Written to his sister Mary.]

White Haven,
March 21st, 1858.

Dear sister: 

Your letter was received one week ago last Tuesday, and I would have answered it by the next mail but it so happened that there was not a sheet of paper about the house, and as Spring has now set in, I do not leave the farm except in cases of urgent necessity.  Father’s letter, enclosing Mr. Bagley’s relative to the Camp business, was received one or two weeks earlier, and promptly answered.  My reply was long, giving a detailed account of my whole transactions with Camp, and a copy of which Father can have to peruse when he comes along this way next.

Julia and her children are all well and talk of making you a visit next fall,—­but I hardly think they will go.  But if any of you, except Father, should visit us this spring, or early summer, Julia says that Fred. may go home with you to spend a few months.  She says she would be afraid to let him travel with Father alone; she has an idea that he is so absent-minded that if he were to arrive in Cincinnati at night he would be just as apt as not to walk out of the cars and be gone for an hour before he would recollect that he had a child with him.  I have no such fears however.  Fred does not read yet, but he will, I think, in a few weeks.  We have no school within a mile and a half, and that is too far to send him in the winter season.  I shall commence sending him soon however.  In the meantime I have no doubt but that he is learning faster at home.  Little Ellen is growing very fast, and talks now quite plainly.  Jesse R. is growing very rapidly, is very healthy and, they say, is the best looking child among the four.  I don’t think however there is much difference between them in that respect.

Emma Dent is talking of visiting her relatives in Ohio and Penn^a this Summer, and if she does, she will stop a time with you.  Any talk of any of us visiting you, must not stop you from coming to see us.  The whole family here are fond of planning visits, but poor in the execution of their plans.  It may take two seasons yet before any of these visits are made; in the meantime, we are anxious to see all of you.  For my part I do not know when I shall ever be able to leave home long enough for a visit.  I may possibly be able to go on a flying visit next fall.  I am anxious to make one more visit home before I get old.

This Spring has opened finely for farming and I hope to do well; but I shall wait until the crops are gathered before I make any predictions.  I have now three negro men, two hired by the year and one of Mr. Dent’s, which, with my own help, I think, will enable me to do my farming pretty well with assistance in harvest.  I have however a large farm.  I shall have about twenty acres of potatoes, twenty of corn, twenty-five of oats, fifty of wheat, twenty-five of meadow, some clover, Hungarian grass and other smaller products, all of which require labor before they are got into