in succession the yield was not less than thirty-five bushels per acre, and one year it reached forty-six and one-half.

In 1875, while Shorthorn cattle were at the highest notch, I began buying a few fancy ones, to breed up a good herd, and in that I was successful, closing out my entire herd of fifty-five head Aug., 1880, at an average of three hundred dollars each.

During the twelve years I lived here my children went from home to school, to the Baptist Female College, in Lexington, conducted by Dr. Robert Ryland, and the four older girls graduated there.

In 1881, realizing my sinking condition financially, much against my personal feelings, I decided to sell out and go west, where I could buy land for a less price, and accordingly I sold the farm for one hundred and twenty-five dollars per acre and removed to Lee's Summit, Missouri, where I bought a fine farm adjoining the town, of five hundred and ninety acres, for fifty dollars per acre. This was a splendid farm, equally as productive as the one I left in Kentucky, and lay within twenty-four miles of Kansas City by rail, and seventeen miles by dirt road.

My brother Jonathan furnished me twenty thousand dollars for ten years at seven per cent interest, on this purchase, with the privilege of paying any part or all of it at any time. Here I handled Short-horn cattle more largely, and quite successfully for six years, when I sold out entire.

In the spring of 1887 a phenomenal boom struck Kansas City and the Western towns generally, and I took advantage of it and sold near four hundred acres of land at prices that enabled me to pay out of debt; and my health being such then as to incapacitate me for active farm life, I bought a lot and built a residence in Independence, in 1890, and moved my family there, where I now live and rent out my farm.

In the summer and fall of 1888 I was insrtumental in getting the Kansas City Boulevard into Lee's Summit, giving the right of way through the center of my farm for three-fourths of a mile, and devoting two months' time to the work of superintending the opening and grading of the road. Some of my friends conceived the idea of giving me some testimonial of their appreciation and by small contributions only, purchased an elegant gold-headed cane at a cost of fifty-seven dollars, and on Christmaas day

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Thanks to Catherine Bradford for transcribing this page.