December 4, 1 903
Mr. T. O. Thornton, Blairville, VA.
MY DEAR SIR:—I beg to report that I returned home a few days ago and found my mother well and busy as usual. We have definitely decided that we will not accept your kind offer to sell us a part of your farm, but we appreciate nevertheless the sacrifice, at least from the standpoint of sentiment, which Mrs. Thornton and Miss Russell were willing to make, in order to permit us to secure such a farm as we might want in a splendid situation.
As a matter of fact we are thinking very seriously of purchasing a farm in Southern Illinois. My mother much prefers to remain in Illinois, and for some reasons I have the same preference on her account.
While in Washington I was fortunate enough to find that a soil survey had been completed for your county and also that a partial ultimate analysis had been made of the common loam soil of your farm, such as we sampled. Following are the number of pounds per acre for the surface soil to a depth of six and two-thirds inches,—that is, for two million pounds of soil.
610 pounds of phosphorus
13,200 pounds of potassium
1,200 pounds of magnesium
3,430 pounds of calcium
As compared with a normal fertile soil, your land is very deficient in phosphorus and magnesium, and, as you know, the soil is acid. It is better supplied with potassium than with any other important element.
I would suggest that you make liberal use of magnesian limestone,—at least two tons per acre every four or five years,—and the initial application might better be five or even ten tons per acre if you are ready to make such an investment.
I am sorry that the nitrogen content of the soil was not determined, or at least not published in the bulletin. There can be no doubt, however, that your soil is extremely deficient in organic matter and nitrogen, and you will understand that liberal use should be made of legume crops. The known nitrogen content of legumes and other crops will be a help to you in planning your crop rotation and the disposition of the crops grown.
As to phosphorus, it is safe to say that in the long run fine-ground rock phosphate will prove the best investment; but for a few years it might be best to make some use of acid phosphate in addition to the raw rock, at least until you are ready to begin turning under more organic matter with the phosphate.
There is only one other suggestion: If you wish to make a start toward better crops as soon as possible, you may well use some kainit,—say six hundred pounds per acre every four or five years, preferably applied with the phosphate. In the absence of decaying organic matter, the potassium of the soil becomes available very slowly. The kainit furnishes both potassium and magnesium in soluble form and it also contains sulfur and chlorin. As soon as you can provide plenty of decaying organic matter you will probably discontinue the use of both kainit and acid phosphate. If you sell only grains and animal products, the amount of potassium sold from the farm is very small compared with your supply of that element, which would be sufficient for one hundred bushels of corn per acre for seven hundred years.
I have some doubt if it will be worth the expense involved to have the samples of subsurface and subsoil analyzed at this time; but you might save them for future use if desired.
I shall always appreciate the kindness shown me by being permitted to enjoy your hospitality and to profit from the information you were so able to give me concerning the history and general character of your lands.
My mother asks to have her kind regards extended to you and yours.
Very sincerely yours,
WESTOVER, January 2, 1904. Percy Johnston, Esq., Winterbine, Ill.
MY DEAR FRIEND:—We were all pleased to receive your letter informing us of your safe journey back to Illinois. I had hoped that you might find a piece of land here in the East which would suit you; but I am not surprised that you and your mother should prefer to remain in Illinois, because of your former associations and your better knowledge of the Western conditions. Northern men who come South often have serious difficulty to manage our negro labor.
I am surprised, however, that you were able to purchase, even in Southern Illinois, such prairie land as you describe for the price of $18 per acre. I supposed $190 an acre for your corn belt farm was a good price, although it is commonly reported to us that Illinois land is selling for $150 to $200 an acre.
Now, in regard to correspondence with Adelaide, let me say that we could have no objection whatever, except that it might be misunderstood, more especially, of course, by Professor Barstow. I do not think I mentioned it to you, but the fact is that the Professor and Adelaide are essentially betrothed. I do not know that the final details are perfected, but doubtless they are, for they have been much together during the Christmas weeks. The Barstows, as you probably know, are still among the most prominent people of North Carolina. Adelaide is young yet and we respect her reticence, but her mother and I have both given our consent and Professor Barstow has every reason to be satisfied with the reception he invariably receives from Adelaide.
I only mention this matter to you that you may understand why misunderstanding might arise in case of such correspondence as you suggest, even though, as Adelaide has explained, she has very naturally become interested temporarily in some of the economic and social questions relating to agriculture, and would unquestionably read your letters concerning these state and national problems with continued interest. I shall hope, however, that she may still have that satisfaction, for I am very deeply interested in all such questions, and I am particularly interested to know more of the details of your southern Illinois farm, including the invoice of the soil, which you say has been taken by your Experiment Station, and especially your definite plans for the improvement of the land. I hope the name you have chosen for your farm is not so appropriate as it would be for some of our old Virginia farms.
I shall also be under renewed obligation to you if I may occasionally submit questions concerning the best plans for the restoration of Westover to its former productiveness. I have decided at least to make another trial with alfalfa next summer, following the valuable suggestions you gave me.
In closing let me renew my assurance of our deep gratitude for the special service you so nobly rendered when fiendish danger threatened my daughter. We shall always regard you as a gentleman of the highest type. Very respectfully yours,
Percy read this letter hurriedly to the end, and then slowly reread it. His mother noticed that he absent-mindedly replaced the letter in the envelope instead of reading it to her as was his custom. However, he laid the letter by her plate and talked with her about the corn-shelling which was to begin as soon as the corn sheller could be brought from the neighbor's where Percy had been helping to haul the corn from the sheller to elevator at Winterbine. Dinner finished, he hurried out to complete the preparations for the afternoon's work. We have no right to follow him. His mother only saw that he went to the little granary where a few loads of corn were to be stored for future use. Yes, she saw that he closed the door as he entered. Not even his mother could see her son again a child. Women and children weep, not men. The heart strings draw tight and tighter until they tear or snap. The body is racked with the anguish of the mind. The form reels and sinks to the floor. The head bows low. Pent up tears fall like rain.—No, that cannot be. Men do not shed tears. If they are mental cowards and physical brutes they pass from hence by a short and easy route and leave the burdens of life to their wives and mothers and disgraced families. If they are Christian men they seek the only source of help.
Mrs. Johnston watched and waited—it seemed an hour, but was only a quarter of that time till the granary door opened and she saw Percy pass to the barn with a step which satisfied her mother's eye.
She drew out the letter, and from a life habit of making sure, pressed the envelope to see that it contained nothing more. She noted a slip of crumpled paper and drew it out. Upon it was written in a penciled scrawl:
"Her grandma has not consented."
She read the letter, stood for a moment as in meditation, then replaced the slip and letter in the envelope, and laid it on Percy's desk. The letter was plainly a man's handwriting. The envelope was addressed in a bold hand that was clearly not Mr. West's writing.
HEART-OF-EGYPT, ILLINOIS, June 16, 1904.
Mr. Charles West,
Blue Mound, Va.
MY DEAR SIR:—I have delayed writing to you in regard to the plans for Poorland Farm, until I could feel that we are able at least to make an outline of tentative nature. The labor problem of a farm of three hundred and twenty acres is of course very different from that on forty acres, and we are not yet fully decided regarding our crop rotation and the disposition of the crops produced (or hoped for). I realize that to rebuild in my life what another has torn down during his life is a task the end of which can hardly be even dimly foreshadowed. Some friends are already beginning to ask me what results I am getting, and they apparently feel that we must succeed or fail with a trial of a full season. I have said to them that I have no objection whatever to discussing our plans at any time, so far as we are yet able to make plans, but that I shall not be ready to discuss results with anyone until we begin to secure crop yields in the third rotation. This means that I am not expecting the benefits of a six-year rotation of crops before the rotation has been actually practiced. You will understand of course that, if all your land had been cropped with little or no change, for all its history, you would require six or eight years' time before you would be able to grow a crop of corn on land that had been pastured for six or eight years; but some people seem to take it for granted that one can adopt a six-year rotation and enjoy the full benefits of it the first season.
I remember that you were surprised that I could buy a level upland farm even in this part of Illinois for $18 an acre; but you will probably be more surprised to learn that this farm had not paid the previous owners two per cent. interest on $18 an acre as an average of the last five years. In fact, sixty acres of it had grown no crops for the last five years. It was largely managed by tenants on the basis of share rent, and because of this I have been able to secure the records of several years.
I at least had some satisfaction in purchasing this farm, for the real estate men were left without a single "talking point." I insisted that I wanted the poorest prairie farm in "Egypt," and whenever they began to tell me that the soil on a certain farm was really above the average, or that the land had been well cared for until recently, or that it had been fertilized a good deal, etc., I at once informed them that any advantage of that sort completely disqualified any farm for me; and that they need not talk to me about any farms except those that represented the poorest and most abused in Southern Illinois.
I may say, however, that $20 an acre is about the average price of the average land. I had an option on a three hundred and sixty acre farm cornering the corporation limits of the County Seat for $30 an acre, and all agreed that the farm was above the average in quality.
Heart-of-Egypt is a small station on the double track of the Chicago-New Orleans line of the Illinois Central, and there are three other railroads passing through our County Seat. Poorland Farm is less than two miles from Heart-of-Egypt and only five miles from the County Seat, with level roads to both.
As to the soil, I may say that in some respects it is poorer than yours, but in others not so poor. The amount of plant food contained in six and two-thirds inches of the surface soil of an acre, representing two million pounds of soil, are as follows:
2,880 pounds of nitrogen
840 pounds of phosphorus
24,940 pounds of potassium
6,740 pounds of magnesium
14,660 pounds of calcium
By referring to the invoice of your most common land, you will see that Westover is richer in phosphorus, in magnesium, and in calcium, than Poorland Farm. But, while your soil contains a half more of that rare element phosphorus, ours contains a half more of the abundant element potassium. In the supply of nitrogen we have a distinct advantage, because our soil contains nearly three times as much as your most common cultivated land, and even twice as much as your level upland soil, which you consider too poor for farming, but in which phosphorus and not nitrogen must be the first limiting element, the same as with ours.
The fact is that the nitrogen problem in the East was one of the reasons why we have chosen to locate in Southern Illinois. I am confident that the level lands I saw about Blairville and over in Maryland are more deficient in organic matter and nitrogen than your uncultivated level upland, and probably even more deficient than your common gently sloping cultivated lands, because of your long rotation with much opportunity for nitrogen fixation by such legumes will grow in your meadows and pastures, including the red clover which you regularly sow, the white clover, which is very persistent, and the Japan clover, which it seems to me has really benefited you more than the others.
To me a difference in nitrogen content of two thousand pounds per acre signifies a good deal. It plainly signifies a hundred years' of "working the soil for all that's in it," beyond what has yet been done to our "Egypt." The cost of two thousand pounds of nitrogen in sodium nitrate would be at least $300 and even that would not include the organic matter, which has value for its own sake because of the power of its decomposition products to liberate the mineral elements from the soil, as witness the most common upland soils of St. Mary county, Maryland, with a phosphorus content reduced to one hundred and sixty pounds per acre in two million pounds of the ignited soil. The ten-inch plows of Maryland, the twelve-inch of Southern Illinois, the fourteen-inch of the corn belt, and the sixteen-inch of the newer regions of the Northwest, signify something as to the influence of organic matter upon the horsepower required in tillage; and the organic matter also has a value because it increases the power of the soil to absorb and retain moisture and to resist surface washing and "running together" to form the hard surface crust.
To think of applying two thousand pounds of nitrogen by plowing under two hundred tons of manure or forty tons of clover per acre at least requires a "big think," as my Swede man would say.
Of course, with our western life and cosmopolitan population, where "a man's a man for a' that," mother feels that it would not be easy for us to fit into your somewhat distinctly stratified society. We would not be "colored" if we could, and perhaps we could not be aristocratic if we would; and the opportunity to become, or, perhaps I should say, to remain, "poor white trash," though wide open, is not very alluring. I realize, of course, that there are some whole-souled people like the West's and Thornton's, but I also found some of the tribe of Jones, and I have much doubt as to the social standing of one who would feel obliged to demonstrate that he could spread more manure in a day than his hired nigger.
My Swede and I are like brothers; we clean stables together and talk politics, science, and agriculture. In fact he is as much interested as I am in the building up of Poorland Farm, and has already contributed some very practical suggestions. I pay him moderate wages and a small percentage of the farm receipts after deducting certain expenses which he can help to keep as low as possible, such as for labor, repairs, and purchase of feed and new tools, but without deducting the taxes or interest on investment or the cost of any permanent improvements, such as the expense for limestone, phosphate, new fences and buildings, and breeding stock.
Referring again to the invoice of the soil, I may say that the percentage of the mineral plant foods increases with depth, the same as in your soil, but not to such an extent, and with one exception. The phosphorus content of our surface soil is greater than that of the subsurface, but below the subsurface the phosphorus again increases. This is probably due to the fact that the prairie grasses that grew here for centuries extracted some phosphorus from the subsurface in which their roots fed to some extent, and left it in the organic residues which accumulated in the surface soil.
Aside from the difference in organic matter, the physical character of our soil is distinctly inferior to the loam soils about Blairville and Leonardtown. We have a very satisfactory silt loam surface, but the structure of our subsoil is quite objectionable. It is a tight clay through which water passes very slowly, so slowly that the practicability of using tile-drainage is still questioned by the State University, although the experiments which the University soil investigators have already started in several counties here in "Egypt" will ultimately furnish us positive knowledge along this line.
As for me, I purpose making no experiments, whatever. I do not see how I or any other farmer can afford to put our limited funds into experiments, especially when we often lack the facilities for taking the exact and complete data that are needed. It takes time and labor and some equipment to make accurate measurements, to weigh every pound of fertilizer applied and every crop carefully harvested from measured and carefully seeded areas, especially selected because of their uniform and representative character. I think this is public business and it is best done by the State for the benefit of all.
I have heard narrow politicians call it class legislation to appropriate funds for such agricultural investigations, but the fact is that to investigate the soil and to insure an abundant use of limestone, phosphate, or other necessary materials required for the improvement and permanent maintenance of the fertility of the soil is legislation for all the people, both now and hereafter. Would that our Statesmen would think as much of maintaining this most important national resource, as they do of maintaining our national honor by means of battleships and an army and navy supported at an expense of three hundred million dollars a year, sufficient to furnish ten tons of limestone to every acre of Virginia land, an amount twenty times the Nation's appropriation for agriculture; and even this is largely used in getting new lands ready for the bleeding process, instead of reviving those that have been practically bled to death.
As for me, I shall simply take the results which prove profitable on the accurately conducted experiment fields of the University of Illinois, one of which is located only seven miles from Poorland Farm, and on the same type of soil, I shall try to profit by that positive information, and await the accumulation of conclusive data relating to tile-drainage and other possible improvements of uncertain practicability for "Egypt."
Say, but our soil is acid! The University soil survey men say that the acidity is positive in the surface, comparative in the subsurface, and superlative in the subsoil. Two of them insisted that the subsoil has an acid taste. The analysis of a set of soil samples collected near Heart-of-Egypt shows that to neutralize the acidity of the surface soil will require seven hundred and eighty pounds of limestone per acre, while three tons are required for the first twenty inches, and sixteen tons for the next twenty inches. The tight clay stratum reaches from about twenty to thirty-six inches. Above this is a flour-like gray layer varying in thickness from an inch to ten inches, but below the tight clay the subsoil seems to be more porous, and I am hoping that we may lay tile just below the tight clay and then puncture that clay stratum with red clover roots and thus improve the physical condition of the soil. I asked Mr. Secor, a friend who operates a coal mine,—and farms for recreation,—if he thought alfalfa could be raised on this type of soil. He replied: "That depends on what kind of a gimlet it has on its tap root."
Some of the farmers down here tell me confidentially that "hardpan" has been found on their neighbors' farms, but I have not talked with any one who has any on his own farm. I am very glad the University has settled the matter very much to the comfort of us "Egyptians," by reporting that no true "hardpan" exists in Illinois, although there are extensive areas underlain with tight clay, "of whom, as it were, we are which."
I am glad that the nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying bacteria do business chicfly in the surface soil, because we are not prepared to correct the acidity to any very great depth.
The present plan is to practice a six-year rotation on six forty-acre fields, as follows:
First year—Corn (and legume catch crop).
Second year—Part oats or barley, part cowpeas or soy beans.
Third year—Wheat.
Fourth year—Clover, or clover and timothy.
Fifth year—Wheat, or clover and timothy.
Sixth year—Clover, or clover and timothy.
This plan may be a grain system where wheat is grown the fifth year, only clover seed being harvested the fourth and sixth years, or it may be changed to a live-stock system by having clover and timothy for pasture and meadow the last three years, which may be best for a time, perhaps, if we find it too hard to care for eighty acres of wheat on poorly drained land.
In somewhat greater detail the system may be developed we hope about as follows:
First year: Corn, with mixed legumes, seeded at the time of the last cultivation, on perhaps one-half of the field. These legumes may include some cowpeas and soy beans and some sweet clover, but that is not yet fully decided upon.
Second year: Oats (part barley, perhaps) on twenty acres, cowpeas on ten acres, and soy beans on ten acres. The peas and beans are to be seeded on the twenty acres where the catch crop of legumes is to be plowed under as late in the spring as practicable.
Third year: Wheat with alsike on twenty acres and red clover on the other twenty, seeded in the early spring. If necessary to prevent the clover or weeds from seeding, the field will be clipped about the last of August.
Fourth year: Harvest the red clover for hay and the alsike for seed, and apply limestone after plowing early for wheat.
Fifth year: Wheat, with alsike and red clover seeded and clipped as before.
Sixth year: Pasture in early summer, then clip if necessary to secure uniformity, and later harvest the red clover for seed. Manure may be applied to any part of this field from the time of wheat harvest the previous year until the close of the pasture period. Then it may be applied to the alsike only until the red clover seed crop is removed, and then again to any part of the field, which may also be used for fall pasture. To this field the threshed clover straw and all other straw not needed for feed and bedding will be applied. The application of raw phosphate will be made to this field, and all of this material plowed under for corn.
The second six years is to be a repetition of the first, except that the alsike and red clover will be interchanged, so as to avoid the development of clover sickness if possible; and to keep the soil uniform we may interchange the oats with the peas and beans.
This system provides for the following crops each year:
40 acres of corn;
20 acres of oats;
10 acres of cowpeas for hay
10 acres of soy beans for seed
80 acres of wheat
20 acres of red clover for hay
20 acres of alsike for seed
20 acres of red clover for seed
20 acres of alsike for pasture, except from June to August.
We also have some permanent pasture which we may use at any time that may seem best. If necessary we may cut all the clover for hay the fourth year, and we may pasture all summer the sixth year. We can pasture the corn stalks during the fall and winter when the ground is in suitable condition.
We plan to raise our own horses and perhaps some to sell. In addition we may raise a few dairy cows for market, but will do little dairying ourselves.
We expect to sell wheat and some corn, and if successful we shall sell some soy beans, alsike seed, and red clover seed.
How soon we shall be able to get this system fully under way I shall not try to predict; but we shall work toward this end unless we think we have good reason to modify the plan.
I hope to make the initial application of limestone five tons per acre, but after the first six years this will be reduced to two or three tons. I also plan to apply at least one ton per acre of fine-ground raw phosphate every six years until the phosphorus content of the plowed soil approaches two thousand pounds per acre, after which the applications will probably be reduced to about one-half ton per acre each rotation.
There are three things that mother and I are fully decided upon:
First, that we shall use ground limestone in sufficient amounts to make the soil a suitable home for clover.
Second, that we shall apply fine-ground rock phosphate in such amounts as to positively enrich our soil in that very deficient element.
Third, that we shall reserve a three-rod strip across every forty-acre field as an untreated check strip to which neither limestone nor phosphate shall ever be applied, and that we shall reserve another three-rod strip to which limestone is applied without phosphate, while the remaining thirty-seven acres are to receive both limestone and phosphate.
Thus we shall always have the satisfaction of seeing whatever clearly apparent effects are produced by this fundamental treatment, even though we may not be able to bother with harvesting these check strips separate from the rest of the field.
We have based our decision regarding the use of ground limestone very largely upon the long-continued work of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station as to the comparative effects of ground limestone and burned lime, which is supported, to be sure, by all comparative tests so far as our Illinois soil investigators have been able to learn.
The practicability and economy of using the fineground natural phosphate has been even more conclusively established, as you already know, by the concordant results of half a dozen state experiment stations. There are only two objections to the use of the raw phosphate. One of these is the short-sighted plan or policy of the average farmer, and the other is the combined influence of about four-hundred fertilizer manufacturers who prefer to sell, quite naturally, perhaps, two tons of acid phosphate for $30, or four tons of so-called "complete" fertilizer for $70 to $90, rather than to see the farmer buy direct from the phosphate mine one ton of fine-ground raw rock phosphate in which he receives the same amount of phosphorus, at a cost of $7 to $9.
Until we can provide a greater abundance of decaying organic matter we may make some temporary use of kainit, in case the experiments conducted by the state show that it is profitable to do so.
In a laboratory experiment, made at college it was shown that when raw phosphate was shaken with water and then filtered, the filtrate contained practically no dissolved phosphorus; but, if a dilute solution of such salts as exist in kainit was used in place of pure water, then the filtrate would contain very appreciable amounts of phosphorus.
In addition to this benefit, the kainit will furnish some readily available potassium, magnesium, and sulfur; and, by purchasing kainit in carload lots, the potassium will cost us less than it would in the form of the more expensive potassium chlorid or potassium sulfate purchased in ton lots. Of course we do not need this in order to add to our total stock of potassium, but more especially I think to assist in liberating phosphorus from the raw phosphate which is naturally contained in the soil and which we shall also apply to the soil, unless the Government permits the fertilizer trusts to get such complete control of our great natural phosphate deposits that they make it impossible for farmers to secure the fine-ground rock at a reasonable cost, which ought not, I would say, to be more than one hundred per cent. net profit above the expense of mining, grinding, and transportation. We may feel safe upon the matter of transportation rates, for the railroads are operated by men of large enough vision to see that the positive and permanent maintenance of the fertility of the soil is the key to their own continued prosperity, and some of them are already beginning to understand that the supply of phosphorus is the master key to the whole industrial structure of America; for, with a failing supply of phosphorus, neither agriculture nor any dependent industry can permanently prosper in this great country.
If we retain the straw on the farm and sell only the grain, the supply of potassium in the surface soil of Poorland Farm is sufficient to meet the needs of a fifty bushel crop of wheat per acre every year for nineteen hundred and twenty years, or longer than the time that has passed since the Master walked among men on the earth; whereas, the total phosphorus content of the same soil is sufficient for only seventy such crops, or for as long as the full life of one man. Keep in mind that Poorland Farm is near Heart-of-Egypt, and that this is the common soil of our "Egyptian Empire," which contains more cultivable land than all New England, has the climate of Virginia, and a network of railroads scarcely equalled in any other section of this country, and in addition it is more than half surrounded by great navigable rivers.
On Poorland Farm there are seven forty-acre fields which are at least as nearly level as they ought to be to permit good surface drainage, and there is no need that a single hill of corn should be omitted on any one of these seven fields; and I am confident that with an adequate supply of raw phosphate rock and magnesian limestone and a liberal use of legume crops this land can be made to pay interest on $300 an acre.
Why not? At Rothamsted, England, they have averaged thirty-eight and four-tenths bushels of wheat per acre during the last twenty years in an experiment extending over sixty years, and they have done this without a forkful of manure or a pound of purchased nitrogen. Why not? The wheat alone from eighty acres of land, if it yielded forty bushels per acre and sold at $1 a bushel, would pay nearly five per cent. interest on $300 an acre for the entire two hundred and forty acres used in my suggested rotation.
Aye, but there is one other very essential requirement: To wit, a world of work.
Hoping to hear from you, and especially about your alfalfa, I am,
Very sincerely yours,
No one realized more than Percy Johnston that toleration of life itself was possible to him only because of the world of work that he found always at hand in connection with his abiding faith and interest in the upbuilding of Poorland Farm. He had accepted Adelaide's sweet smile and lack of apparent disapproval with confidence that he might at least have an opportunity to try to win her love. As he was permitted at the parting to look for more than an instant into those alluring eyes, he felt so sure that they expressed something more than friendship or gratitude for him. He had felt the more confidence because he thought he knew that she would not permit him to humiliate himself by asking and failing to receive from her father permission to write to her, when she could easily in her own womanly way have discouraged such a thought at once. Had she not insisted upon driving slowly back to the turn in the road, and did he not feel the absence of a previous reserve?
Oh, misleading imagination. The will is truly the father of thought and faith. Percy knew as he parted from Adelaide that he had left with her the love of heart and mind of one whose life had developed in him the character which does nothing by halves. His love had multiplied with the distance as he journeyed westward, with a great new pleasure which life seemed to hold before him and with a pardonable confidence in its achievement.
He had written Mr. West a week after his return in a way which would not fail of understanding if his hopes were justified. The belated reply which reached him after holidays was accepted as final. His pride was humiliated and the sweetest dream of his life abruptly ended. He felt the more helpless and the more deeply wounded because of Mr. West's reference to his special service in the protection he had once rendered to Adelaide. It continually reminded him that, as the highest type of gentleman, he should do nothing that could be construed as an endeavor to take advantage of the consideration to which that act might seem to entitle him. Bound and buried in the deepest dungeon, waiting only for the announcement from his of the day of his execution. This was his mental attitude as the months passed and he began to receive an occasional letter from Mr. West, in each of which he looked for the news of Adelaide's marriage.
In Mrs. Johnston a feeling of hatred had developed for Adelaide. She was certain that she had marred the happiness of her son. The heartlessness of a flirt who could trifle with the affection of one who had a right to assume in her an honor equal to his own deserved only to be hated with even righteous hatred. She saw the scrawled note which she knew Percy had not seen, but what did it signify? An eccentric old lady's penchant for match making? Perhaps she was even more guilty than the girl in attempting to lead Percy to see in Adelaide more than he ought. She might even take an old flirt's delight in the mere number of conquests made by her granddaughter. Or was the scrawled note slipped into the envelope by a prank- playing fourteen-year-old brother? In any case was it wise that Percy should see the note? She could probably do nothing better than to leave it with the letter. Even if the girl were worthy, Percy could never hope to win one of her class, whose pride of ancestry is their bread of life. It might not have been quite so, perhaps, if Percy had only selected some more respected profession. Why should not he have become a college professor?
WHEN Percy and his mother reached Poorland Farm in March they found a small frame house needing only shingles, paint, and paper to make it a fairly comfortable home, until they should be able to add such conveniences as Percy knew could be installed in the country as well as in the city. From the sale of corn and some other produce they were able to add to the residue of $1,840, which represented the difference between the cost of three hundred and twenty acres in Egypt and the selling price of forty acres in the corn belt. An even $3,000 was left in the savings bank at Winterbine.
"If we can live," said Percy, "just as the other 'Egyptians' must live, and save our $3,000 for limestone and phosphate, I believe we shall win out. Through the efforts of the Agricultural College and the Governor of the State the convicts in the Southern Illinois Penitentiary have been put to quarrying stone, and large crushers and grinders have been installed, and the State Board of Prison Industries is already beginning to ship ground limestone direct to farmers at sixty cents a ton in bulk in box cars. The entire Illinois Freight Association gave an audience to the Warden of the Penitentiary and representatives from the Agricultural College and a uniform freight rate has been granted of one-half cent per ton per mile. This will enable us to secure ground limestone delivered at Heart-of-Egypt for $1.22-1/2 per ton.
"Now, to apply five tons per acre on two hundred and forty acres will require one thousand two hundred tons and that will cost us $1,570 in cash, less perhaps the $70, which we save on roads and the untreated check strips which I want to leave. To apply one ton of phosphate per acre to the same six fields will cost about $1,600. Of course, I shall not begin to apply phosphate until after I have applied the limestone and get some clover or manure to mix with the phosphate when I plow it under; and I hope with the help of the limestone we shall get some clover and some increase in the other crops. In any case the $3,000 and interest we will get for what we can leave in the bank during the six or eight years it will take to get the rotation and treatment under way will pay for the initial cost of the first applications of both limestone and phosphate; and we shall hope that by that time the farm will bring us something more than a living."
The carload of effects shipped from Winterbine to Heart-of-Egypt included two horses, a cow, a few breeding hogs, and some chickens; also a supply of corn and oats sufficient for the summer's feed grain.
After the expenses of shipping were paid, less than $350 were deposited in the bank at the County Seat. Of this $250 were used for the purchase of another team. Hay was bought from a neighbor and some old hay that had been discarded by the balers, who had purchased, baled, and sold the previous hay crop from Poorland Farm, Percy gathered up and saved for bedding.
He plowed forty acres of the land that had not been cropped for five years, and, after some serious delays on account of wet weather, planted the field in corn, using the Champion White Pearl variety, be cause the Experiment Station had found it to be one of the best varieties for poor land.
"I wouldn't plant that corn if you would give me the seed," a neighbor had said to him. "See how big the cob is; and the tip is not well filled out, and there is too much space between the rows. I tell you there's too much cob in it for me. I want to raise corn and not corn cob."
"It certainly is not a good show ear," said Percy, "but what I want most is bushels of shelled corn per acre. Perhaps these big kernels will help to give the young plant a good start, and perhaps the piece of cob extending from the tip will make room for more kernels if the soil can be built up so as to furnish the plant food to make them. The cob is large but it is covered with grains all the way around; and, if those kernels of corn were putty, we could mash them down a little and have less space between the rows, but it would make no more corn on the ear. However, my chief reason for planting the Champion White Pearl is that this variety has produced more shelled corn per acre than any other in the University experiments on the gray prairie soil of 'Egypt.'"
There were only sixteen acres of corn grown on the entire farm in 1903 and this yielded thirteen bushels per acre, as Percy learned from the share of the crop received by the previous landowner.
In 1904 the Champion White Pearl yielded twenty bushels per acre, as nearly as could be determined by weighing the corn from a few shocks on a small truck scale Percy had brought from the north. He numbered his six forty-acre fields from one to six. Forty No. 7 was occupied by twelve acres of apple orchard, eight acres of pasture, and twenty acres of old meadow. By getting eighty rods of fencing it was possible to include twenty-eight acres in the pasture, although one hundred and ninety-two rods of fencing had been required to surround the eight-acre pasture. The remainder of the farm was in patches, including about fifteen acres on one corner crossed by a little valley and covered with trees, a tract which Percy and his mother treasured above any of the forty-acre fields. While the week was always filled with work, there were many hours of real pleasure found in the wood's pasture on the Sunday afternoons.
Forty No. I was left to "lie out," and No. 2 raised only twelve acres of cowpeas. No. 3 was plowed during the summer and seeded to timothy in the early fall. No. 4 was in corn and Nos. 5 and 6 were left in meadow, two patches of nine and sixteen acres previously in cowpeas and corn having been seeded to timothy in order, as Percy said, to "square out" the forty-acre fields. About fifty acres of land were cut over for about sixteen tons of hay. The corn was all put in shock, and the fodder as well as the grain used for feed, the refuse from the fodder and poor hay serving as bedding. About three tons of cowpea hay of excellent quality were secured from the twelve acres, and fifty barrels of apples were put in storage.
Another cow and eight calves were bought, and during the winter, some butter, two small bunches of the last spring's pigs, and the apple crop were sold. A few eggs had been sold almost every week since the previous March.
In 1905 No. 1 was rented for corn on shares and produced about six hundred bushels of which Percy received one-third. No. 2 yielded four hundred and eighty-four bushels of oats. No. 3 produced fourteen tons of poor hay. No. 4 was "rested" and prepared for wheat, ground limestone having been applied. No. 5 was fall-plowed from old meadow and well prepared and planted to corn in good time; but, after the second cultivation, heavy rains set in and continued until the corn was seriously damaged on the flat areas of the field, the more so as he had not fully understood the importance of keeping furrows open with outlets at the head-lands through which the excess surface water could pass off quickly under such weather conditions. Patches of the field aggregating at least five acres were so poorly surface drained that the corn was "drowned out," and fifteen acres more were so wet as to greatly injure the crop. However, on the better drained parts of the field where the corn was given further cultivation the yield was good and about 1,000 bushels of sound corn were gathered from the forty acres.
A mixture of timothy, redtop and weeds was cut for hay on No. 6, the yield being better than half a ton per acre.
The apples were a fair crop, and the total sales from that crop amounted to $750, but about half of this had been expended for trimming and spraying the trees, a spraying outfit, barrels, picking, packing, freight and cold storage. A good bunch of hogs were sold.
Another year passed. Oats were grown on No. 1 and on part of No. 2, yielding eleven bushels per acre.
No. 3 yielded one-third of a ton of hay per acre.
Wheat was grown on No. 4, and clover, the first the land had known in many years, if ever, was seeded in the spring,—twenty acres of red clover and twenty of alsike.
The fifty-four acres of wheat, including fourteen acres on No. 2, yielded seven and one-half bushels per acre. Soy beans were planted on No. 5, but wet weather seriously interferred and only part of the field was cut for hay. Limestone was applied, but heavy continued rains prevented the seeding of wheat.
No. 6 produced about twenty-seven bushels per acre of corn.
Two lots of hogs were sold for about $800, and some young steers increased the receipts by nearly $100.
Mrs. Johnston continued to buy the groceries with eggs and butter; but it was necessary to buy some hay, and the labor bill was heavy.
No. 5 joined the twenty-eight acre pasture and on two other sides it joined neighbors' farms where line fences were up, and on the other side lay No. 4.
Percy was trying to get ready to pasture the clover on No. 4, and a mile of new fencing was required. The materials were bought and the fence built, and when finished it also completed the fencing required to enclose No. 5. The twenty-eight acre pasture was inadequate for sixteen head of cattle and the young stock was kept in a hired pasture. Unless he could produce more feed, Percy saw that the farm would soon be overstocked, for some colts were growing and eight cows were now giving milk.
His hope was in the clover, but as the fall came on the red clover was found to have failed almost completely, and the alsike was one-half a stand. As the red clover had been seeded on the unlimed strip there was no way of knowing whether the limestone had even benefited the alsike. The neighbors had "seen just as good clover without putting on any of that stuff."
There were no apples, but the spraying had cost as much as ever, and some team work had been hired.
Three years of the hardest work; limestone on two forties, but only twenty acres of poor clover on one and no wheat seeded on the other. The neighbors "knew the clover would winter kill." The bills for pasturing amounted to as much as the butter had brought; for the twenty-eight-acre pasture had been very poor. The feed for the cows for winter consisted of corn fodder, straw and poor hay, and not enough of that.
They had to do it—draw $150 from the Winterbine reserve, besides what had been used for limestone. Part of it must go for clover seed, for clover must be seeded before it could be grown. The small barn must also be enlarged, but with the least possible expense.
It was February. Wet snow, water, and almost bottomless mud covered the earth. With four horses on the wagon, Percy had worked nearly all day bringing in two "jags" of poor hay from the stack in the field. It was all the little mow would hold.
He had finished the chores late and came in with the milk.
"Put on some dry clothes and your new shoes," said his mother, "while I strain the milk and take up the supper. There is a letter on the table. I hardly see how the mail man gets along through these roads. They must be worse than George Rogers Clark found on his trip from Kaskaskia to Vincennes. They say his route passed across only a few miles from the present site of Heart-of-Egypt. I suppose the letter is from Mr. West."
Percy finished washing his hands, and opened the letter. Two cards fell to the table as he drew the letter from the envelope.
He picked up one of the cards, and read it aloud to his mother:
_Mr. and Mrs. Strongworth Barstow
__At home after March I, 1907
1422 College Avenue
Raleigh, N. C._
"With Grandma's Compliments,"was penciled across the top of the card. Percy glanced at the other card and read the plain lines:
Announce the marriage of their daughter
Did his eyes blurr? He laid the one card over the other, scanned Mr. West's letter hurriedly, replaced it with the cards in the envelope, and laid the letter at his mother's plate.
Percy replaced his rubber boots with shoes, and his wet, heavy coat with a dry one.
"You remember the letter I had from the College?" he asked, as he took his seat at the table.
"Yes, I remember," she replied, "but the Institute was to begin to-day."
"I know," said Percy, "but Hoard and Terry both speak to-morrow,—Terry in the morning and the Governor in the afternoon, and they are the men the Professor especially wanted me to hear, if I could. I think I'll 'phone to Bronson's and ask Roscoe to come over and do the chores to-morrow noon. I can get back by nine to-morrow night."
"But, Dear, how in the world can you get to Olney to hear Mr. Terry speak to-morrow morning?"
"There is a train east about eight o'clock," he replied. "Of course the roads are too awful to think of driving to the station, especially since the mares ought not to be used much. I put four on the wagon to-day and tried to be as careful as possible but it does not seem right to use them. I can manage all right. I will get up a little early in the morning and get things in shape so I can leave here by daylight and I am sure I can make the B. & O. station by eight o'clock easily. I will wear my rubber boots and carry my shoes in a bundle. I can change at the depot and put my boots on again when I get back there at seven at night. If it clears up, I will have the moon to help coming home."
But, Percy, you do not mean to walk five miles and back through all this mud and water?"
"I wish you would not worry, Mother. There is grass along the sides most of the way, and I am used to the mud and water. I will spy out the best track as I go in the morning and just follow my own trail coming back."
"Then it is time we were asleep," replied the mother.