ON FARMS. 101 



a paralytic stroke, which caused me to lose the use of the other leg 

 very suddenly. This took place in 1831, when at the age of 22 

 years ; since that time I have not been able to walk one step. At 

 first this affliction seemed to dishearten me, and I came near giving 

 up in dismay. But hope predominated, and I made a vigorous effort 

 to obtain a livelihood by my own industry. Not having any trade 

 I commenced closing shoes. By applying myself very closely to my 

 business, working early and late, I succeeded in obtaining a sufficient 

 sum of money to purchase one acre and sixty rods of land, near Me- 

 thuen village. With a little assistance I soon had a house on the 

 same, into which my parents moved in the fall of 1636, This piece 

 of land, although but small, has a variety of soil, viz: a gravelly 

 hill, yellow loam, black loam, or clay soil, rather moist, and Tswamp 

 very wet, with muck eighteen inches deep on an average, with a clay 

 and sandy bottom. The swamp was covered with a thick growth of 

 alders. The upland appeared to be almost filled, or paved, with 

 small stones. The whole lot was a very bad looking piece of 'land. 

 In the spring of 1889, the stones were picked off the upland, and 

 it was ploughed for the first time, which threw up as many more 

 small stones as had already been picked off. The alders were cut 

 from the swamp, and a ditch dug through the same to drain it. I 

 then undertook to plough the wet or swamp land with six oxen ;' but 

 they did little more than merely to tear it up in spots, there Lino- 

 so many roots. It was so bad I concluded nut to cultivate it. 



At this time I built a shop adjoining my house, from which I could 

 see to any part of my little farm, and give directions about the work 

 without leaving the shop. Having but limited means, and not 

 bemg able to do much on the land myself, I made but slow progress 

 ni nuprovements. I commenced a ditch six feet from the ploughed 

 or upland, and run it around the swamp on three sides, six feet wide 

 and eighteen inches deep, and threw the muck upon the space be- 

 tween the ditch and upland, which gave me six feet more in width to 

 my upland around the meadow. This looked well, and I was not 

 content to stop here. According to the Yankee motto, thinking it 

 best to keep moving, the following year I filled the ditch with sto'Les 

 at the bottom, then gravel, then loam, until it was filled even with 

 the surface of the swamp. Then I cut another ditch around the 

 swamp, directly beside the one that I had filled up, and threw the 

 mud on the same, which added six feet more, or twelve feet in all 



