2o Our Farming. 



think I am deceived, just visit Friend Terry as I did, and take a 

 spade and go over the farm." 



You now have the word of disinterested men as to what the 

 soil was. And I want right here to thank Friends Thorne and 

 Root for the kind words their sense of justice led them to say. 

 Now, how had this soil been managed? Without much attention 

 being paid to rotation, manure saving, clover growing^ etc., I 

 fear. In fact, I doubt whether any clover seed had ever been 

 sown on the farm ; certainly not for several years. The tillage 

 was very poor. The plowing was the merest skimming. I am 

 judging largely by the work done by my tenant the year before I 

 moved on. Such sort of work had been going on for some time 

 at least. It was slip-shod throughout. The tenant had one field 

 in coin (?). He did not get five bushels from it ; never cut only 

 a shock or two. In fact, could not find it for weeds. Much of 

 the corn never reached three feet high. This I know, for I was 

 around that year. His oats and wheat were what he called good 

 crops for this land. I do not remember how the oats turned out, 

 but I do the wheat. I was present when it \vas threshed. It 

 was grown on the best land on the farm, right back of the house, 

 and the yield was eight bushels per acre. Although he seemed 

 well pleased with the yield, I was pretty sober, I assure you, for I 

 was beginning to see what a wretched trade I had made. Far 

 better if I had taken the cash I could have got for our town 

 home, although only half what it cost, and bought some good 

 land, if I wanted to go to farming. 



That spring, when my tenant took the farm, there was one 

 piece of land that had had a crop on the preceding year and had 

 not been seeded (as usual, I should judge) and I wanted some- 

 thing done with it. Did not like to see it left there to grow up 

 in weeds. Told the tenant I would, like it if he would put in 

 some crop and then I would try and get it seeded in the fell. 

 He had always lived within a few miles and knew the farm 

 well, and replied to me that he wouldn't plow that piece of 

 land for all it would raise. Well, I have since grown 300 

 bushels potatoes per acre (the merchantable ones only counted) 

 and 35 to 37 of wheat on that veiy land, although this is an ex- 

 treme yield. It grew up to weeds that season, and I hired a man 

 with a yoke of heavy cattle to turn them under in August, when 

 I began my farming by making preparations for putting in my 

 first crop. Well, do I remember how this old man found fault 

 because I wanted him to plow, not just skim the surface. The 

 hay my tenant cut that year on the i25-acre farm to winter some 

 15 cows and his horses measured, in the mow, counting weeds, 

 marsh grass and all, 12 tons. By the way, I spoke of buying 10 

 cows with the farm. This was the 25th of January. The tenant 

 moved on soon, or at least took care of stock from then on, al- 

 though the year was not to begin until first of April. I bought 



