"But, Mr. Johnston; do you realize how much money it would require
to expend thirty dollars an acre on nine hundred acres?" continued
Miss Russell, with stronger accentuation.

"Twenty-seven thousand dollars," was the simple reply.

"Well, Sir," she said, "you are welcome to this whole farm for ten
thousand dollars."

"I am not wishing for it," he answered. "In fact I would not take
this farm as a gift, if I were obliged to keep it and pay the taxes
and had no other property or source of income."

"That's just the kind of talk I've been putting up to these girls,"
said Mr. Thornton. "By the time we live and pay about two hundred
dollars a year taxes on all this land, I tell you, there is nothing
left; and we'd been worse off than we are, except for the sale we
made to the railroad company."

"Well, the Russells lived here very well for more than a hundred
years," she retorted, "and my grandfather supported one nigger for
every ten acres of the farm, but I would like to know any farmers
about here who can put thirty dollars an acre, or even ten dollars
an acre, back into their soil for improvement."

"The problem is indeed a serious one," said Percy. "Unquestionably
much of the land in these older states is far past the point of
possible self-redemption under the present ownership. Land from
which the fertility has been removed by two hundred years of