PLANNING FOR THE TREES 79 
and it was then left to itself, not to be trampled 
over by man or beast, except for the stretching 
of fences or for work around some necessary 
buildings, until the middle of the following 
May. 
We did not sow any wheat that year, — there 
was too much else to be done of more impor- 
tance. There is not much money in wheat-farm- 
ing unless it be done on a large scale, and I had 
no wish to raise more than I could feed to advan- 
tage. Wheat was to be a change food for my 
fowls; but just then I had no fowls to feed, and 
there were more than two hundred bushels in 
stacks ready for the threshers, which I could 
hold for future hens. 
The ploughmen were now directed to com- 
mence deep ploughing on No. 14, — the forty acres 
set apart for the commercial orchard. This tract 
of land lay well for the purpose. Its surface 
was nearly smooth, with a descent to the west 
and southwest that gave natural drainage. I 
have been informed that an orchard would do 
better if the slope were to the northeast. That 
may be true, but mine has done well enough 
thus far, and, what is more to the point, I had 
no land with a northeast slope. The surface 
soil was thin and somewhat impoverished, but 
the subsoil was a friable clay in which almost 
anything would grow if it was properly worked 
and fed. It was my desire to make this square 
block of forty acres into a first-class apple orchard 
