When I was at home, when I was engaged both in building, clearing and farming, I always kept my oxen in good order although I had them in their yokes daily; but this was done by always attending and seeing them regularly fed and watered. When I found the driver had neglected feeding regularly, I ordered him upon small allowance as well as chastising him for it, and thus with attention Mr. Parsons kept his 12 oxen as fat as his horses; but when I see Mr. Hobbs say in his letters that the young colts look badly notwithstanding that they have enough of corn, oats and fodder and a dry stable to go into, I want no better proof of the want of regularity in feeding. They are overfed one day and starved the next. The hand that attends to them filled their troughs one morning and perhaps does not see them again in two. It is the overseer’s business to see all the stock daily in the winter season, sometimes in the morning and again sometimes in the evening; and when he finds the stock neglected at once punish the hand charged with their keeping. We lost a great many last year, and when I hear of their bad condition this, and a plenty to give them, why there must be sheer neglect of them. For this neglect the overseer is answerable, and I wish to enquire and tell him frankly that he will be held responsible. That oxen, where there is plenty of food, at this season of the year are poor and broke down shows that carelessness in an overseer for which he ought to be dismissed. We have lost more in stock than two such crops would pay for—this is truly pulling out the bung and driving in the spigot. If I live to get home I will shew you and all overseers how easy it is to keep oxen fat and doing more business than when neglected and broken down. We must make better crops and preserve our stock better or we will be soon in a state of want and poverty. If there was any unforgivable sin with General Jackson it was neglecting his live stock. Mr. Hobb’s doom was sealed. A Mr. Holliday was engaged for the year 1837—and that was the year when Andrew Jackson stepped down from the President’s chair and came back to the Hermitage to live the rest of his days. Early in January, looking forward to his return home, he wrote Mr. Holliday instructing him to be sure and plant a good vegetable garden; and, he added, “I want to have my stock so that I can do something with them when I reach home.” And immediately following the inauguration of President Van Buren he set out for home and on March 25th he was back at the Hermitage he loved so well. [Illustration: FIRST FLOOR PLAN This plan illustrates the spacious simplicity characteristic of Southern plantation house plans. The later additions of wings seem so simple and naturally disposed that one would suspect that they were preconceived by a trained architect rather than having been worked out by the owner and itinerant carpenters.]