"Never saw anything done with alfalfa in this region, but they never took no pains with it," said Thompson.
"I hope it will grow for us, for it is great forage if properly managed. The seed will be out this week, and you had best sow it on Monday, the 2d."
"How are you going to seed the north forty?"
"Timothy, red top, and blue grass; heavy seeding, to get rid of the weeds. These lots will all be used as stock lots. Small ones, you think, but we will depend almost entirely upon soiling. I hope to keep a fair sod on these lots, and they will be large enough to give the animals exercise and keep them healthy. I hope the carpenter is pushing things on the house. I want to get you into better quarters as soon as possible, and I want the cottage moved out of the way before we seed the lot."
"They're pushing things all right, I guess; that man Nelson is a hustler."
When I reached the farm I found Johnson and Anderson tearing down the old fence that was our eastern boundary. None of the posts were long enough for my purpose, so all were consigned to the woodpile.
My neighbor on the north owned just as much land as I did. He inherited it and a moderate bank account from his father, who in turn had it from his. The farm was well kept and productive. The house and barns were substantial and in good repair. The owner did general farming, raised wheat, corn, and oats to sell, milked twenty cows and sent the milk to the creamery, sold one or two cows and a dozen calves each year, and fattened twenty or thirty pigs. He was pretty certain to add a few hundred dollars to his bank account at the end of each season. He kept one man all the time and two in summer. He was a bachelor of twenty-eight, well liked and good to look upon: five feet ten inches in height, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, and a very Hercules in strength. His face was handsome, square-jawed and strong. He was good-natured, but easily roused, and when angry was as fierce as fire. He had the reputation of being the hardest fighter in the country. His name was William Jackson, so he was called Bill. I had met Jackson often, and we had taken kindly to each other. I admired his frank manner and sturdy physique, and he looked upon me as a good-natured tenderfoot, who might be companionable, and who would certainly stir up things in the neighborhood. I went in search of him that afternoon to discuss the line fence, a full mile of which divided our lands.
"I want to put a fence along our line which nothing can get over or under," I said. "I am willing to bear the expense of the new fence if you will take away the old one and plough eight furrows,—four on your land and four on mine,—to be seeded to grass before the wires are stretched. We ought to get rid of the weeds and brush."
"That is a liberal proposition, Dr. Williams, and of course I accept," said Jackson; "but I ought to do more. I'll tell you what I'll do. You are planning to put a ring fence around your land,—three miles in all. I'll plough the whole business and fit it for the seed. I'll take one of my men, four horses, and a grub plough, and do it whenever you are ready."
This settled the fence matter between Jackson and me. The men who cut the posts took the job of setting them, stretching the wire, and hanging the gates, for $400. This included the staples and also the stretching of three strands of barbed wire above the woven wire; two at six-inch intervals on the outside, and one inside, level with the top of the post. Thus my ring fence was six feet high and hard to climb. I have a serious dislike for trespass, from either man or beast, and my boundary fence was made to discourage trespassers. I like to have those who enter my property do so by the ways provided, for "whoso climbeth up any other way, the same is a thief and a robber."