Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-05-14
CAPTAIN JANE SMITH.
The Enterprise and Industry Of s
 Plucky Georgia Woman.

How She Made 3 Hundred-Acre Farm lIore Than Pay for Itself = Independence
 Achieved Under Great Dimculties-
 A Visit to the Smith Farm.
 By the roadside three miles and a half from this town there is comfortable-look- ing cottage with big old-fashioned stone chimney, and in the background the stable and corn cribs, writes a correspondent of the New York Sun from Shiloh, Ga. There are forty comfortable matronly hens pick ing about the yard, and under tall Ivy covered tree is a littlelog house from which, on rainy days and evenings, you will hear the noise of the loom and the droning of the spinning wheel. In the front room of the cottage is an aged lady who rises to meet the stranger, and says blandly: ''Who are you?"
 When he makes known his business, she calls to some one at the spinning wheel:
 "Jane, gentleman wishes to see you" Miss Jane appeared at the door in a home spun frock and greeted the stranger. 1"No, don't want my name in the papers. l have only a small farm, and I don't see that my business interests any one else,'' said she, rather indignantly. Some notice in the local newspaper had offended her,
 
 of any discourteous intent she consented to tell her story.
 Mss Jane Smith is known among the peo- pie of this neighborhood as Captain Jane Smith,' and has won this distinction by the energy and courage with which she has worked her way to independence on a hun dred acre farm. Left on rented land with only mule, two cows and four hogs when her brother went to the war, she and her sister have, out of crops of their own tillage, supported themselves and their aged mother, bought the farm, and built a comfortable house. Their brother had just planted a crop when he was called away to fight for his home; and the neigh bors seeing his anxiety for the welfare of his mother and sisters he was leaving with out a protector, promised to see that the crop was tended until his return. Turn ing away from these home cares to the stern fortunes of war, he set his face to- ward the enemy, stifing care as best he could until at last he buried it in sol dier's grave
 In the midst of their grief those young women realized that their own hands must make a support for themselves and their mother or they must be dependent on their neighbors. With heroic resolution to be independent they set to work. The neigh
 
 Jane and her sister did the rest with their own hands.
 Rising at four o'clock summer and win ter, they worked a field till after sunset and fed the stock in the dark From supper time till ten o'clock there was constant clack and chatter of the loom, with the hum ming of the wheel rising above it. They spun and wove the cloth for their garments, and the white and colored counterpanes that they wove in elaborate patterns, with six sheets of harness, are apparently new twenty years after they were made, and would almost cause store-bought counter pane to turn crimson with shame.
 Every thing they used, except coffee, was made at home, and in war times they made that by drying chips of sweet potatoes. They raised every thing to eat-corn, wheat, sorghum sirup, vegetables, hogs, chickens and every thing that could be produced on the farm.
 By such industry and economy they had saved $250 by 1873 when they bought the farm for $500, paying s250 cash. In four years they paid the other S650 and went on with other improvements. Three years ago Miss Smith built new house for $500, paying the carpenters $2.50 a day as the work was done.
 Miss Smith believes in fat hogs. She al
 
 The four killed this winter weighed 932 pounds net, and the largest 275 pounds. The smoke-house is well supplied with hams, shoulders, sides, fowls, lard and sausage meat. Their plan is to salt the meat and let it hang till March, when the salt is rubbed off, and the pieces are washed and packed down in ashes. The hams are put in sacks and keep perfectly.
 1T never kill hogs till tley are two years old,n said Miss Smith. Ut is easier to keep grown hog than pig. When it is over a year old it takes less feed"
 In the lot was a mule that Miss Jane picked out of a stable three years ago and bought for $119. The mule is as gentle as a pet dog, and Miss Smith says she would not sell it for s175. The old mule that was bought by MT. Smith two years before he went to the war Is still there. He is thirty-three years old, and still able to do good work. Miss Smith hitched him up yesterday and plowed up the garden.
 When asked how she made the crops, Miss Smith said ''I hired the hoeing done, and did the blowing myself until had the house built. Iplowed day after day. None of us were ever sick a day in our lives, and lnever lost a day out of the crop except when was away on business. We never had 8 doctor in the house till this winter,
 
 eighty-two years old
 "We raised this year five bales of cotton, about two hundred bushels of corn, oats and fodder, enough for the stock, potatoes, sorghum sirup, hogs and chickens, and wove the cloth we needed. We don't buy any thing now but coffee and flour. We used to raise wheat, but there is SO much trouble to get it threshed that we buy flour now to save trouble. It is no more trouble to raise wheat than it used to be. The farmers put their cotton seed all on the cot ton land, and expect the other land to make wheat without the seed, and it won't bring it.
 ''Some years we don't make so much as others, but I have never lost crop. ldon't subsoil the land, and don't use any turn blow We.just watch the crop and work it. When go to the station see fifty men standing around doing nothing, and know most of them ought to be at work at home. That is the trouble It takes work to make crops."
 Mrs. Smith, the aged mother of Miss Jane, brought out an Irish spinning wheel