THE EARTH'S BOUNTY 



made me anxious to extend my experiments 

 in husbandry. 



What would have -happened had our twelve 

 acres been an individual farm I don't know; 

 for we had grown to love the dear old place 

 so much that I believe that, if desire for prog- 

 ress had necessitated moving, we should have 

 remained mere poultry people. Fortunately, 

 the Wilbur homestead, which we occupied, 

 and the Earl homestead, had been built be- 

 fore Revolutionary days, at opposite ends of 

 a four-hundred-acre estate, by the many 

 times great-grandfather of the present owner, 

 for his two younger sons; and had for gen- 

 erations descended from fathers to sons, until 

 some thirty years before our inroad, when the 

 entire property had fallen to Mr. E., our 

 landlord, who, having a large family, pre- 

 ferred to keep all the land in one farm, ex- 

 cepting the twelve acres immediately around 

 the Wilbur homestead, which a widowed sis- 

 ter had occupied before our tenancy. Mr. 

 E/s large family had dwindled down to a 



8 



