Hiram in the Middle West

by Burbank L. Todd

The twenty acres of the Sunnyside farm along the county road, and on which Hiram had made his experiment in underdraining, was now in shape for replanting. There had been no rain, but if a farmer did not have hope—and especially hope in helpful weather conditions—there would be few crops planted. The twenty acres were made into a smooth and good seed bed; but when he went upon it with the Percherons and the grain-drill the dust rose and floated in a stifling cloud across the field.

"I am afraid that a part of my bone meal is drifting off this field with the dust," he told Orrin. "Loose as ashes, by jinks! But if I can get the seed in and covered deep, and if a rain comes—"

He had stopped every other spout of the drill and filled the boxes alternately with silage corn and cowpeas. The drill had to be arranged in a particular way to sow these large grains properly.

The corn was of a low-growing variety and the ears would be pretty sure to glaze in seventy-five days. The cowpeas, rich in nitrogen and a soil improver almost unsurpassed, would be at their best condition—green-podded and with the leaves still clinging to the vines—when the corn was ready to cut. Harvested together, shredded and blown into the silo, this crop should pretty well fill that huge tank.

There were now on Sunnyside nearly forty head of yearlings and two-year-olds. Mr. Bronson picked up all the strays about his other farms and brought them to Hiram. The Sunnyside pastures were in good condition, and now all the young cattle were far down in the river-lots getting sleek and fat at practically no expense to their owner.

Hiram desired to have plenty of the right kind of feed for them the coming winter. And the next year he hoped to feed the herd almost altogether at the barns so as to conserve a greater proportion of the fertilizer which the cattle made.

Yes, Hiram desired to see that silo filled, and with just such succulent silage as would make the herd of young cattle put on flesh at a cheap rate. He got the twenty acres planted, and the Saturday afternoon he finished the job, thunder heads gathered in the west and south, threatening a tempest if nothing more.

Dolan and MacComb were pretty well along with the new house now. In fact, by hastening the erection of that building the carpenters had neglected the completion of the silo, although Hiram had spoken of this neglect on several occasions.

Of course, he had no authority over the contractors or their men; but the iron hoops and cable-stays for the silo not having been at hand when the walls of the tank were completed and the roof on, the gang had been taken off the silo job and had not gone back to finish it.

When Hiram and Orrin drove the sweating team of Percherons back to the yard with the drill the carpenters had picked up their tools for the day and were getting ready to depart in a big auto-bus for Plympton. They all went home over Sunday, and besides Hiram and Orrin Post only one farm laborer and a boy remained on Sunnyside over the week-end. Even the cook went home, and the four remaining on the farm had to make out as well as they could with amateur cooking until Monday morning.