Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-07-25

several mighty good fights, tell you, sah." There are very few old soldiers in- deed. Nearly all who talk of the war were children in 1S61-5, and I was surprised at the singular freedom with which they spoke of the different views held.
 'tIt is a queer thing, sah, . said one, "but 1t is a fact that the bitterest people we have are the children of those who were nearly grown at the time of the war. You see, those children of the wartime were too big to learn to do without niggers, and they arc always telling their children that the reason of their being so poor was that their homes were torn up during the war and their niggers taken away from them."
 And found later that there was more truth than poetry in this statement. As to men who actually served in the Confed- crate army, am positive that they do not amount to one in a hundred of the present population of Virginia.
 I was greatly interested in the talk of Q MT. Wharton who lives at Whites crossing, on the narrow gauge, and in it found some explanation of the great discrepancy between the list of missing and that of those captured by the Confederates. He told mo how men fell everywhere in the woods but slightly wounded and slipped off at night and never returned.
 "As the battle'lines shifted this way and that,' said he, "mother's house was twice between the lines, but finally 1t was away northeast of the Federals, and then it was filled with men not hurt bad enough to worry. One of these fellows staid up stairs for three weeks and kept me on the watch to see who was coming, and by and by they made up quite little squad and got citizens clothes-for they had plenty of money-and struck out northwest, saying they would not go back to the army. I was 12 years old, and while we sat in the cellar we could hear tho cannon balls whistling loud and clear as they went back and forward on the north side of the place. By and by bullets whistled near, and now and then a cannon shot would take a bite out of the stable or roof of the house with a crash that made us all cringe, but none of us was hurt. Here is a buckle plowed up just south of the Charlottesville field" It was an ordinary buckle of the Federal soldiers belt, with the big U. S., but had indented in rude letters the words, "W. H. Smith, Brooklyn, N. Y."
 Where Bumblebees Kneel.
 Two-thirds of Spottsylvania county is of land so wretchedly poor that all familiar western similes fail to describe it. I might say it is so poor that the humble bees have to kneel down to get at the white clover; that the worst tracts are fenced to keep cattle from straying on them and starving to death, and that the sand is too poor to sprout pen till it is soaked, and the clay so very white and cheesy that 1t gives the stranger sore eyes, and yet tho Ohio valley man would not re- alize how poor the land is. New ground will bring tolerable crops, ss crops go in this country, without fertilizer. After that a man must put into the soil WI l. ever he expects to got out of it. Guah, and bone permanently improve the land, but chemical fertilizers merely force it to give up its plant clements and finally make it so thirsty that the crops burn up. Some old plantations have recently been renewed on this plan: The land is first heavily fertilized, then sowed in rye and other green stuff, and the whole crop plowed under. Then it will produce 15 or 20 bushels of corn per acre. The account stands thus: Fee simple of the land, $2 per acre; fertilizers, $2; seed and labor, $2-$6 investment and then year before one can begin to farm. Even the best land has to be fallowed every third year.
 At my request a MT. Crozier showed me some bills for rations. The employee got habitable dwelling Ca log cabin) and a garden rent free pasture for one COW and monthly rations as follows: Ten pounds of salt pork, 30 herrings, one gallon black strap molasses, one bushel cornmeal, one quarter pound tea and one-half pound cof fec, or, in lieu of both, one pound of coffee. He also received half dollar day for his work, but some colored men work as low as 25 cents and those rations and very many at 80 cents. A very strong and ap- parently active 16-year-old boy told me he had worked till the beginning of harvest for 25 cents a day and board, but had since received 50 and was to receive 35 for the rest of the year after harvest.
 J. H. BEADLE.