one-horse
corn-planter with a fertilizer attachment. Hiram used this, dropping
two or three grains twenty-four inches apart, and setting the fertilizer
attachment to one hundred and fifty pounds to the acre.

He was until the next Wednesday night planting the piece. Meanwhile it
had not rained, and the river continued to recede. It was now almost
as low as it had been the day Lettie Bronson's boating party had been
"wrecked" under the big sycamore.

Hiram had not seen the Bronsons for some weeks, but about the time he
got his late corn planted, Mr. Bronson drove into the Atterson yard, and
found Hiram cultivating his first corn with the five-tooth cultivator.

"Well, well, Hiram!" exclaimed the Westerner, looking with a broad smile
over the field. "That's as pretty a field of corn as I ever saw. I don't
believe there is a hill missing."

"Only a few on the far edge, where the moles have been at work."

"Moles don't eat corn, Hiram."

"So they say," returned the young farmer, quietly. "I never could make
up my mind about it.

"I'm sure, however, that if they are only after slugs and worms which
are drawn to the corn hills by the commercial fertilizer, the moles do
fully as much damage as the slugs would.

"You see, they make a cavity under the corn hill, and the roots of the
plant wither. Excuse me, but I'd rather have Mr. Mole in somebody else's
garden."

Mr. Bronson laughed. "Well, what the little gray fellows eat won't kill
us. But they do spoil otherwise handsome rows. How did you get such a
good stand of corn, Hiram?"

"I tested the seed in a seed box early in the spring. I wouldn't plant
corn any other way. Aside from the hills the moles have spoiled, and a
few an old crow pulled up, I've got no re-planting to do.

"And replanted hills are always behind the crop, and seldom make
anything but fodder. If it wasn't for the look of the field, I'd never
re-plant a hill of corn.

"Of course, I've got to thin this--two grains in the hill is enough on
this land."

Mr. Bronson looked at him with growing surprise.

"Why, my boy, you talk just as though you had tilled the ground for a
score of years. Who taught you so much about farming?"

"One of the best farmers who ever lived," said Hiram, with a smile. "My
father. And he taught me to go to the correct sources for information,
too."

"I believe you!" exclaimed Mr. Bronson. "And you're going to have 'corn
that's corn', as we say in my part of the count