, frosts and snows. When it 

 came winter, I found out the treasures of the hail. I looked 

 back longingly during nearly a year of dreary discontent to the 

 leeks and onions, rains and dews and even the drifting snows of 

 that Allegany of nearly fifty years ago. I remembered the crystal 

 waters of the good-bye land I had left for the attractions of the 

 then great west, and dreamed dreams of grasses all green in their 

 verdure and grateful in their juices. 



