“More stuff in our land than in yours, did you say?” questioned the old man.  “I told you we had pretty good soil here, but I’ve always allowed your soil was better, but maybe not.  I tell you manure lasts on this land.  You can see where you put it for nigh twenty years.  Then we rest our land some and that helps a sight, and if the price stays up we make good money on tobacco.  I’m sorry your land is getting so poor out West, especially if you can’t raise tobacco.  Ever tried tobacco, Young Man?—­gosh, but you remind me of one of them Government fellows who came driving along here once when Bob and his brothers were plowing corn right here about three years ago.  Bob’s my tenant’s nigger, and he ain’t no fool either, even if he is colored; but then, to tell the truth, he ain’t much colored.  Well, I was sitting under a tree right here smoking and keeping an eye on the niggers unbeknownst to them when one of them Government fellows stopped his horse as Bob was turning the end, and says he to Bob: 

“‘Your corn seems to be looking mighty yellow?’

“‘Yes, suh,’ says Bob.  ‘Yes, suh, we done planted yellow corn.’

“’Well, I mean it looks as though you won’t get more than half a crop,’ says he.

“‘I reckon not,’ says Bob.  ’The landlord, he done gets the other half.’

“With that the fellow says to Bob: 

“‘It seems to me you’re mighty near a fool.’

“‘Yes, suh,’ says Bob, ’and I’m mighty feared I’ll catch it if I don’t get a goin’.’

“The fellow just gave his horse a cut and drove on, but I liked to died.  He’d been here two or three times pestering me with questions about raising tobacco.  Say, you ain’t one of them Government fellows, are you?  They were travelling all around over this county three years ago, learning how we raised tobacco and all kinds of crops.  They had augers and said they were investigating soils, but I never heard nothing of ’em since.  Have you got an auger to investigate soils with?”

Percy was compelled to admit that he had an auger and that he was trying to learn all he could about the soil.

He had driven to Mr. Jones’ farm because his land happened to be situated in a large area of Leonardtown loam, and he felt free to stop and talk with him because he had found him leaning against the fence, smoking a cob pipe, apparently trying to decide what to do with some small shocks of corn scattered over a field of about fifteen acres.

Percy stepped to the buggy and drew out his soil auger, then returned to the corn field and begun to bore a hole near where Mr. Jones was standing.

“That’s the thing,” said he, “the same kind of an auger them fellows had three years ago.  Still boring holes, are you?  Want to bore around over my farm again, do you?”

Percy replied that he would be glad to make borings in several places in order that he might see about what the soil and subsoil were like in that kind of land.