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.