, keeps his manure in
a heap through the summer, spreads it on the sod in September, or the
first week in October. Here it lies until next spring. The grass and
clover grow up through manure, and the grass and manure are turned under
next spring, and the land planted to corn.

Mr. Johnston is thoroughly convinced that he gets far more benefit from
the manure when applied on the surface, and left exposed for several
months, than if he plowed it under at once.

I like to write and talk about John Johnston. I like to visit him. He is
so delightfully enthusiastic, believes so thoroughly in good farming,
and has been so eminently successful, that a day spent in his company
can not fail to encourage any farmer to renewed efforts in improving his
soil. "You _must_ drain," he wrote to me; "when I first commenced
farming, I never made any money until I began to underdrain." But it is
not underdraining alone that is the cause of his eminent success. When
he bought his farm, "near Geneva," over fifty years ago, there was a
pile of manure in the yard that had lain there year after year, until it
was, as he said, "as black as my hat." The former owner regarded it as a
nuisance, and a few months before young Johnston bought the farm, had
given some darkies a cow on condition that they would draw out this
manure. They drew out six loads, took the cow--and that was the last
seen of them. Johnston drew out this manure, raised a good crop of
wheat, and that gave him a start. He says he has been asked a great many
times to what he owes his success as a farmer, and he has replied that
he could not tell whether it was "dung or credit." It was probably
neither. It was the man--his intelligence, industry, and good common
sense. That heap of black mould was merely an instrument in his hands
that he could turn to good account.

His first crop of wheat gave him "credit" and this also he used to
advantage. He believed that good farming would pay, and it was this
faith in a generous soil that made him willing to spend the money
obtained from the first crop of wheat in enriching the land, and to
avail himself of his credit. Had he lacked this faith--had he hoarded
every sixpence he could have ground out of the soil, who would have ever
heard of John Johnston? He has been liberal with his crops and his
animals, and has ever found them grateful. This is the real lesson which
his life teaches.

He once wrote me he had something to show me. He di