VI 



THE PLOUGHBOY 



The Crops — Doing Chores — The Sights and Sounds of 

 Winter — Road-making — The Spirit-rapping Craze — 

 Tuberculosis among the Settlers — A Cruel Brother — The 

 Rights of the Indians — Put to the Plough at the Age of 

 Twelve — In the Harvest-Field — Over-Industry among 

 the Settlers — Running the Breaking-Plough — Digging a 

 Well — Choke-Damp — Lining Bees. 



AT first, wheat, corn, and potatoes were 

 the principal crops we raised; wheat 

 especially. But in four or five years 

 the soil was so exhausted that only five or six 

 bushels an acre, even in the better fields, was 

 obtained, although when first ploughed twenty 

 and twenty-five bushels was about the ordin- 

 ary yield. More attention was then paid to 

 com, but without fertilizers the corn-crop also 

 became very meagre. At last it was discovered 

 that English clover would grow on even the 

 exhausted fields, and that when ploughed under 

 and planted with com, or even wheat, wonder- 

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