HOW JOHN JOHXSTON MAXAGES HIS MANLllE. 81 



spreads it on the sod in September, or the first week in October. 

 Here it lies until next spring. The grass and clover grow up 

 through manure, and the grass and manure are turned under next 

 spring, and the land planted to corn. 



Mr. Johnston is thorough!}- convinced that he gets far more 

 benefit from the manure when applied on the surface, and left ex- 

 posed lor several months, than if he plowed it under at once. 



I like to write and talk about John Johnston. I lilie to visit 

 him. He is so delightfully enthusiastic, believes so thoroughly in 

 good farming, and has been so eminently successful, that a day 

 spent in his company can not fail to encourage any farmer to re- 

 newed efforts in improving his soil. " You must drain," he wrote 

 to me; "when I first commenced farming, I never made any 

 money until I began to underdrain." But it is not underdraining 

 alone that is the cause of his eminent success. When he bought 

 his farm, " near Geneva," over fifty years ago, there was a pile of 

 manure in the yard that had lain there year after j'ear, until it was, 

 as he said, " as black as \\\y hat." The former owner regarded it 

 as a nuisance, and a few months before young Johnston bought 

 the farm, had given some darkies a cow on condition that they 

 would draw out this manure. They drew out six loads, took the 

 cow — and that was the last seen of them. Johnston drew out this 

 manure, raised a good crop of wheat, and that gave him a start. 

 He says he has been asked a great man}- times to what he owes his 

 success as a farmer, and he has replied that he could not tell 

 whether it was "dung or credit." It was probably neither. It 

 was the man — his intelligence, industry', and good common sense. 

 That heap of black mould was merely an instrument in his hands 

 that he could turn to good account. 



His first crop of wheat gave him " credit'' and this also he used 

 to advantage. He believed that good farming would pay, and it 

 was this faith in a generous soil that made him willing to spend 

 the money obtained from the first crop of wheat in enriching the 

 land, and to avail himself of his credit. Had he lacked this faith — 

 had he hoarded every sixpence he could have ground out of the 

 soil, who would have ever heard of John Johnston ? He has 

 been liberal with his crops and his animals, and has ever found 

 them grateful. This is the real lesson which his life teaches. 



He once wrote me he had something to show me. He did not 

 tell me w]iat it was, and when I got there, he took me to a field of 

 grass that was to be mown for hay. The field had been in winter 

 wheat the year before. At the time of sowing the wheat, the 



