The first one, and by far the worst one, was partly fenced with a "brush fence" and fallen logs, the remainder with an old rotten fence with briars, weeds, and bushes in the corners.  The yard fence was of old rails and poles and a good part of them were on the ground.  The yard gate was of old railings, the top hinge, a hickory, with the bottom on a rock, the fastening a hole in a rotten post where perhaps once a pin had been.  The house was very old and dilapidated.  One end of the kitchen roof had fallen.  A lean, hungry hog had its feet on the rotten doorstep with its squalling head in at the door.  An old dug-out trough set against the yard fence was the place where poor, long-horned, brindle bossy got her feed during rain and sun while being milked.  A bad-looking, white-eyed horse and flop-eared, bony mule were the only visible chance for a team.  The two pole stables looked as if the father had built  them years ago and made a special request that they never be recovered.  The tree that served as a tool shed had under it an old wagon, a rotten, wood handle from a turning plow and a broken-handled double shove.  The man showed the writer a patch that had had sorghum on it for the last seven years.  His mill was still at the same place where the molasses were made and perhaps stayed there from year to year. 

How this man made anything more than a bare living we are unable to say.  But I know that he has money in the bank and does not owe a cent to anyone.  We are sure that with his genius, and that he must have to have anything ahead at all with his way of farming, if he had read good agricultural papers like the S. A. and spent some of his money for better fences, buildings and stock he would be much better off today than he is.

The other man had good, though not fine, houses, a new barn well filled with feed, some good stock in a well fenced lot, good fences and well hung gates around and through his farm.  Everything had the air of a well-to-do, well managed place that looked as if it was in another locality instead of just across the branch from the other tumble-down-place.