G'ARD^IXG FOR PROFIT. 



rarely occur if after sowing the seed the soil was carefully 

 pressed down with the feet. 



It was rather an amusing incident that first brought 

 to the attention or a truck farmer of Charleston, S. C., 

 the importance of firming the soil. It seems that a gen- 

 tleman of color, having the constitutional weakness for 

 chickens peculiar to some of his race, got into a hen 

 roost and helped himself bountifully. In evading the 

 highroad, he struck a bee-line through a newly-sown 

 Turnip field, where he left tracks that led to his detec- 

 tion. But these tracks did more. They showed to 

 Squire Buncombe, whose chickens had suffered, that 

 wherever the foot of the colored citizen had fallen, there 

 he had a " stand" of Turnips and nowhere else (for they 

 had been loosely sown and the weather was dry). The 

 lesson shot home and has been worth tens of thousgnds 

 of dollars to the farmers of South Carolina, who, it 

 seems, were never before sufficiently alive to the impor- 

 tance of firming the soil until the unfortunate negro 

 showed them the way. The world has often raised mon- 

 uments to men who have done far less to benefit their 

 fellows than this poor negro unconsciously did for the 

 farmers of North Carolina. 



