Excerpt from Lecture, How God Made the Soil Fertile
Life is a funny proposition. Fifteen years ago, I sold out a good business in Tyrone City, Pa. (few better in the and went down to the adjoining county - Huntingdon - and bought an old worn-out, run-down and abandoned farm. Windows were nailed up, roofs letting in the rain, gates going without hinges, fences had disappeared, and there had not been a farmer on it for seven years, because they could not find a man who would farm it.
The land was so poor that you could not raise anything, not even a disturbance; could not raise an umbrella on it; sometimes I found difficulty in raising my voice on it. It was the most desolate-looking place in my county.
My friends said I was the biggest fool on earth, and that I ought to have a guardian appointed over me; and, the day we moved down on the farm, Mrs. Seeds cried.
I began to haul stable manure from Tyrone City, two and one half miles away, and I did not get many acres covered until that lead pencil (we know what it costs, but you cannot tell what it is worth) told me it was costing me $20 per acre to cover it. Could not stand that; so, as I lived in the greatest lime-stone region in the state, I thought I would lime it. But I did not get many acres cov ered until I found out it was costing me $10 to $15 per acre to lime it, and, as I did not have a huge bank account or a rich father-in law to lean up against, I made up my mind I could not stand it; so, about that time I was burning midnight oil, studying the soil. There are two things I have loved well enough to sit up until twelve o’clock at night and burn midnight oil with, - the one was Mrs.
Seeds and the other was that old farm, - and I do not begrudge the time I spent with either of them.
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