28 Our Farming. 



friends what we had pulled through. Among others, I well re- 

 member giving Mr. S. P. Thompson, a neighbor who had always 

 stood by me in my darkest days, a full history of our ten 

 years' struggle. ' ' Now, ' ' he said, ' ' I can understand some things 

 that greatly puzzled me at the time why you did not buy a 

 good wagon sooner, for example." I have often thought that 

 perhaps I was over-cautious. Perhaps it would have been wiser 

 to have gone in debt more for some things that were most urgently 

 needed, but I couldn't feel then that it was right, and presume 

 that I should do about the same again in like circumstances. 



For tools I had a roller that I brought with me, having had 

 a chance to buy it for half price that summer. A new plow was 

 purchased. I took a picture of a Geddes folding harrow to the 

 blacksmith shop and got the smith to make me one like it. My 

 older readers will remember this implement. It was the next 

 step up from the old A harrow. It was practically an A harrow 

 with a hinge in the middle, with twenty-eight i^-inch square 

 iron teeth driven straight through the wooden frame. I found a 

 picture of it in R. H. Allen & Co.'s catalogue of implements, 

 machinery, livestock, etc., published that spring. I hunted up 

 this book to-day to find the name of harrow. And just think of 

 it, I paid $i for this catalogue ! It is quite a curiosity to look 

 it over now. The " improved expanding cultivator ' ' there shown 

 would certainly make a Planet Jr. laugh in derision at the idea 

 that it ever descended from such an ancestor. But I have to 

 thank this book for some good hints-. I bought that year a 

 Cahoon seed sower for $10 (half that or less now), and not long 

 after an Albany corn planter, both of which were pictured in this 

 $i catalogue. With these implements, which were ahead of 

 what many had in those days, I turned the clods over, stirred 

 them around and mashed them down the best I could. I think 

 from the very start I did better work in tillage than was ordinarily 

 done at that time. It was not any such work as I see now from 

 my window, as I write, in our potato field, but it was creditable 

 for the implements we had to do with and the condition of our 

 soil. We could have done almost nothing without the roller, and 

 still few had them in those days and they are none too common 

 now. The first season I bought a Buckeye mower of an agent 

 who came here, on credit, of course. He came here with a horse, 

 and, staying till noon, I could not help asking him to eat with us. 

 I plainly told him we were very poor and just starting, but he 

 was entirely welcome to such as we had ourselves. After dinner 

 he told me that I was making a mistake to live so poorly, that I 

 ought to get enough good food to eat, fresh meat, etc., and said : 

 "Now when you come to Akron for your mower, don't you bring 

 any dinner. I will take you to my boarding house and feed you 

 and your team. Remember, now." And there was a hint in his 

 manner that I would get a better meal than he had here. This 



