14 GARDENING FOR YOUNG AND OLD. 



presented quite a respectable appearance on the surface. 

 The Quack, after the autumn rains, began to grow, and 

 I cross-plowed the field with a steel plow. The grass was 

 so thick and matted that the plow did not make very 

 good work, but as the weather still continued dry, we 

 ivere able to work the surface into good shape by the 

 use of a thirty-two toothed harrow, which was the only 

 kind we then had. (A Smoothing Harrow, with its 

 seventy-two slanting teeth, would have made far bet- 

 ter work, with half the labor.) We kept harrowing it 

 and cultivating it as opportunity offered, and about the 

 last of November we plowed the land again, and left it 

 rough for the winter." 



As I talked, it was amusing to watch the expression on 

 the faces of the farmers present. They did not seem to 

 know whether to laugh or sneer, but I imagine they 

 thought it would be better to let the Quack retain pos- 

 session of the land, rather than to spend so much time 

 in plowing and working it. And I then said: "In the 

 following spring we plowed the field again, and then 

 harrowed and cultivated and harrowed and rolled until 

 the land was completely covered with the dry roots of 

 Quack, which we raked together in windrows and heaps, 

 and then set fire to them. Afterwards we plowed the land 

 once more, harrowed and rolled it, and drilled it in with 

 beans." At this point even the intelligent Secretary of 

 the Club, and an able agricultural writer, could not re- 

 strain a look of amazement, that any man could be so 

 destitute of all sense of propriety as to recommend any 

 such a system. But after twenty years' experience, I am 

 prepared to say that the plan was a good one. I had a 

 noble crop of beans that summer, and a good crop of 

 wheat afterwards. From that day to this the field has 

 been the best on the farm, and will pay a higher interest 

 on five hundred dollars an acre than it would have paid 

 at that time on fifty dollars. 



