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 market, and the money realized
upon them. You are aware, I believe, that I have rented out my place
and have taken Mr. Dent's. There are about two hundred acres of
ploughed land on it and I shall have, in a few weeks, about two
hundred and fifty acres of woods pasture fenced up besides. Only one
side of it and a part of another has to be fenced to take the whole of
it in, and the rails are all ready. I must close with the wish that
some of you would visit us as early as possible. In your letter you
ask when my note in bank becomes due. The seventeenth of Apl. is the
last day of grace when it must be paid.

Give Julia's, the children's, and my love to all at home and write
soon.

Your Brother

ULYSSES.

[When a boy Grant suffered severely from fever and ague. This attack
now lasted a year and was probably a factor in determining him to give
up farming.

To his sister Mary.]

St. Louis, Mo.,
Sept. 7th, 1858.

DEAR SISTER:

Your letter was received in due time and I should have answered it
immediately, but that I had mailed a letter from Julia to Jennie the
morning of the receipt of yours. I thought then to wait for two or
three weeks; by that time there was so much sickness in my family, and
Freddy so dangerously ill, that I thought I would not write until his
fate was decided. He was nearly taken from us by the bilious, then by
the typhoid fever; but he is now convalescing. Some seven of the
negroes have been sick. Mrs. Sharp is here on a visit, and she and one
of her children are sick; and Julia and I are both sick with chills
and fever. If I had written to you earlier it would have been whilst
Fred's case was a doubtful one, and I did not want to distress you
when it could have done no good to anyone.--I have been thinking of
paying you a visit this fall, but I now think it extremely doubtful
whether I shall be able to. Not being able to even attend to my hands,
much less work myself, I am getting behindhand, so that I shall have
to stay here and a