"I call to mind that the historical records give much information along this line," said Percy. "It is recorded that mills for grinding corn and wheat were common, that the flour of Mount Vernon was packed under the eye of Washington, and we are told that barrels of flour bearing his brand passed in the export markets without inspection. History records that the plantations of Virginia usually passed from father to son, according to the law of entail, and that the heads of families lived like lords, keeping their stables of blooded horses and rolling to church or town in their coach and six, with outriders on horseback. Their spacious mansions were sometimes built of imported brick; and, within, the grand staircases, the mantles, and the wainscot reaching from floor to ceiling, were of solid mahogany, elaborately carved and paneled. The sideboards shone with gold and silver plate, and the tables were loaded with the luxuries from both the New and the Old World, and plenty of these old mansions still exist in dilapidated condition." "That all sounds good for history," said the Congressman, "but the historian probably got his information from some of these old Virginians whose only religion is ancestral worship. If the lands were ever any good they'd be good now. Good lands stay good. As an Illinois man, you ought to know that. My father settled in Illinois and I tell you his land is better to-day than it was the day he took it from the Government." "My grandfather also took land from the Government," said Percy, "but the land that he first put under cultivation is not producing as good crops now as it used to, even though--" "Then it must be you don't farm it right. Of course you don't want to corn your land to death. I lived on the farm long enough to learn that; but if you'll only grow two or three crops of corn and then change to a crop of oats, you'll find your land ready for corn again; and, if you'll sow clover with the oats and plow the clover under the next spring, you'll find the land will grow more corn than ever your grandfather grew on it." "But how can we maintain the supply of plant food in the soil by merely substituting oats for corn once in three or four years and turning under perhaps a ton of clover as green manure. That amount of clover would contain no more nitrogen than 40 bushels of corn would remove from the soil, and of course the clover has no power to add any phosphorus or other mineral elements."