A Woman Rice Planter

by Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle

Tested eggs to-day. Only six infertile. The thermostat is working beautifully and the mercury does not vary a half degree during the twenty-four hours. I am very careful to follow absolutely every direction and let no one touch it but myself, for I wish to give it a fair trial. All my friends in the county are confiding to each other their anxiety over my venture. "Such a pity dear Patience should have wasted her money on such a folly. A huge sum, $25, for those two machines. It is distressing." Many years ago, when incubators were first invented, a progressive neighbor invested in one, and the lamps exploded and a serious fire resulted, so that it is only natural that incubators are much looked down on in this community. No doubt there have been great improvements, and I must think mine the most perfect of all. Still, I feel great anxiety as to the results, for I will have not only the great disappointment and loss should it fail but also the "I told you so" of the whole country side.

April 11.

Began to mix the inoculating stuff for the alfalfa, boiling rain-water for the purpose. Elihu has ploughed with the heavy plough and Ball and Paul in the alfalfa field. Gibbie comes behind in the same furrow with Jack and Sambo and a bull tongue plough. They have gone very deep and the land should be in good fix after it. Made Willing try the Cahoon seeder to see if it worked according to directions on card.

April 12.

Elihu and Gibbie harrowing alfalfa field. I had a large tub on the piazza and put in the second ingredient for the wonder bath. I bought a corn planter this spring, not because I plant enough corn to really need it, but because the crooked planting of the women worries me so. To-day we were to plant the first acre of corn for this season. I had Willing use the planter drawn by Mollie. It worked very well, but he could not go straight and the rows look like snake tracks, much worse than the women's planting, and I had much better have saved my $10. Bonaparte is triumphant and I am in the slough of despond.

April 13.

Planted corn again. Had Elihu to run corn planter and had Willing to take his place harrowing in alfalfa field. The rows are a little straighter, but still hopelessly meandering. That $10 is simply thrown away.

April 14.

What a time I have had to-day. I started out to plant four acres of alfalfa and I feel just as though I had drawn the plough and the harrow as well as the three darkies. The land has been double ploughed, then harrowed with a home-made tooth harrow, and then with the acme several times. The land was heavily covered with stable manure before the ploughing. I have mixed the wonder bath most accurately and now the culmination of all, the planting, was to take place. I bought a Cahoon broadcast seeder, and have tried to make Willing (the boy I have in Jim's place, but oh, what a misfit!) understand the directions. I called upon old Bonaparte this morning to measure the seed out into separate sacks, so that we would have no confusion in the field, but, oh, dear, what a dream that was! It seemed to Bonaparte such feminine folly that I should insist on stakes every ten feet at the head and end of the field so that Willing would have something to guide his wandering steps. We have had high words on the subject, he maintaining that it was a waste of labor and stakes to mark anything but the half acre. As Willing has not a straight eye and walks a good deal as though he were tipsy, even with the guiding stakes, I think it will be in the nature of a miracle if this field is covered with alfalfa. I have not been out here for two or three days, as I was planting corn, but I had two men and two teams at work all the time and a woman to clear away roots, etc., and positively I do not see what they have done. The field is as rough as possible, it seems to me, though the negroes think me most unreasonable and Elihu says: "My Lor', Miss, wha' yo' want mo'? Dis fiel' look too bu-ti-ful, 'e stan' same lik' a gya'ding!"

The first difficulty is to get the stakes set straight, a tall and then a short, so that Willing will know that when he leaves a short stake he must reach a short one at the end of the field; but I had a perfect battle to get Bonaparte to set the stakes in that way. The next trouble was to get rid of the alfalfa—I allowed ten quarts to the acre, and it will not go in. I have opened the small door of the conceited Cahoon creature just one-half inch as the card says, and made Willing walk every ten feet instead of every twenty, as it directs, and yet the peck of seed holds out and is left over.