deal less work, and I've found it better to cultivate less ground
during the forty odd years I've had to meet the bills. But I've kept
up more of my land than most of my neighbors. I reckon I've got
about eighty acres of good cleared land yet on this farm, and the
leaves and pine needles we rake up where the trees grow on the old
fields make a good fertilizer for the land we aim to cultivate, and
I get a good many loads of manure from friends who live in the
village and keep a cow or a horse.

"The last crop I raised on that east field, where you see those
scrub pines, was in 1881. I finished cultivating corn there the day
I heard about President Garfield being shot; and it was a mighty hot
July day too. My neighbor, Seth Whitmore, who died about ten years
ago, came along from the village and waited for me to come to the
end of the row down by the road and he told me that Garfield was
shot. We both allowed the corn would be a pretty fair crop and when
I gathered the fodder that fall there was a right smart of a corn
crop. Yes, Sir, it's pretty good land, but we don't need much corn,
no how, and we can make more money out of tobacco. Of course it
takes lots of manure and fertilizer to grow a good patch of tobacco,
but good tobacco always brings good money."

"About how much money do you get for an acre of tobacco?" asked
Percy.

"That varies a lot with the quality and price--sometimes
$100--sometimes $300, when the trust don't hold the price down on
us. We can raise good tobacco and good tobacco brings us good money.
We can always manure an acre or two for tobacco and get our
groceries and some clothes now and then, and that's about all