“Well, it’s natural for us to get something out of this waste when we get the chance. But you’ve traveled in these parts, and seen large bodies of good land to be bought at low figures, and you may say that anybody that comes here will be treated right.” “Suppose,” said I, “that on these better tracts Yankee methods should be adopted--after every few years of cultivation, seed the land down to grass, which feed to stock in barns; feed your corn fodder steamed, and use your wheat and oats straw for stable bedding. In that way almost all the vegetation taken off the soil is returned in a decomposed and enriched form.” “Generally speaking,” said my companion, “I have little faith in Yankee ways in the South. I used to have a plantation in the low country, and have seen lots of those fellows come down with nickel-plated harness and steel plows. Most of them would begin to cultivate our friendship by telling us we didn’t know anything about our business. But we noticed that they all had to come to our ways, or sell out. The idea of Northern newspapers, that our plantations before the war were not worked systemically, is a mistake. Still I think your idea of farming in this elevated country is correct. You see here, with the exception of long, rigid winters, the climate is essentially northern, owing to our elevation. Every experiment at improved farming has been successful, though very few have been made.” We were reminded by this of a story told by General Clingman, of Asheville, at the expense of an intelligent citizen of Buncombe county, whose residence was on Beetree creek, a branch of the Swanannoa. “As the surface of the stream was almost level with the surface of the ground, my fellow-citizen,” says Clingman, “being of good intellect and general reading, saw on reflection that he could with little trouble utilize its waters. He constructed his stable just as near to it as possible, and then cut a slight ditch to the stream, and with the aid of a hastily made gate of boards, he could at will let the water into his stable. When, therefore, his stable became rather full of manure, he had only to turn his horses on the pasture for a day, raise his little gate, and in a few minutes the stream of water was carrying everything away, and left the stable much cleaner than it would have been had he used a mattock and spade. His neighbors all admired his ingenuity in being able to devise such a labor-saving operation.”