I cannot tell you how I have enjoyed the summer. Sir Charles Henry is the dearest child, and his grandmother insists upon it that it is better for me to help Percy in the field with such light work as I can do, and I am out for a few hours every day when the weather is good. Percy's mother is such a dear. I am sure she could be no more sweet and loving to an own daughter. She had Percy all to herself for so long that I was really afraid she might not like to share him with me, but Percy says that it was his mother who persuaded him to make us that Easter visit. We tell her that she hasn't much use for either of us now, and that we are likely to get jealous because Charles Henry gets so much of her affection.
I forgot to tell you of Percy's four-acre patch of wheat. He said it is so long to wait till 1912 for his first wheat crop on land that had grown clover at least once during historic times that he thought he would fix up a little patch to grow a crop of wheat, just to see how real wheat would look; or, as he sometimes says, to see how wheat grows in "Egypt" when it has a ghost of a chance.
He treated a four-acre patch down by the wood's pasture with limestone, phosphorus, and farm manure, did the "Terry Act" in preparing the seed bed, and drilled in a good variety of wheat, on October 17,—a little later than he likes to finish sowing wheat. It came up with a good stand but did not make very much fall growth, partly owing to the dry weather. In the spring the man came across the patch and reported to Percy that the wheat was mighty small and he guessed it was "gone up," although it seemed to be all alive. Percy said that he would not worry about it if it were alive because the wheat would find something to please it when it really woke up in the spring. I reckon it did, for a neighbor passed on his way to town in early May and called over the fence to Percy that his patch of rye down by the woods was looking fine. Well the four acres yielded 129-1/2 bushels, or a little more than thirty-two bushels per acre. Percy said if he could have eighty acres of it and sell it for $1.18 a bushel, the same as he got for the last he sold, it would amount to twice the original cost of the land—and then some.
Mr. Barton asked him if he could not raise "just as good crops with good old farm manure," and if he could not build up his whole farm with farm manure. Percy said yes, but he would need three thousand tons for the first application. Mr. Barton then suggested that that was more than the whole township produced.
No. 5 has been in pasture for three years, clover and grass having been seeded in 1906, even though the wet weather had prevented the seeding of wheat the fall before, and the ground was left too rough for the mower. Percy hopes to have that forty completely covered with manure by the time he will be ready to apply the phosphate and plow it under for the 19 I I corn crop.
Now your "Egyptian" son has just read over this long, long letter, and he says that if I were a real wise old farmer I would not begin to talk about results before a single forty acres of grain had had a ghost of a chance to make a crop. He says that every bushel of corn, oats, and wheat that this old farm has produced during the last six years has been wholly at the expense of the meager stock of reserve nitrogen still left in the soil after seventy-five years of almost continuous effort to "work the land for all that's in it" He says that we have no right to expect really good crops until after the second rotation is completed, because the clover grown during the first rotation does not have a fair show, the limestone not yet being well mixed with the soil, the phosphorus supply being inadequate, the inoculation or infection being imperfect, and no provision whatever having been made to supply decaying organic matter in advance of the first clover crop. I think he is right as usual and I promise to give no more advance information hereafter except upon inquiry, at least not until 1918, when the first wheat crop will be grown on land which has been twice in clover. We are mighty sorry not to be able to be with you for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but really we cannot go to the expense; our house is so small (we just must build a larger barn) and our home equipment is so meager that, in the words which you will remember Percy told us his mother credited to Mrs. Barton, I feel that as yet I must say,
"Do come over when you can."
Your happy, loving daughter,
ADELAIDE.
P.S.—Three big oil wells, belonging to the class called "gushers," have been struck about seven or eight miles from Poorland Farm. We are all getting interested except Percy. He says he does not want any oil wells on his six rotation forties or in the wood's pasture, but he might let them bore in the twelve-acre orchard, which has never produced but one crop that paid for itself, and the profit from that is about all gone for the later years of spraying.