secured from the entire farm or hauled from the village, together
with what commercial fertilizer the farmer was able to buy, would
not enable him to keep more than ten acres of land in a state of
productiveness that justified its cultivation. Tobacco, corn, wheat
and cowpeas were the principal crops. Corn was the principal article
of food, with wheat bread more or less common. The cowpeas and corn
fodder usually kept one or more cows through the winter when they
could not secure a living in the brush. Tobacco, the principal "money
crop," was depended on to buy clothing, and "groceries," which
included more or less fish and pork, although some farmers "raised
their own meat," in part by fattening hogs on the acorns that fell
in the autumn from the scrub oak trees.

One farm of one hundred and ninety acres owned by an old lady, who
lived in the nearby country village was rented for $100 a year,
which amounted to about fifty-two and one-half cents an acres as the
gross income to the landowner. After the taxes were paid, about
thirty cents an acre remained for repairs on buildings and fences
and interest on the investment.

Percy spent some time on a five hundred acre farm belonging to an
old gentleman who still gave his name as F. Allerton Jones, a man
whose father had been prominent in the community. According to the
county soil map which had been presented to Percy by the Bureau of
Soils, the soil of this farm was all Leonardtown loam, except about
forty acres which occupied the sides of a narrow valley a bend of
which cut the farm on the south side.

"My father had this whole farm under cultivation," said Mr. Jones,
"except the hillsides. But what's the use? We get along with a good