it, they sold it to other land hunters, and I suppose that they made so much in the deal that they stayed right here as real estate agents.  They are great advertisers; but I reckon our Southern real estate men can just about keep even.  The agent who was out here last spring told me he showed one Northern man a farm for $12 an acre and he was afraid to buy.  Then he took him into another county and showed him a poorer farm for $45 and he bought that at once.

“The road there runs out through the fields.  Our land runs back to the other public road and beyond that is the farm I told you of where the saw mill is running.  I’ve got some pretty good cowpeas you’ll pass by.  I haven’t got them off the racks yet.”

Percy found the cowpea hay piled in large shocks over tripods made of short stout poles which served to keep the hay off the ground to some extent, and this permitted the cowpeas to be cured in larger piles and with less danger of loss from molding.

“I find that the soil on your farm and on the other farm is very generally acid,” said Percy a few hours later when Mr. Thornton asked what he thought of the condititons of farming.  “Have you used any lime for improving the soil?”

“Yes, I tried it about ten years ago, and it helped some, but not enough to make it pay.  I put ten barrels on about three acres.  I thought it helped the corn and wheat a little, and it showed right to the line where I put cowpeas on the land, but I don’t think it paid, and it’s mighty disagreeable stuff to handle.”

“Do you remember how much it cost?” Percy asked.

“Yes, Sir.  The regular price was a dollar a barrel, but by taking ten barrels I got the ton for eight dollars; but I’d rather have eight dollars’ worth of bone meal.”

“I think the lime would be a great help to clover,” said Percy.

“Yes, that might be.  They tell me that they used to grow lots of clover here; but it played out completely, and nobody sows clover now, except occasionally on an old feed lot which is rich enough to grow anything.  It takes mighty good land to grow clover; but cowpeas are better for us.  They do pretty well for this old land, only the seed costs too much, and they make a sight of work, and they’re mighty hard to get cured.  You see they aren’t ready for hay till the hot weather is mostly past.  If we could handle them in June and July, as we do timothy we’d have no trouble; but we don’t get cowpeas planted till June, and September is a poor time for haying.”

“It seems to me that clover is a much more satisfactory crop,” said Percy.  “One can sow clover with oats in the spring, or on wheat land in the late winter, and there is no more trouble with it until it is ready for haying about fifteen months later, unless the land is weedy or the clover makes such a growth the first fall that we must clip it to prevent either the weeds or the clover from seeding.  This means that when you are planting your ground for cowpeas