256 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
the center. This is, however, not the most 
common way of building, but it has many ad- 
vantages, viz. : nearly double the stable room 
in the same length, and a feed floor always in- 
tact, neat, and clean ; on the next loft a drive- 
way that never interferes with the feed floor, 
and may be used for storage most of the year, 
if desired; then the convenience of throwing 
the hay down on a level with the floor on either 
side, with butvery littlepitchingup ; and finally, 
a barn of 40 feet in length will stable more cat- 
tle, and store more hay, than one in the last 
case, 60 feet long — while the only items of extra 
N OF BABN. 
cost are a little 'wharfing up' at one end for 
the drive-way, or approach to the barn-floor. 
Much might be said on the general economy 
of building barns to save expense, and at the 
same time secure more convenience. Doubtless 
any one who rightly appreciates the value of a 
barn cellar can readily see the superior advan- 
tage of a cellar free from posts, over one with 
two rows of posts, as is most common, or the 
better way of only one row of posts. But with 
one row of posts there is the necessary expense 
of having large sills under the common ones, 
and also long braces, which are somewhat in the 
way ; besides, one row of posts fails to give the 
frame proper and even support, and either way 
will cost quite as much as if supported by rods, 
etc., put up with proper architectural skill. 
And yet allowing that it would cost for each 
post five to ten dollars more to support, it 
would be money well invested." 
Tim Bunker on Real Estate in the White 
Oaks and Hookertown. 
'"Taint worth so much by a hundred dollars 
as 'twas eight years ago, when you married the 
widder," said Uncle Jotham Sparrowgrass to 
Kier Frink, as he stopped his horse to blow on 
Hookertown street yesterday. 
" That's so," said Kier, sticking his old boot 
into the nigh wheel of hi3 coal cart, for a rest. 
" But what's a poor feller to du, when property 
is all the while fallin', and money 's gettin' more 
skase? Ye see, when I fust went into the White 
Oaks to live, coalin' was a good bizness, and a 
feller had a chance to make suthin' extra on 
swappin' horses and pitchin' quates. But neow 
every body is so poor they can't pay the boot 
in a trade, or the stakes, when they git beat in 
quates. Tell ye what 'tis, Uncle Jotham, there 
aint coppers enulF in the "White Oaks on ordinary 
okashuns to buy a decent glass of likker. I'm 
gwine to sell eout airly, and come onto the street 
to live, and so keep from comin' onto the town." 
"Mighty slim chance for ye here," said Seth 
Twiggs, hauling out a tinfoil package from hi3 
pocket, and thrusting in his pipe and forefinger 
at the top. " Ye seei 
the widder's eighty 
acres wouldn't buy five 
here, throwin' in the 
widder, young ones, and 
all. Property's ris here 
worse than emptins, 
the last ten years." 
" "Wal, I guess the old 
man wont hold on fur- 
ever," said Kier, look- 
ing up the hill, where 
Jake Frink still leads a 
slipshod life. 
"It's poor bizness 
waitin' for dead men's 
Bhoes," said Uncle Jo- 
tham. " Better run that 
coal cart oftener, and 
swop bosses less. Pitch- 
in' quates and takin' the 
yard stakes in likker don't 
pay in the long run. 
Land aint worth much 
in the White Oaks or 
anywhere else, unless 
2|| you work it. They 
" work the land down 
here and pretty much 
everything else. Any 
thing, or anybody, gets 
lick'd that lies idle." 
" Yes, yes," said Kier, " I remember them 
lickiu's. That's what started me off to the wid- 
der's, where things went easy." 
"And folks round here take the Agriculturist" 
chimed in Seth Twiggs, whose pipe by this time 
was in full blast. " More'n forty copies come 
to the Hookertown post-offlee, and 'taint more'n 
twelve year ago there wa'nt hut three, and I was 
the fourth man that took it, and I shouldn't 'ave 
done it if it hadn't been for the woman. Ye see, 
she offer'd to pay for it if I couldn't. She laifd 
consumedly when I set up readin' on't the 
fust night it cum till smack twelve o'clock." 
" A pretty state of things we'll have here in 
Hookertown shortly !" exclaimed George Wash- 
ington Tucker, who had now joined the party. 
" What with your Agriculturists, and old 
Bunker's experiments, and everybody aping 
him, and snappin' up every bit of land that 
comes into market, there wont ho any chance 
for a poor feller to live in town. Rents have 
more than doubled in five years." 
" Doubled I" exclaimed Benjamin Franklin 
Jones. " I've got to pay a hundred dollars for 
my place this year, and ten years ago I got it 
for twenty-five. Some say it's the war, and 
some say it's short crops. But that's all non- 
sense. Tim Bunker anil the paper is at the 
bottom of the whole of it. Ye see, when that 
salt mash was reclaimed, and the bottom knock- 
ed out of that horse-pond, at the foot of Jake 
Frink's hill, everybody took to drainin' as if 
their everlasting fortune was gwine to be made 
right off. There aint a swamp anywhere within 
five mile of Hookertown neow, but what is as 
dry as a bone, and kivered with the tallest kind 
or herd's grass or corn. Sich a hankerin' arter 
land I never expected to see. Folks aint no 
plentier than they used to be, but land is a deal 
skaser, and growin' more so. There's no kind 
of a deacent chance for poor folks to live." 
This talk of rny neighbors shows the drift of 
public opinion on the real estate question. In 
some communities farming lands have risen 
and quadrupled in value within the last twenty 
years. In others, they are worth no more than 
they were a hundred years ago, and hardly so 
much. Jones has got hold of the philosophy of 
it, though he is not much of a philosopher, 
where his own affairs are concerned. In the 
White Oaks, and places of that kind, land is 
cheap because cheap people own it, who think 
a good deal more of shooting-matches, horse- 
races, and poor whiskey, than they do of farm- 
ing. As Kier Frink says, " there aint a man of 
'em but would sell his soul for a chaw of tabak- 
er." Kier is a little disgusted just now, and 
perhaps the statement is a little harsh. But it 
stands to reason that the land isn't worth much 
unless you work it, and get something out of it. 
If it bears nothing hut wood, cut off for coal 
once in thirty years, everybody presumes that is 
all it is good for. Nobody that has capital 
wants horse jockeys, gamblers, and loafers, for 
neighbors, and so land is cheap in the White 
Oaks. Land is worth any sum you can make 
it pay the interest on, and take care of itself, and 
it isn't worth a cent more. Some is dear 
at ten dollars an acre, and other is cheap at $400 
for farming purposes. And it does not depend 
altogether on its original character. Poor 
land can be made productive by right treat- 
ment, and pay its way as well as that which 
is good. That horse-pond lot was poor property 
for Jake Frink at twenty dollars an acre. He 
did not get his interest from it at that price. It 
certainly is worth three hundred to me, aside 
from the abatement of a nuisance, which it al- 
ways was, until it was drained. A variety of 
causes have made land dearer about Hooker- 
town. There are more psople and of course 
more purchasers of homes. The place has felt 
the effect of the war, and of a depreciated cur- 
rencv, which makes almost every thing dearer. 
But this cause has affected the price of land less 
than most other property. Improved husbandry 
has more to do with it than anything else, and 
in this matter agricultural societies, papers, and 
books, have had their influence. A good farm- 
er put down in any community, raises the price 
of land all around him. If he gets eighty bush- 
els of corn to the acre, and makes it worth three 
hundred dollars, his neighbors will not long be 
content with twenty-five. Big crops raise the 
reputation of the land. They tell every year 
upon the purse of the owner, and when he 
wants to add to his acres, and comes into the 
market to buy adjoining land, he cannot buy at 
the old prices. He has been all the while work- 
ing against himself as a purchaser, and raising 
the price of his neighbors' farms. Just beyond 
Shadtown there is a big plain, where any quan- 
tity of land could have been bought twenty 
years ago, for fifteen to twenty dollars an acre. 
It was difficult for farmers to get rid of it, even 
at these prices. It is now worth an hundred 
dollars an acre.- A fish oil factory in the neigh- 
borhood made cheap manures, and started a 
better style of farming. Here in Hookertown, 
we have not only cheap fertilizers, but a con- 
stantly increasing class of reading and thinking 
