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THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



inches deeper, one that the team couldn't break. So I went to a carpenter 

 shop and told him just what I wanted and he said: 'I have just the tim- 

 ber you want, a post of tough red pine.' It was about six inches longer 

 than the beam and he said he would put it in the whole length, that it 

 would be better. I started back for the farm and the next morning T 

 started to plow, and went about forty feet, when I found he had got the 

 point of the beam a little too high and my team couldn't pull it. I was 

 in as bad a fix as I was the day before when I broke the beam. 



"I sat down and thought what to do and made up my mind I would 

 pull the point of the beam up and raise the plow out. While thinking this 

 over, a friend of mine rode up behind me and said: 'What is the matter, 

 I have seen you sitting here ever since I came over the river?' I said. 

 •Look at that plow; it is over the mold board and I have only gone forty 

 feet. If I should go a half a mile I would be clear down to China; what am 

 I going to do?' He said: 'Peterson is down here herding cattle on the 

 bottoms. He has a large team, go and hire his horses and use the four 

 of them and get it out.' I did so and found it did just as he said it 

 would, and I broke my land eight inches deep. 



Deep Plowing. 



"I continued until I broke 100 acres, eight inches deep and then I 

 pulled a roller on it and roller it down. I had a boy on the roller rolling 

 every afternoon and then I disked it good and then the ground was level. 



Soil Treatment. 



and harrowed it, and in that way I kept at it until I got it all worked 

 up fine. While I was finishing this harrowing and disking I made a 

 leveler fourteen feet long and went crossways so that it filled up and 

 levelled every dead furrow. I hired a nephew of mine to run my drill. 

 He was instructed to sow a bushel and a peck to the acre. But some 

 way he got it a little thick and when he got it all sowed but eight 

 acres and he only had four bushels of wheat left to seed, he wanted 

 to get more wheat. It would take six bushels more. I said: 'There isn't 

 another bit of the kind and I don't want to mix it. I want you to go to 

 work and spread that four bushels on the eight acres. 



Light Seeding. 



"He did so and the wheat all came up very nicely and as soon as 

 spring opened and the ground dried up, I took a harrow and tipped the 

 teeth back and harrowed it both ways, and pulverized it. It came out 

 nice and the heads on this eight acres were about one-third larger than 

 those on the other part where I sowed a bushel and a peck. The straw 

 was stronger and about a foot higher. I made up my mind I would cut 

 that eight acres by itself and weigh it and then weigh the other and see 

 what the advantage was in sowing grain thick or thin. I did so and 

 the eight acres produced seven bushels more to the acre than that 

 where I sowed a bushel and a peck. So I learned in that one season, 

 by a mistake of the carpenter how to plow, and through not having seed 



