Show BILL N A FARMER North Carolina Well Digging i Still in Its Infancy Williams Literary Labors Interfered with by ARfjarvatione How He Is Made an Ass I fi or by the Neighbors IFor THE SUNDAY HERAID By special ar rangemert with the author Been SHOALS N C Recently I have been digging 0 well on my estate and the sound of the premature blat and the wail of the widow can be beard all over the place on a still day I have one living spring on my place and one that has passed on to a better land I judge Some savants who remained overnight over-night with us last week even went so far as to say that it was living water Possibly Pos-sibly it is In a trance f 2 9 DRILLING Las week my well diggers ran outf explosives I ex-plosives and I bad to borrow y dynamite c r ind carry it t the works in my lap I also lad to got eighteen feet of hose as the i l well digger said he only had 0 few left Hose as well as molasses and license is I ased in the plural number here We speak of those hose those molasses and those license i In selecting a site for a house I find that e I have placedit BO high that the well is going to be unusually massive In order h to have the house where it would easily i command a view of Mr Yanderbilis tennis c court thus giving us he benefit of the game without the fatigue of playing it I have placed my well at such an elevation that water will be my most expensive drink this summer My valet whose duty It is to carry tIn water press my trousers and do the chnm berwork at the barn took one look down the well yesterday and handed in his resignation resig-nation The well was opened in March and the corner stone laid with suitable ceremonies and a speech made by Mr De pew but the work has seemed to drag some owing to the fact that the Tar Heel well digger docs not own 0 set of tools neither does ho furnish powder caps nor hORRNext Next year we will clear three more acres of white oak leaving the stumps finished off artistically with a large carved acorn or some such design so that the field will not be so unsightly as is too often the case with newly cleared land One field will O also be cleared of tulip and sourwood trees the stumps however to be champered off like a newel post of the Fifteenth century cen-tury and on each one of these chaste stumps a piece of rustic china or plain white ware will be set with enough soil in It to sustain geraniums and other choice plants so that instead of a miserable and vunsightly field covered with blackened and repulsive stumps we will have an ornament of eomo kind wherever the eye rests When I bought the farm i was surrounded sur-rounded by a rough and most unsightly rail fence I have taken these rails and plaoing them In groups of three and standing stand-ing them on end to form a sort of tripod have hung therefrom an Iron pot giving the farm the appearance of a gipsy camp as i were for here and there all over the place may be seen these tripods with a kettle attached to each and a beautiful hol lyhock or nasturtium growing out of same at a great rate One reason I think why boys leave the farm Is that the farm Is not made attractive attrac-tive I is too prosy Boys love art They love to seebeautiful colors and simple artistic ar-tistic decorations We moan over the fact that year after year less American boys go into agriculture while our farms are foreigner gradually falling into the hands of the I believe that I havo solved the great question Boys go to the city whero > they find beautiful things and efforts toward art My boys shall never throw it up tome to-me in future years that failed to make the I farm attractive L t I 1 t t 1sM Ii I i i > S f HATE YOU ANY HOSE My only sorrow is tfhat the neighbors Buncombe county and hole who live nea ij j8 9 t C mo at Buck Shoals mislead me regarding ncrioulture They speak lightly of my efort at art ana misrepresent things tome to-me regarding the business They do it inspirit a in-spirit of raillery sort of fence raillery I presnme but 1 think it is because theo d the-o not approve of my style of farming and regard it as a sort of reproof to them for their lack of taste and artistic sense Now for instance I regard it us a little bit unneIghborly to take bold of a literary man and fill him up with facts and statistics statis-tics that cannot be demonstrated I bate toe h to-e fooled in that way Why should a man whom I have treated with the utmost kindness kind-ness ever since 1 came here go to work and tell me that hero in North Carolina four cops of lambs from the same sot of parents vas and has been the regular thing while on a good year when the mean average rainfall can see its shadow on groundhog day tho yield runs up to five and six This sort of thing not only makes me I feel unhappy and bitter toward my neighbors neigh-bors but it has fostered u miserable spirit in i my breast and caused my relations with domestic nmimals to become strained At first I laid it to the weather but finally I began to regard my sheep with distrust I L felt that they wore neglecting their duties an taking advantage of the fact that I am not an experienced farmer So consulted I Mr Vanderbilt who has farmed it sis weeks longer than I have and who therefore there-fore knows the ins and outs of the business pretty well Ho tells me that one crop of lambs per year is all that they get hereunder here-under the most favorable circumstances Plum Levi also tells me that while timothy tim-othy and clover often yield two and three crops ho never harvests his lambs over ocd a year It hurts the country to misrepresent these things to strangers and capitalists like myself men who wish to build up the country and add to its wealth Why not be fair and truthful in the start and thus invite the good the true and the beautiful to come and settle among us1 Last year my plug tobacco was a complete com-plete failure and an old resident of Sandy Marsh allowed that it was because I did not plant the plug with the tin tag end downward I have since learned that one should not plant the plug at all it will iid not renroduce itself even if the tin tag end be planted downward Tobacco grows from the seed and is made into plugs afterward after-ward Why would it not be as well to tell a stranger those things instead of allowing him to make a large fluted ass of himself with aWattean back My well is down now to porphyry rock and schist with a hematite stain in it Neighbors tell me that even if I do not strike water it will make a good cool place to keep vegetables in Since the above wan written I have been out all day on horseback hunting for more dynamite among the neighbors I borrowed rowed four large cartridges of a kindhearted kind-hearted neighbor and carried them In my coat toil pocket aboard a fractious horse twentynine miles over a mountain road When I got there the hair in the butter of my sandwich had turned white When I banded my cartridges over to the well diggerafter my days work in secur sg them and heaved 0 sigh of relief feeing lug sure that now the work could go on betook took them and looked at them for quite a spell and then he satd sort of slow and easy like Thats bit NowIfwehadson ie bosewecouldpu tinablast Havent jou got any hose I asked in i loud parliametary tones No he said I bed a few yes terdaybutIaintgotaonnnosv ISo I-So I put in the following day getting hose This sort of thing makes my literary work disconnected and I have always wanted my posthumous work to be my very best God bless you said a lady friend of mine the other day especially for your posthumous work I am bavinl tho mmnl trnnhln nnlo tn omectio animals in the spring I bought a donkey last year for tho children This ay ear we had him clipped as he was getting most too wool and the hens got tt o burrowing into his foliage and hiding heir nests so we got a cliopist to clip him 3o is about SO years of age and never had his hair cut beforo We found a good many things which the neighbors bad missed They were in the stubble after the clipping had been done But he caught cold for we clipped him t o early Ono should not prune a donkey i n March It is risky He is likely to got pnsumonio Ever since that Ivo had to over up this donkey of nights and two or hrce times in the night I must go and see i f he has kicked the covers off He is often everish at night and his feet aro hot and dry Once they were anyhow That was he only time I felt them |