THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 191 



and though there was then no better house in Wellsville than the 

 one I had built upon the place, and the barn was nearly new, I 

 gave up and sold the property for what I could get. You told me 

 yesterday that you valued your two acres completed at $5,000 an 

 acre, and that it was paying well at that. As five thousand dollars 

 at six per cent, interest only gives $300, I do not wonder, since I 

 am sure you are getting two or three times that from an acre. I 

 have seen the strawberries and other fruits and vegetables as sold, 

 in this market for the last three or four years and have eaten of 

 the fruit, and have never seen anything anywhere near as large, 

 beautiful and fine flavored. 



"You yesterday showed me pods of peas, and I carried home 

 specimens with eight peas in a pod, of such marvelous size, as to 

 astonish me. The peas were of the dwarf variety, as shown by 

 the vines, and yet they were as large as Delaware grapes. You 

 assured me you grew five hundred bushels of pods to the acre of 

 these peas, and I believe you, since your Champions of England, 

 on vines higher than any man's head, loaded with pods and still 

 covered with blossoms, presented such a sight as I never saw 

 before. Your squashes, beets, cabbage and cauliflower were all 

 very fine, and as for the squashes, I never saw anything in my life 

 so astonishing. Though quinces are rarely grown in Allegany 

 County, I saw as fine ones as I ever came across anywhere. 



" Nothing so much surprised me as the change wrought in the 

 soil. The cold clay and hardpan had been turned into a soil, deep, 

 soft and very rich, growing all forms of plants, bushes and trees 

 to perfection. You say your system wipes out the hardpan, and it 

 certainly does. 



" This latter feature of your plan surprised me more than any 

 other, but perhaps I should except from this your spring brook,, 

 and that stream of pure cold water, flowing out from the pipe in 



