14 Agriculture and Its Needs 



motive for twenty-five miles. The soil is 

 deep and black, without a stone in it. The 

 people generally abhor hills as nature does 

 a vacuum. If some freak of nature has 

 formed a knoll, they call it a hill and try to 

 plane it off. I have seen a fine row of 

 maples half a mile long cut down because 

 they lessened the number of rows of corn, 

 and a man of wealth thought he could not 

 afford it. The roads are often impassable, 

 and the cost of hard roads almost prohib- 

 itive. Farmers live in rubber boots for 

 months together. The motive for moving 

 to town is much greater there than here, 

 and when a farmer lives in town there is 

 trouble at both ends of his route: at one 

 end the tenant lets the farm look like 

 Hardscrabble's shanty, and at the other 

 the farmer wants to keep a horse, and cow, 

 and pig, and chickens, to the annoyance 

 of his neighbors, and does what he can to 



