CHAPTER IX THE STREAMS OF CLARK COUNTY The Ohio Gazetteer of 1816 says : "No country in the world is better watered with limpid streams and navigable rivers than the United States of America, and no people better deserve these advantages, or are better calculated to make a proper use of them than her industrious and adventurous citizens." The United States Geological Survey shows that forty per cent of the developed water power in the world is in this country. While Springfield inventors turned their attention to water wheels at the time water was thus utilized for power, the water wheels in the United States have a combined capacity of 9,243,000 horsepower, and the countries of Europe where waterways and water power have been utilized extensively, cannot boast of more extensive development. The turbine water wheel did much to develop the manufacturing interests of Springfield when Mill Run furnished the motive power. The overcast and undercast wheels were known to the settlers, and from the time James Demint built the first mill in 1803, until steam supplanted water power, water wheels were essential to industry. Murat Halstead once said : "The French were truthful as well as tasteful when they named the Ohio the Beautiful River," and while in the wilderness days game crossed the stream at the fords in the absence of floods, all that deals with the Ohio of the long ago ; even the buffaloes knew the width of the stream that divided and united the valley when the water was high or low, and the same conditions existed along the smaller streams. Since the Big Miami as fed by the Little Miami and other Clark County streams contributes to the Ohio, Clark County is within the Miami Valley. Beside the Miamis, its principal streams are : Mad River, Buck or Lagonda Creek, and Beaver Creek which, with their tributaries, "furnish water power for about twenty-five grist mills, upwards of thirty saw mills, two paper mills, two oil mills, and seven or eight carding and fulling mills, all of which are in operation within the county." Still another account says : "Mad River is unequalled for fine mill sites. Its current is rapid, and the water is never so low in the driest season as to interfere in the slightest degree with the mills that are now upon it. * * * Within a range of three miles of Springfield are upwards of twenty good mill seats, occupied and unoccupied. The value of this immense water power is enhanced by the fact that on the east and southeast is a tract of country forty miles wide which is entirely dependent upon this stream and mills," but the student of economic conditions would hardly accept that version today. In the palmy days of New Boston which is now marked by an abandoned cemetery adjoining Fort Tecumseh, west from Springfield, it was said to be at the head of navigation on Mad River. "In those days Mad River spread all over creation," but the removal of the timber and drainage have changed the situation ; while the water used to be carried away, now it percolates into the porous soil, and yet Mad River carries more water into the Big Miami than any other tributary. In his study of the - 75 - 76 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY streams of Clark County, Dean C. G. Shatzer has discovered 105 sites once occupied by mills, and while the ruins of some remain others are known to have existed. There were saw mills, grist mills, wagon shops, blacksmith shops and distilleries at frequent intervals along Mad River. The Shawnees were governed in naming Mad River by the character of its water—turbulent stream, Mad River, and it flowed with such velocity that it afforded unexcelled water power ; the fall in the stream as it crosses Clark County is from 8 to 10 feet every mile, and the power to turn the machinery was available at many points, the term mill site now almost obsolete in the study of economic problems. The Shawnees built their wigwams along Mad River, because they liked its turbulent flow ; it suggested to them the anger of the Great Spirit, and being a warrior tribe its malevolent attitude suited them. The settlers had the same idea ; they spoke of the Mad River countryside as a synonym of the heart's desire, and Mad River and Bethel townships which are separated by it are the earliest settled portions of Clark County. While Mad River is an interpretation of the Shawnee word Athe-ne-sepe, the soft Indian language may have its distinct mission ; while one interpretation is "flat or smooth stone," the velocity of the stream would have that effect. In one of the Clark County books, an Ode to Mad River reads : "The rivers how they run Through woods, and meads and shade and sun, Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, Wave succeeding wave they go, A various journey to the deep, Like human life in endless sleep." Buck or Lagonda Creek joins Mad River west from Springfield, having absorbed Beaver Creek on the other side of the city ; it is said the Shawnees used the word Lagonda, and While the meaning may not be different is more euphonious, and has been combined with other names, as Lagonda Chapter D. A. R., Lagonda Club, Lagonda Bank and Lagonda Hotel. At least twenty mill sites have been located on this stream. It is a swift running stream, and when strangers are shown Buck Creek they inquire about Lagonda. There was beautiful scenery along Lagonda in its wild state, and the unbroken limestone cliffs on either side were covered with cedars, ferns, mosses, flowers and trailing vines. The grape vine hung from the stately trees on the margin of the stream, and dipped its tendrils in its placid waters ; the sycamore bent its protecting boughs over its banks, while the sugar maple and hackberry towered above the dogwood, red bud, pawpaw, spicewood and other small growth lining the stream. "Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight," and make Lagonda beautiful again. While Mad River and the Little Miami drain different sections of Clark County, the general trend of the water courses is to the south and southwest, the lowest point in the county being found in Mad River Township, where it is only 325 feet above the low water mark on the Ohio at Cincinnati. It is said there is fishing in the Little Miami whenever the water is not frozen, and while it leaves the county and comes back again at Clifton, through a gorge there the current is so swift that SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 77 promoters have considered utilizing it in the manufacture of power ; it would be accessible to different cities, but the volume of water is the question. The scenery is beautiful, and power created there would be and advantage to Clif ton. While the waters of Honey Creek leave Clark County on the west, tributary to Mad River are : Muddy Run, Mud Creek, Donnels Creek, Jackson Creek, Miller Creek, Mill Creek, and Buck Creek which through its principal tributary Beaver Creek receives the water from Sinking Creek and smaller streams, and nothing is said about a water shed in Clark County. There is a Rocky Run, Dry Run and Chapman's Creek, and drainage is not the perplexing problem—fall may be had, and parts of the county do not require artificial drainage at all. Until the late '30s there were few bridges across the streams in Clark County, those of primitive style not remaining long, but in 1837 there was a bridge over Mad River west of Springfield, and in 1838 there was a bridge at Donnelsville. Some of the early type of covered bridges are still seen both east and west from Springfield, and the Golden Arch seems to be a permanent thing over Rocky Run. When there were no bridges, people forded the streams or crossed in ferries, and drownings were reported frequently. The settlers knew all about the grappling hooks that were left in houses along the streams, and narrow escapes from drowning were the startling stories told by the pioneers. Swollen streams did not deter travelers, and adventure was part of the plan in developing the country. An old account says : "Directly through Springfield runs another stream, small, but swift and unfailing," and while Mill Run is now only a sewer, someone said : "The beautiful little rivulet, Mill Run, glided smoothly through the town, dividing it into two sections, the east from the west ; there was a small valley through which the stream flowed, and on the west side were two brick, seven frame and many log houses. The west bank of the run for several rods back was an exceedingly muddy and miry place. In crossing Mill Run into the east part of Springfield, it was necessary to wade mud and mire, cross the stream on a foot log and climb the steep bank on the east side. There were more houses on the east side, but as on the west they were principally built of logs." The pedestrian on Main Street would have difficulty locating Mill Run, although it was once an uncontrolled stream and a terror to the community. In 1819 two Irishmen named Andrew and Frederick Johnson took the contract from the owners of the swampy land abutting Mill Run to ditch and drain it. They rendered this portion of the town passable for man and beast. It was no uncommon occurrence for the stream to overflow and flood Market Square, and small boats would ply the street in the vicinity of the Esplanade. Sometimes people were driven from their homes by Mill Run floods, and they were often water bound in them. Because it was a constant menace to property and human safety, in 1877, the Springfield City Council arched Mill Run from the site of the Arcade, then the Whitely, Fassler and Kelly plant, through the business center, and the stranger who notes the flow into Buck Creek by an abbatoir between Fountain and Wittenberg avenues must be told of Mill Run to know of its existence. This arch is eighteen feet wide and nine feet high, and was constructed at a cost of $19,669.90, the city paying $582.44, and the property owners benefited by it paying the remainder. It 78 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY improved conditions in the neighborhood marked by Main, Jefferson, Market and Center streets. While its light is now "under a bushel," Mill Run once furnished the power for machine shops and factories ; it had the necessary fall, and as many as a dozen industries had their motive power from its swift flowing current. Mill Run reached Buck Creek through projecting rocks covered with hanging vines, reaching down and forming a curtain to the chasm. It was taller than a man's head, and under one side of the cascade was a stream flowing from an aperture. It was a strong current of remarkably cold water with the flavor of the water at Yellow Springs, and it deposited a similar sediment, but the progressive age destroyed the surrounding beauty. From blasting of the rocks the spring water disappeared, and while Cliff Park is an attraction, the wild beauty of that locality is gone forever. CHAPTER X AGRICULTURE : THE WORLD'S OLDEST OCCUPATION The fact remains unquestioned that the civilization of any country does not advance more rapidly than does its agriculture. The pioneers found that the chemical analysis of Clark County soil required a mixture of elbow grease and industry—a startling fact, yet nevertheless true, if they were to dig their living from it. The woodman with his ax, and the Irishman with his spade, entered into the wilderness question of economics. In discussing the early citizens, one writer says : "They left their homes in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky and settled in the wilderness of the Northwest Territory, where they built their humble cabin homes and cleared the forests, under conditions that required heroic courage and great physical endurance." Another writer adds : "Scarcely had the State of Ohio been formed and received into the Union, when a crowd of adventurers flocked into its bounds, and located themselves in places that seemed attractive to them ;" while another writes : "It is the poor and hard-working element that seeks a home in a new country. We find the pioneer generally poor but robust, with an energy which labor increases, and with an endurance that seems to baffle all opposing forces." Some more optimistic writer says : "There is a fascination in recalling the times, scenes and actors in life's drama of the pioneer period. The greater part of the goods transported from the eastern settlements were brought over the Allegheny Mountains on pack horses. The first year's subsistence had to be carried that way, and salt was packed hundreds of miles to meet the wants of the settlers. It was sold to them from $6 to $10 a bushel. Some of them brought their horses, cows and hogs, and seeds for planting. Sometimes they carried vegetables and shrubbery, and they soon created the atmosphere of home about them. No roads were laid out west of Pittsburgh, and but few wagons could find their way over the mountains, and through the unbroken wilderness. However, the very early settlers in Clark County came from Kentucky. With only a few exceptions the Mad River Colony were all Kentuckians." An early writer says : "Roads were soon made, and rough log bridges spanned the smaller streams ; the rivers had their ferries, and country or general stores began to put in an appearance. They kept a little of everything, but it was always articles of necessity, as hats, caps, boots, shoes, chains, wedges, pots and kettles, and all that is duplicated in Clark County history. While the Ordinance of 1787 made local history a possibility, and it has been described by one writer as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and impressed upon the soil while it bore nothing but the American forest, space does not allow of further study outside the bounds of Springfield and Clark County. In the public and in many private libraries are copies of Howe's "History of Ohio" in two volumes ; Whitelaw Reid in two volumes, and Randall and Ryan in five volumes, and some of the older single volume histories, and the general history of Ohio is found in them. - 79 - 80 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY THE WILD LANDS From 1801 to 1809 the settlers represent Clark County as a beautiful country. In the area north of Springfield for fourteen miles upon land that was later covered with thick timber, there were not enough poles to have made hoops for a meat cart. In 1810, Griffith Foos at his hostelry in Springfield, entertained James Smith who had been in the vicinity may years earlier with the Indians, and he described the country to the north and east as prairies, saying he had started up buffalo and elk there. There is mention of Smith as a visitor among the settlers on Mad River. Mr. Foos described the same land as almost destitute of timber—an undulating plain covered with grass and a variety of wild flowers ; there was a species of wild peas with fragrant blossoms. In this tract pasture was abundant, and the cattle fed on it. The time came when this same area consisted of a forest of large trees with no undergrowth, and it was a well sodded country. Beyond Mad River was an unbroken forest with trees in great variety, and where not choked with undergrowth, it was a well sodded country. Prof. Edward Orton describes the hard wood forests, listing oak, maple, white hickory and burr oak, saying there were once 200,000 acres of timber in Clark County. Query : What became of it? An old account says Springfield was a poor timber market, and the settlers "wagoned" to Dayton with it. At the time Mad River was lined with milling and distilling establishments, and Springfield had not yet asserted itself as a city. There were very large poplar trees west from Mad River, and pump makers liked poplar for well stocks ; it did not discolor or embitter the water. S. S. Miller tells of a mammoth poplar that f ell across the road, saying that a twelve-foot section had to be sawed off to allow of travel, and by eye-measure it was six feet in diameter. In the old days of down timber, how to get rid of it was the settler's problem. Since there was no market for it, there were log rollings and thousands of trees were burned in order that the ground might be cleared and turned to some profit. When Springfield began to expand and utilize such material, it was only a memory along Mad River. Oak, walnut, ash and poplar were utilized in building, and there is much valuable walnut in the inside finish of the older houses today. The great forests were a standing menace to progress in agriculture ; they must be destroyed and give place to the cultivated fields, and in some instances the land was worn out before the stumps had all disappeared from it. The settler did not use dynamite in removing stumps but plowed around them. The farm boy knew what it meant to be struck on the shins with a root cut off by the plow. It required skill to manipulate a plow and team, and usually the father had to break the new ground himself. There was an era of leasing and clearing and making farms, and log rollings and the whisky jug were part of the transformation. The dinner was cooked before the fire on the hearth, and prior to 1850 there were few cookstoves in the rural homes; the grandmothers prepared delicacies unknown today. While the settler cut off the forest as cumbering the ground, the careful husbandman of today resorts to tree surgery and reforestation, processes unknown to the generation that went into the forest with the ax. Tree surgery is recognized as the lasting way to preserve rare trees, and the trees demolished by storm are restored. A man-made menace is SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 81 an improperly trimmed tree, and that is an art unknown to those who came into the primitive forest. It is worse than the nature-made danger in the shape of a tall forest which catches all of the winds ; the trees untrimmed have more resistance. With reference to the advance of civilization in Clark County some one writes : "Unfold the canvas and look upon the changing panoramic scene. One sees a wild of fine timber and a swift flowing stream. The Indian settles ; the nobler game flees away, and yet deer and wolf abound ; then the settler comes and raises his log cabin, the fields are cleared and tilled. Look again and you note the growth of a beautiful and thriving city, and such is Springfield. When nature and human skill combine they produce the mid-day glories of the later civilization." While native timber was once used in building, with the passing of the years changes are noted. When the primitive supply was exhausted, there was demand for white pine and hemlock and the forests of Michigan furnished the supply, but dealers must range farther and wider for lumber today ; yellow and white pine from California are now being used by local builders. While walnut was once used so extensively, it has vanished with the passing years. Beside timber from the western coast, the Springfield market handles lumber from Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. What once went up in smoke on the Clark County clearings would amount to a snug fortune today. CHARCOAL A LOCAL PRODUCT In the reminiscences of S. S. Miller is the story of how a charcoal pit was filled and burned, and otherwise it is a forgotten industry. He says the logs were placed on dry brush, and covered with green limbs to prevent the earth from falling between them ; a hole was left at one end for firing and dry wood was used there. The settler had a shed near the coal pit with straw for his bed, and one would sleep while another watched the fire which had to be kept at uniform heat in order to properly char the logs. Sometimes spits of fire would come through the dirt covering the pit, and it was necessary to smother it with more dirt ; there was busy work at times for the man who burned a pit of charcoal. There came a time when there was not such prodigal waste of timber in burning charcoal, and four-foot wood was stood on end with tapering courses above the bottom round, and the pile was covered with dirt, smoldering the blaze in order to char it. The coal pit described by Mr. Miller was burned in 1837 on land later owned by the Keif ers and once the home of Gen. J. Warren Keifer on Mad River. It was then a virgin forest except one-half acre that was occupied by a cabin. This cabin had been occupied by a shoemaker named Fair, and a leather latch string hung out of his door. When civilization was approaching too near him, and he became tired of such cramped quarters—a coal pit so near him, he went west—that word then meaning to Indiana. He had several grownup sons and wanted to better conditions for himself and family. When his household goods were packed into the wagon drawn by two small horses, the dog tied underneath the wagon and the cow to the hind axle, Mr. Fair was unable to fasten an arm chair to the end of the load with a bed cord, so that it would ride over the feed trough, and when a drizzling rain began a neighbor offered him a Spanish dollar Vol. I-6 82 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY for it. It was used by Mr. Miller's grandfather until he died in 1844, and was later treasured as a relic by relatives. When the Fairs left this cabin by the coal pit the Widow Icenbarger, who sold homemade ginger bread and beer in Springfield, sent some of her children there—six of whom were boys, and they secured work among the farmers. They chopped off much of the timber, and in corn planting, husking and harvest they were useful in the community. In time the cabin was too small for them, and they went to Stillwater in Miami County. As civilization advanced, there has ever been those who, like Simon Kenton, went into the new country again. While clearing was part of the process, deadening was an earlier stage. A deadening was a woeful scene. By girdling the trees with an ax in the fall, the leaves would not come again, and much of it was done to lessen the labor of clearing the land. It was urged by some that deadening the timber conserved soil fertility. There were saw mills along Mad River, and some of the smaller streams, and poplar was cut into weather-boarding, ash into flooring, and walnut was used for inside finish and making cupboards. There were three-cornered walnut cupboards in many pioneer homes. Walnut was also used by carpenters in making coffins. Then, as now, all ages and conditions were represented in the passing throng to that bourne from which there are no returned travelers. Walnut was used for the inside finish of the Clark County Court House, and it was much admired. For many years its high price as well as scarcity has been prohibitive of its use by carpenters. Sugar maple was used by cabinetmakers for the posts and rails of bedsteads, beech was used for sheathing on buildings. While the large elms remained the longest,. they were the best for charcoal. The hickories and walnuts afforded nuts, and there was some reward for roaming in the forest. When the leaves were on the sky was hidden, and the varieties of the trees is one of the mysteries. THE SUGAR—MAKING INDUSTRY In an ordinary season the settlers began tapping sugar trees in February. It required cold nights, followed by sunshiny days to bring the sap into the trees. Elder stalks were procured from the fence corners and cleared spots and brought into the house where they were sawed into the length for sugar spiles—usually about ten inches. One side was whittled away and the pith removed from the elders. About two inches at one end was left circular, and the pith was pushed out of it. A three-quarter inch auger was used in boring holes into the trees, and the end of the elder was whittled so as to fit into this hole, and through it the sap flowed into a receptacle for it. Unless broken while inserting or removing them from the trees, these spiles were used one year after another, and it saved the trouble of making them so often. Sugar troughs were made from butternut trees, or poplar cut into three-foot lengths, and split and dug out with an ax. These troughs were smoothed with a foot adz, and were sometimes used as cradles. Some of the most prominent families used sugar troughs in which to cradle their children ; being half round they did not require the addition of rockers. In different camps there were different methods of handling the sugar water. The iron kettles used in heating the water for scalding hogs on butchering day, for heating the milk in which ren- SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 83 net was used for coagulation in making cheese, in which lye was boiled in making soap, or in which water was heated on wash day—those iron kettles served the purpose again in the sugar camp. Settlers were accommodating, and sometimes the soap-making kettle was loaned to others in sugar-making time. Who has not heard the riddle: "Black upon black, and black upon brown, Three legs up and six legs down ?" It was a negro astride a brown horse, bringing home the neighbor's iron kettle on his head in sugar-making time. A furnace was built in the sugar camp with a shelter over it, and usually it was necessary to overhaul it at sugar-making time. It was daubed with clay, and more mud must be mixed and added to it. Dry wood was sometimes stored under this shelter to be in readiness for boiling the sap another season. A series of kettles was placed on the furnace, and as the sugar water thickened from boiling it was dipped from one kettle to another, and fresh sap started in the end kettle. Usually the kettles graded smaller as the sap neared the consistency of molasses ; it must be boiled longer bef ore it is sugar. Those who date back to sugar-making days in Clark County also remember the wax-pulling parties in connection with it. Unless care was used, sugar water boiled over easily, and not only wasted the water and the labor, but put out the fire used in the process. Sometimes the careful housewife went to the sugar camp herself, thus averting such misfortune. Men and boys knew long hours of service in sugar-making. A sled was used in drawing the sap from the trees to the furnace, and unless a spigot had been put into the barrel, there was heavy lifting in emptying the sugar water. It required a well-trained horse in drawing the sled, or there was waste in transit, the sap splashing from the barrels. A circular lid inside the barrel did much to save the water. Unless there was a spigot, buckets were used in emptying the barrels at the furnace, and fresh kettles were started frequently. Sometimes a barrel or immense hogshead was used for storage when the water was collected faster than it could be boiled in the kettles. Sap would run for a few hours, and then there would be no more sap until after a hard frost. There were no sugar camps east of Mad River in Clark County. Sometimes the sugar-making process was finished in the camp, and sometimes the thickened sap was taken to the house and the boiling continued there, the kettle suspended from a crane in the fireplace. The housewife tested the finished product when molasses was desired by the way a spoonful poured into a cup of water would crackle, and when it was wanted for sugar it was cooked a little longer to insure granulation ; the pioneer depended upon homemade sugar. According to the S. S. Miller reminiscence, it was necessary to conceal the location of the sugar. In his own home the sugar was stored in a barrel in the attic. In those days the use of tea and coffee was limited to Sunday or when there were visitors, and then sugar was placed on the table. Although it was dark, homemade sugar sweetened the dip made from milk or cream, and poured over the apple dumplings so common among the settlers. When there was a surplus of maple sugar it went on the market at from 4 to 8 cents a pound, and the syrup sold from 35 to 50 cents a 84 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY gallon. One Springfield grocer laid in a supply of the syrup, being told that it would keep till harvest ; the syrup fermented and the dealer "soured," the investment being a loss to him. Sometimes a maple tree standing alone where it was exposed to the sun, afforded the first flow of sap and the family had homemade molasses in advance of opening the sugar camp ; the time came when supplies for operating the camp could be had in the stores, and then came the time when there were few sugar camps in Clark County. When dug-outs were used in which to catch the sap conveyed through elder spiles, it was necessary to balance the troughs to save the water ; later metal spiles were on the market, and sugar buckets were stored from one year to another, and there were tricks in flavoring the homemade syrup. Maple molasses has been made with hickory bark flavor, and the epicure was unable to detect it. It is said the sugar-making process was known to the Indians ; they used the stone hatchet to make the opening into the trees, and conducted the sap through bark spouts to the bark troughs, where they dropped the heated stones in boiling the sap. While the crude methods of the Indians were improved upon by the settlers, the process was unchanged, and only a few years ago Ohio produced a million dollars worth annually of maple molasses and maple sugar ; the 1910 report showed that $5,000,000 worth of maple products were produced in the United States. In modern sugar camps the sap is boiled in evaporating pans and passes automatically along—sap running in at one end and the finished molasses running out at the other, but the flavor and fragrant odor have not been improved since sugar camps were the order of the day west of Mad River in Clark County. The expert Clark County sugar maker stirred the syrup until it granulated—sampling it frequently, and finally it found its way into barrels, only small quantities removed at a time, in the Delftware bowls of other years—but the swiftly passing years have changed the whole economic process and few today remember the sugar camps and the old fashioned wax pulling parties. Backward, turn backward, oh time in your flight. THE SORGHUM INDUSTRY As the country expanded a change came over the sugar-making industry, the cane juice of warmer climates being substituted for the maple sap, and John Foos and others cast their fortunes with the Louisiana cane growing industry ; they had the capital and the machinery to crush and refine it, making a light brown sugar shipped out in barrels to dealers, but because it dried out rapidly grocers had difficulty with the weighing and lost money handling it. When the Louisiana sugar was shipped to Springfield, the barrels were left standing on the sidewalks, and the bees were attracted to it. Sorghum was once extensively raised by the farmers in German Township, and the molasses was on the Springfield market at 75 cents a gallon. The seeds of the cane made good chicken feed, and the blades were used as f odder ; in the middle '60s there was a Leffel sorghum mill, and one year when sorghum molasses retailed at $1 a gallon in Springfield, Joseph Leffel realized $200 from two acres of cane ; he used horse power for crushing, and it is said there would be more cane grown if there were more mills for grinding it, and furnaces for boiling the juice ; while sorghum has been used for sweetening, it is not a sub- SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 85 stitute for sugar. The Leffel sorghum mill was south from Springfield near a spring, and since then John L. Zimmerman acquired the land and erected an ornamental summer house at the spring. Contemporary with the Leffel cane mill, the Rev. Abraham Myers who married into the Leffel family, operated a sorghum mill near Donnelsville, utilizing the water in Mad River for power ; he was a graduate of Wittenberg College. Later the Leffels became interested in turbine water wheels, and turned their attention to bigger things than the sorghum making industry. While some of the early day sugar camps west of Mad River had as many as 500 trees, and the camps were opened every year, there is little sugar making in Clark County today. It is said that when timber of one variety has been removed, and the ground is left idle, it will become covered with other varieties ; the birds transport seeds, and in one way or another nature always clothes its nakedness. While sugar trees were numerous west from Mad River, east from the stream were the different kinds of oak and hickory—varieties suitable for buggy spokes, and other articles requiring tough wood, but aye, the woodman and his ax have rendered those ancient conditions as a story that is told in the annals of Clark County today. ANOTHER BY-PRODUCT OF THE FOREST Just as in the spring the young man's fancy turns to love, the pioneer woman made the soap to be used in her household for the succeeding twelvemonth, and it was demonstrated again that "beauty draws smoke." While ash-hoppers were of various patterns, one was made from barrel staves or clapboards slanted from a dug-out or sugar trough used to catch the lye as it was leached through wood ashes ; this hopper was square at the top, the staves being three or f our feet in length, and at the end of the trough an iron kettle was usually partly sunk into the ground to catch the lye as it treacled through the ashes ; in order to secure their full strength, the ashes were dampened several days bef ore enough water was poured into the hopper to produce the flow of lye. ,The pioneer home soap-maker tested the strength of the lye by dropping a fresh egg into the kettle; if it floated, the lye was of the proper strength to cut the grease, and soap-making began in earnest. The same iron kettle used on butchering day was again utilized, the soap being made at the same place near the wood pile where the housewife could find chips to add to the blaze, when she wanted the soap to boil a little stronger ; the wind was always changing and blowing the smoke in her face—thus the saying, beauty draws smoke. The refuse from butchering, and the meat rinds saved from the kitchen, constituted the soap grease, and when the lye was strong it did not require long cooking to make soap ; a little salt added to the soap caused it to harden, and then it was fancy to be used on Sunday ; usually it was soft soap, made for the home laundry. If the Indians knew the art of soap making, history is silent about it. They did not wear much clothing, and their ablutions were in the streams. S. S. Miller writes : "Springfield once had a soap factory located below the rocks on the south side of Buck Creek, a few rods west of where Mill Run, the town's storm water stream poured over the rocks ; it was operated by Mark Smith. As wood ashes were easily procured, and grease from the nearby slaughter houses, he did a thriving business ; 86 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY he made two kinds of soap, and the common soap was packed in boxes containing 100 bars which was wholesaled to grocers, and retailed at 5 cents a bar." Smith also made a scented soap used for the hands and face, and while he made a success, Springfield has no soap factory today. While soap is mentioned in the Bible, it is only in the Old Testament. When wood ashes were no longer possible, soap making became a lost art in Clark County. However, careful housewives have methods of using up soap grease, although out-of-door soap making and ash-hoppers went the way of the world along with the grandmothers who understood such things. OHIO THE BUCKEYE STATE Why is Ohio called the Buckeye State? William M. Farrar says: "The usual and most commonly accepted solution is that it originates from the buckeye tree," but it is found in Kenutcky, Indiana and in West Virginia, and perhaps elsewhere ; its natural locality appears to be in Ohio, and its native soil in the rich valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto and Miami rivers ; in the early settlement of the state it was found in abundance, and because of the luxuriance of its foliage, the richly colored dyes of its fruit, and its ready adaptation to the wants and the conveniences of the pioneers, it was highly prized by them for many useful purposes. It was also well known to and much prized by the Indians, from whose rude language comes its name, Hetuck, meaning the eye of the buck because of the striking resemblance in color and shape between the brown nut and the eye of that animal, the peculiar spot upon the one corresponding to the iris in the other." Mr. Farrar adds : "In its application, however, we have reversed the term and called the person or thing to which it is applied a buckeye." It seems that the all-inclusive word Buckeye means all things to everybody, and in his "Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio," published in 1884, Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, says : "Colonel Ebenezer Sproat who had been appointed sheriff, opened the first court ever held in Ohio, September 2, 1788, marching with his drawn sword and wand of office at the head of the judges, governors and secretary, made an imposing and august spectacle. Mr. Sproat was a large and dignified looking gentleman, and he was at once christened by the large crowd of Indian spectators as `Hetuck,' or 'Big Buckeye.' From this, no doubt, originated the name of 'Buckeye,' now applied to the natives of Ohio, as the phrase was familiar to all the early settlers of Marietta." While the buckeye tree is not limited to Ohio soil, residents of other states have their own local designations, and Clark County residents, may so designate .themselves with equal propriety as the inhabitants of any other Ohio county. Webster says: "A cant name for a native of Ohio." CHAPTER XI THE PROGRESS OF CLARK COUNTY AGRICULTURE While all industries are essential to civilization, in the countries where the methods of agriculture are crude there is not much progress along any line of development ; the stranger who rides along the well improved highways of Clark County today in the modern touring car, is hardly cognizant of the fact that only yesterday very different conditions existed in this country. In writing about some waste land several centuries ago, the "Shepherd of the Hills" rather accurately describes the territory ceded by the American Indians to the United States Government, through the direct instrumentality of Gen. Anthony Wayne ; in a dissertation on wilderness conditions, barrenness and standing water, the Psalmist David caught the vision of the Old Northwest, when he penned the words : "He turneth the wilderness into standing water. * * * And there He maketh the hungry to dwell that they may prepare a city for habitation ; and sow the fields and plant vineyards which may yield fruit. * * * He blessed them also that they are multiplied greatly." If there was a time when the Northwest Territory was submerged, as scientists assert, and huge blocks of ice traveled slowly down from the north, nature later shaking off the chill and allowing the heart of the earth to grow warm when the loosened ice ridges broke away, and the smitten waters flashed—well, Mad River seems to be the explanation. THE OLD ROUTINE While the theory of crop rotation is being studied today, the old idea of agriculture was to raise more corn and hogs in order to buy more land on which to raise more corn and hogs ; it was an endless chain theory that caused some men to become land poor before methods of intensive farming had claimed attention. Progress and improvement are more rapid now than at any time in the history of the world, and it is undeniable that agriculture is keeping pace with other industries. It is the fundamental occupation and all others are dependent upon it. An old account says : "One of the peculiarities of the earlier times was the varied development, and the marked individuality among men ; every little community had its distinguished men," and that still holds good in Clark County agriculture. Of the settlers along Mad River it seems that David Lowry who came into the community as a member of a surveying party, and secured a choice bit of land there, lingered longest ; the Lowry farm is known to posterity. When Lowry came in 1796, the area now covered by Springfield was a plum tree and hazel brush thicket ; while there was a thick undergrowth, the woods were full of bears, deer, wild turkeys and other wild game valued by the Indians as well as the settlers, who were hunters from necessity. In one year Mr. Lowry and Jonathan Donnel, who were associated in wilderness history, killed seventeen bears and 1,000 deer, and their venture in shipping venison hams is elsewhere related. It is said that Mr. Lowry once shot a bear and two - 87 - 88 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY cubs in the space of three minutes. The above story is given to posterity by R. C. Woodward, who admits that many similar stories were told to him by Lowry and others. Had Mr. Woodward, who published "Springfield Sketches" in 1852, written down more of those adventures—hunting excursions and swimming swollen streams, he would have done in a particular way .for Clark County what Henry Howe did in a general way for the whole State of Ohio. While Mr. Lowry was not a squatter ahead of the survey, he secured what he wanted, and was among the first to leave his mark in the wilderness. The brawny settler had activities before him, and when he had forty acres of cleared land he had made great progress. In the '20s and '30s, now a full century ago, there were many improvements and still Clark County farmers "wagoned" to Cincinnati ; they had a little home market, and there was a city of 15,000 inhabitants who must be fed. When the families lived two, three and four miles apart, there was little social intercourse—borrowed fire in extremities, and gradually they "grew up with the country." In explaining boundaries and farms, it is said the settlers secured what they wanted and in the shape they wanted it, and later the surveyors allowed them to maintain their possessions, surveying around them and officials find the original surveys confusing. Isaac Newton. Seever who since 1876 has been a surveyor in Clark County, relates that the compass used by Symmes and later by Ludlow was finally owned by Thomas Kizer. The 1881 History says : "Col. Thomas Kizer, the veteran surveyor, has in his possession a compass made by Dean of Philadelphia ; this instrument was owned and used by his father, David Kizer, who obtained it from Col. John Daugherty About 1813. Daugherty got it from Jonathan Donnel ; this relic is marked : I. Ludlow, 1791 ; Henry Donnel, 1794 ; J. Donnel, 1796, and John Daugherty, 1799. These marks are rudely scratched upon the cover of the instrument, and bear every evidence of being genuine. There is no doubt but this old compass was used in making the first surveys in this county, or that it is the identical instrument used by John Daugherty in laying off Demint's plat of Springfield, and by Jonathan Donnel on the survey of New Boston." Cornerstone and witness trees are part of early history, and Mr. Seever is familiar with them through doing private as well as public surveying through many years. When asked about Devils Lanes, he only remembered one, and it was in Mad River Township ; it did not exist many years. Two men did not agree, and each constructed his own line fence between them ; they would not join each other in building it. At existing prices of fence building materials, most men would settle their differences rather than build separate fences. This lane was in the locality known as Kill-digging, although Mr. Seever did not know the origin of the term ; it was well timbered country and the timber in Kill-digging once almost skirted Springfield. AT PREEMPTION PRICES The bulk of the Snyder farm property which has benefited Springfield and Clark County in so many ways, was acquired in 1827 when land was rated at $1.25 an acre ; the heirs to the property held it until Springfield advanced, and land values advanced with it, and those who SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 89 "came early and got plenty," became the wealthy citizens. "While they endured the privations with which they were encompassed with heroic fortitudes, and a patience which exalted them, those old time heroes and heroines could get the necessaries of life at a good deal less cost than their favored children and grandchildren, and there was any quantity of land available at government price, $1.25 an acre, and excellent swamp land all but the swamp at 25 cents an acre with twelve months' time and county warrants at par," but time has worked changes—not much swamp land in Clark County. While a recent Springfield advertisement reads : A country home plus cows, pigs, poultry, fruits and vegetables equals solid contentment and an assured good living, regardless of employment conditions in the city, there are Clark County farmers who feel differently about it. The ad says : Many former Springfield residents are now living in the country and enjoying the use of fresh milk, cream, eggs, poultry, pork, lard, vegetables, fruits, etc. Some of them work in the city when employment is to be had, while others devote their time to producing a surplus to sell ; reports from all over America signify a "back to the farm" movement. Why not join the crowd, and be in the country when the joyous spring invites the flowers and the buds for your entertainment? It is a pretty sentiment : "Under the snowdrifts the blossoms are sleeping, Dreaming their dreams of sunshine and June." but farm folk know there is more connected with rural activities than just awaiting the developing processes of nature. Statistics show that of the 2,487 farms in Clark County, 1,534 of them are operated by families who own and live on them, leaving a balance of 953 farms to be operated by tenants, although an increase in the percentage of rented farms in Ohio within the twentieth century is noted by the census reports. In 1900, tenants occupied 27.4 per cent of the farm lands in the state, while in 1920 it was 29.5, showing an increase of 2.1 per cent of tenant farmers in twenty years, but the percentage would be greater in Clark County ; when the man operating the farm owns it, he is interested in its development, as well as in the roads and schools surrounding it. Some of the wealthiest farmers in Clark County began on rented land, when they were unable to buy it ; some who bought land since the era of inflated values are not so fortunate as those who invested bef ore the World war, and had the advance in the value of farm products in paying for it. As their flocks increased and their herds multiplied, they met their payments, while those who paid the higher prices have had to meet their land payments with declining markets. Corn, beef and pork were profitable products, and Clark County farmers had their part in feeding the world. Diversified farming is recognized as a necessity, and there is income from different sources and at different times. It is said that on some farms the mistake has been made of too much expenditure in elegant homes, and when the farm goes to a tenant he seldom requires so much shelter. It is said to be a Pennsylvania idea that a good barn helps to build the necessary house, while an expensive house built first does not help build the barn ; care of livestock and the grain produced is possible when barn room is provided, and the revenue is from the farm products. 90 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY The time to buy land is on the decline of the market, but the time to sell farm products is on the rising market, and the barn enables the farmer to take advantage of conditions. While a number of Clark County farms have been acquired through the succession of heritage, current expenses must be met and there are some local examples where the fortune has not been exhausted in the third generation. It is said there are only two generations between shirt sleeves, but there is no inherent reason why the third generation should let go of the fortune. While some Clark County land may only have changed ownership by inheritance, the future will tell the story. While the acreage in Clark County is rated at 260,480, something is to be counted out for the towns and the waste land, and the 1920 census report places the tillable land at 241,540 acres ; since the 1910 census estimate the tillable land at 241,631 acres, there is a loss of ninety-one acres ; what is the explanation ? In 1900 the acreage under cultivation was 240,903, but that allows for clearing and bringing more land under cultivation. Sometimes the fence rows offer the explanation, the farmer losing ground to the unrestrained growth of briers and bushes, but that would hardly creep into the United States Census report. The value of farm property in 1920 was $42,962,095, which was an advance of $15,758,015 in ten years, and since the 1900 census quoted Clark County farm values at $16,930,454, the advance in twenty years of $26,031,641, throws some light on the economic problem—the high cost of living, which is usually attributed to the World war. Beside operating their own land, 115 Clark County land owners rent other farm land, and sixty-one farms were operated by managers, and in some instances the owner lives in town and hires the labor on the farm, managing it himself. Some one remarked: "Now that every acre is utilized in pasture or cultivated crops, it is hard to reconcile the fact that only a generation ago some of it was outside pasture ; now somebody utilizes every foot of it." A recent newspaper squib reads : "If Ohio keeps on in the way she is now going—and has been going for the last twenty years—it will not be long until we begin to read about 'abandoned Buckeye farms,' just as we have long been hearing of 'deserted New England farms.' " "There is less improved farm land in Ohio today than there was a score of years ago ; and there is getting to be less every year. In 1900, according to the census report, there were 19,244,472 acres of improved land under cultivation, used for pasture and covered by farm buildings ; in 1910 the acreage had decreased to 19,227,969, showing a shrinkage of 16,506 acres, while in 1920 it had shrunk to 18,542,353 acres, showing that in twenty years more than 700,000 acres already wrested from the forests of Ohio has been allowed to revert to brier-grown waste. In Clark County the conditions are different, in twenty years there being 639 acres additional although a decline of ninety-one acres was shown in the last ten years. In 1900 it was estimated that Ohio had 4.6 acres of cleared land to support each inhabitant, while the last census shows 3.2 acres, another potent explanation of the advance in the price of commodities. THE DAIRY FARMER The law of supply and demand still controls the situation, and with more consumers and fewer productive acres, there is but one possible SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 91 result—the higher cost of everything. The 1920 census shows the income of Clark County farmers as follows : from dairy products, $1,011,766, while the total value of dairy cattle is placed at $1,082,942, and beef cattle valued at $516,376. The receipts from hogs were $1,085,375, and from sheep $194,000, showing the bulk of the income to be from the cattle industry. At the 1922 annual meeting of the Springfield Milk Producers' Association with more than 100 members present, all were united in demanding better prices from the milk dealers ; it was decided to change from semi-annual to monthly meetings in order that the producers may better take care of their common interests ; they had been selling milk at a loss, and some were ready to abandon the business. At this meeting Harry Anderson was elected to succeed David F. Snyder as president. Five delegates were elected to meet with the Miami Valley Milk Producers' Association, and W. N. Scarff reported a conference with authorities at Ohio State University with reference to the milk producing situation in Clark County. Mr. Scarff was advised at the University that Clark County milk producers should establish a distributing station in order to take care of the surplus product and Mr. Snyder told of his own activities in urging legislation in favor of the milk producers ; through the efforts of Ohio dairymen, favorable action was promised, and the Springfield association will continue its demands. Since farmers are balancing accounts and studying the cost of production, they are planning to be on the safe side—hence this agitation of the milk market question. Beside Mr. Anderson as president, the roster of the Springfield Milk Producers' Association is : C. W. Lawrence, vice president ; George Winwood, secretary, and Clark Crabill, treasurer. Since 1905 the association has functioned in Clark County. It was planned at the meeting to put on a membership campaign in an effort to enroll every milk producer in Clark County ; while there are 150 members, there are about 500 producers. President Anderson said: "It is our aim to secure 100 per cent membership in the association ; it will be a formidable one if every producer joins with us." The association values the service of W. H. Stackhouse, who was among 148 men summoned from all parts of the country by Secretary Wallace of the Department of Agriculture, to a conference on agriculture. While Mr. Stackhouse is not a farmer, he is a manufacturer of agricultural implements, and a former president of the National Association of Farm Equipment Manufacturers. Mr. Stackhouse had always favored farmers and the recognition given him at Washington reflects honor on Clark County. The milk producers are in favor of dairy inspection by public health officials, and they will use their own bottles, the dealers saying the average life of a bottle is about nine trips to a customer. Under a state law the use of bottles copyrighted by one firm by another is an infringement, on the same basis as the violation of laws protecting trade marks. Inspected dairies must show 70 per cent standard requirements, and score cards indicate the condition of the herds, barns and general sanitation. There is also a movement toward establishing a testing organization, to be known as the Clark County Cow Testing Association. Dean Ivan McKellip of Ohio State University explained the advantages, saying tests are made twice each month, and thus farmers may determine which are the valuable animals in their herds ; records are filed 92 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY at the university, and with the National Breeders' Association. The charter members of the Clark County Cow Testing Association are: Judge A. H. Kunkle, D. H. Olds, W. W. Garrison, Charles Hatfield, 0. E. Lohnes, Frank Snypp, Floyd Carter, Caleb Jones, Elias Driscoll, T. L. Calvert, William Nelson and Harry Croutwater. Some of the members of the organization have been testing cows for several months, and the new members began immediately. L. E. Valley of Ohio State University has been making tests and within a short time an association may be formed for daily tests. While bacteriology is not in all vocabularies, the mastery of bacteria is important to the health of the community. The Springfield milk distributors have official bacteriologists whose duty it is to detect and eliminate bacteria before the milk is delivered to consumers ; as an article of food, milk is most susceptible to the existence of disease germs. The study of bacteria in milk reveals some startling conditions. DEMANDS UPON THE INDIVIDUAL COW It is estimated by the Ohio Farm Bureau Association that each cow supplies milk, butter, cheese and other products for five human beings, beside nourishing her own offspring, and numerous pigs, chickens, cats and dogs ; even motherless lambs sometimes share her largess. Each cow has her dry period which varies from one to two months, and the careful dairyman as well as the average husbandman avoids having the cows all dry at one time. The pioneer mothers who knew nothing of the commercial butter colors, planned to have the cow turned into clover early; they liked to deliver yellow butter in Springfield. However, some of them lived to see the day when the whole milk was sold, and their supply of butter came from town. While the milking machine is not in general use in Clark County, most dairymen have installed it ; the expense of installation and the upkeep are taken into consideration. There is no longer any question about the use of separators, incubators and manure spreaders, and wherever milk is produced the silo has demonstrated its usefulness. In 1896 W. W. Hyslop of German Township installed the first silo in Clark County ; he used it sixteen years, and because it was not standing where he wanted it in changing his feeding plans, he used the lumber from it as flooring in the barn ; since then he has installed three other silos. While many were prejudiced against the silo until after it demonstrated its usefulness—among them W. N. Scarf, the day came when there were fifteen silos installed at White Oaks, and in a paper advocating the use of ensilage, Max M. Scarf relates that in 1882, according to a survey made by the Department of Agriculture, there were only ninety-two silos in use in the United States. Within forty years from that survey, there were 700,000 silos in use in the United States. When Clark County farmers first began discussing organization thirty years ago, they were beginning to hear of the wonderful feed, and now silos are scattered to the remote corners of the world. At White Oaks much forage other than corn is utilized in the silos, wild grass and weeds serving the purpose, cattle eating it with avidity. The paper as read before a meeting of the Horticultural society ends : "Let me impress again the fact that the silo is a necessity on the American farm today, and that the progressiveness of a man can SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 93 be told by the number and size of his silos." While Mr. Hyslop had the first silo in Clark County, he was also the first man in Ohio to use silage for beef production ; .he finds it an economy since all the corn is utilized, the composition different from the silage fed to dairy cows. It is said that Clark County farmers have a progressive attitude toward improvements ; the old methods were all right in their day, but advantages are being taken of invention ; expenses have advanced, and intensive methods are necessary. Under the old method of feeding and handling the dairy products, dairying would be unprofitable. Farmers never fed livestock on such fluctuating markets as since the World war, and the experiment stations are feeling the difficulty as well as the farmers. Clark County farmers are advised to study Pittsburgh rather than Chicago markets, the prize winners at the International Fat Stock Show being prepared specially for that market. The by-products and soil, fertility are two arguments in favor of livestock production on the farms of Clark County. Good cattle feeders are like artists and poets—they are born and not made—and a liking for it assures success. A well fed steer is a bulletin indicating the balanced ration, and the margin between the cost and the selling price—that is the essential thing. Give livestock what they want and when they want it, and there is little danger of over feeding; the expert judges an animal by the condition of its hair, and plenty of water is—well, profitable, if the buyer is due and the scales are in working order. A lick of salt creates the demand for water, and some farmers manage to secure good prices for aqua pura. A stockman came unexpectedly to the farm and had the coveted opportunity of seeing the steers on pasture. He would buy them from the field, but the astute farmer knowing the location of the water trough, engaged the attention of the buyer momentarily with his car. When he finally rounded up the steers the water had been lowered several inches, and he footed the bill for it. THE EDUCATED FARMER While pasture was plentiful and livestock found its own living in the forest not much attention was paid to it. In the evolution process, the time came when the land was considered too valuable for pasture, and "corn and hogs" was the solution of the difficulty ; the wheel turned again, 'and dairy farming was recognized as the profitable thing. While the women had quietly supported the family with the cows and the poultry, the "corn and hog" farmers requiring all their money with which to buy more land on which to raise more corn and hogs, and the pendulum swung again. Students from Ohio State University won first place in the collegiate livestock judging contest at the 1921 International Livestock Exposition, Chicago, the Ohio team scoring. 4,178 out of a possible 5,000 points, winning first honors in placing sheep and horses,, and showing knowledge of all domestic animals. Educators and agricultural experts lament the fact that the farm is unable to compete with the city in its allurements, but when farmer boys and girls have opportunities with livestock they enjoy it. There are schools of animal husbandry and household arts, and the young people are being educated back to the farm ; business men, bankers and farm leaders realize that helping farm boys and girls to solve their new and puzzling problems in agriculture is one of the most 94 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY effective means of building and strengthening a more dependable system of economics in America. A pioneer description of life reads : "We walked on dirt floors for carpets; we sat on stools or benches for chairs ; we ate on puncheon tables, and we had forked sticks and pocket or butcher knives for knives and forks ; we slept on bear, deer or buffalo skins before the fire, or sometimes on the ground in the open air for beds ; we had our saddles or saddle bags for pillows instead of pillows of feathers ; we had one suit of clothes of homespun which was ample for a year ; we crossed creeks and rivers without bridges or ferryboats ; of ten we swam them on horseback, or crossed on trees that had fallen over the streams; the above course of training is the college in which the settler graduated," and in contradistinction to the universities and colleges available to the rural families of today. No longer can the boy of the Clark County farm expect to succeed by driving his wagon in the rut made by his father, and an education that enables him to cope with changed conditions awaits him ; properly educating 11,000,000 boys and girls in order to render rural life more inviting is the task set before the extension workers of agricultural colleges, and the United States Department of Agriculture. CHAPTER XII DIVERSIFIED PRODUCTS OF AGRICULTURE From time "immemorial," the "tiller of the soil" has been advised against having "all his eggs in one basket," and the dairy farmer knows the economy of having a few hogs following the cattle on pasture. While it requires different fencing, "hog tight, horse high and bull strong" is the kind of fence needed on any farm where livestock is featured, and the last census shows that Clark County farmers receive an average revenue of $1,085,375 from swine, with many pure bred herds ; in an ode to the pig, some one writes : "I love thee! roast or boiled, Or deep in pie embedded, Or in the portly sausage, plump and big; But best of all to sage and onions wedded, Oh—you Pig !" In order that the pig may thrive the corn crop is a necessity. The 1920 census shows that Clark County produced 2,582,453 bushels of corn, and 720,000 bushels of wheat, with small grains and fruits to supply the demand. As early as 1839 the Ohio Gazetteer and Travelers' Guide said of Clark County : "Taking its size and secluded position into consideration, it is one of the most productive counties in the state ; as yet it has no outlet to market save the country roads, but such is the fertility of its soil, and the beautiful face of the country interspread with durable streams, and well watered by springs, that a very large portion is under a high state of cultivation." Corn is the most valuable crop raised in the United States, and much of it is converted into beef or pork bef ore it reaches the market ; the four leading crops : corn, hay, cotton and wheat, represent an annual value of more than $10,000,000,000, which is 70 per cent of everything harvested in the whole country. The Ohio Experiment Station Bulletin shows a steady increase in corn production, with a slight drop in acreage in the '80s, followed by an increased acreage since that time. Since more attention has been given to corn again the yield per acre has been increased, and there is talk about 100 bushels—and actual measurement confirms it, but in limited acreage under special culture conditions, the corn clubs showing the highest yield per acre. "Corn is king," and there are veritable corn kings in the country. The 1921 corn kings of Ohio as "crowned" by the Ohio State University Agricultural College were John Gleason of Clinton County, who produced 113.1 bushels, and J. Elmer Drake of Clark County, who showed a production of 105.8 bushels of air-dried, shelled corn on ten-acre plots. Eight Ohio farmers are now listed as producing more than 100 bushels, and this is the second time Mr. Drake has won the honor, having produced 101.25 bushels the previous year. There was a time when forty bushels was regarded as a big yield of corn in Clark County. In more favorable corn years, more farmers attain to the 100-bushel standard, one Madison County farmer having shown a production of - 95 - 96 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY 125.64 bushels of corn on a ten-acre tract, and a Muskingum County farmer attaining to 128.81 bushels, the highest production noted at the Ohio State University Agricultural College. The different townships in Clark County have held corn shows, and Paul Sherrin of Madison Township who produced 118.5 bushels to the acre is proclaimed the 1921 champion boy corn grower of the county. LEADS THE MIAMI VALLEY When Warren County was preparing for its centennial celebration some years ago, prizes were offered for authentic information as to who had produced the first crop of corn in the Great Miami Valley, and Clark County won supplying the information that John Paul, Jr., had grown corn on Honey Creek in 1792, the area then in Greene, but now in Bethel Township, Clark County. It has been related that the Paul family massacre in 1790, occurred while its members were outside the palisade preparing the soil for planting, the father and mother and three of the children falling victims to the tomahawk, while a son and daughter reached the cabin, and according to accounts, this son produced a corn crop two years later. While some of the accounts credit Kreb and Brown with growing the first corn along Mad River in 1796, the John Paul, Jr., narrative won out in the Miami Valley investigation. The Paul family endured unusual hardships, and just recognition should not be withheld from this wilderness agriculturist. When Clark becomes a front line Ohio county in corn production, it should commemorate this frontier corn grower who won the laurels for Clark before it had established a name for itself among Ohio counties. It is related that when Kreb and Brown were growing their first crop on Mad River in 1796, David Lowry, who had just come into the community, supplied their table with fish and game and lived with them. He raised a crop the next year for himself, and also accompanied the surveyors who laid out the first road from, Dayton to Springfieldthat a few years bef ore there was a Springfield. It is said those pioneers who "consecrated the rich soil of Clark to the ennobling art of agriculture," had their .camps near the present railroad crossing on Mad River, and that it was the most primitive method of agriculture—the forked sticks and brush, and since Springfield has become a world center in the manufacture of improved implements of agriculture, it seems a far cry to stick-and-brush methods along Mad River. The Indians had grown corn there, the accounts saying that Gen. George Rogers Clark and his army destroyed several hundred acres of it in 1780, and mention is made of their green corn festival which was an annual occurrence. "For this festival the hunters supplied the game from the forests and the women the green corn and vegetables from the fields ; on this occasion they not only feasted themselves with plenty, but made offerings and did homage to the Great Spirit for his blessings. (They may have borrowed the New England Thanksgiving idea instituted by the Pilgrim fathers.) At this festival each year the council of women of the tribe selected the names of the children born during the previous year, and the chiefs proclaimed the names at the festival ; these names could not be changed, but additional names might be acquired by acts of bravery or circumstances which might reflect honors upon the persons." SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 97 While the crops grown by the Indians consisted mostly of corn, they cultivated beans and peas, and they had a kind of potato that captives among them said "when peeled and dipped in coon's fat or bear's fat, tasted like our own sweet potatoes." While W. N. Scarff of White Oaks in Bethel Township paid $100 for ten ears of premium seed corn grown in Johnson County, Indiana, by Klore the "corn king" of the United States until someone else wrested the title, because of his seed and nursery business, he could afford to do it for the advertising, and yet under the decline of market prices it was announced that corn belt farmers in 1921 received less than 5 cents an hour for their labor, and the labor of their wives and children—statement made by a speaker at an agricultural conference, but with the eight-hour day—eight hours in the morning and eight hours again in the afternoon—that allowed of some revenue from corn production. In studying economics, farmers are advised to think in terms of commodities instead of fluctuating dollars, and they wonder why they must pay 400 bushels of corn for a wagon they used to buy for 150 bushels; they pay 350 bushels for a gang plow they used to buy with 125 bushels, and the corn farmers hit the hardest by the depression have discovered that the dollar is the common measure of values, and it is what they can get with their money after all. 'But of ter all the housewife who exclaims : "But as I wield the rolling pin, Or light and frothy eggs I beat, I long to watch some hungry him, Just eat—and eat—and eat." has discovered the real secret of happiness—the way to reach the heart of a man, is to tickle his palate with things edible—delicacies, whether in or out of season. Some dreamer exclaims : "The farmer has the privilege of going out in the morning sun, and taking off his hat to the beauties of the world. God is the great artist who with sunshine, rain and soil and shower, can combine colors and produce a burst of glory ; the mansions in the skies are not more delectable than the landscapes, and some of the habitations of earth. 'The earth is the Lord's,' and yet the hand of man has rendered some beauty possibilities an offense against the landscape —nothing cheerful, and all shade and shrubbery a minus quantity." Too many farm homes fail to combine the artistic sense with the utility idea, and the environment is unattractive ; it was Alexander Pope who exclaimed: "Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound—Content to breathe his native air, in his own hallowed ground," and in Clark County are such exemplifications—some homesteads that measure up to the requirements. HUMORESQUE It is said an agriculturist must have more money than a mere farmer —that once upon a time, a farmer was equal to the emergencies, but Vol. 1-7 98 - SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY now that he must know the botanical names of vegetables, and the scientific names of the bugs that destroy them, as well as the chemical formula of the stuff that destroys the bugs, he is more than a farmer ; he is an agriculturist. It is a twentieth century conception that the town man who owns land is an agriculturist—that the real farmer lives in the country. When a Springfield capitalist ‘designated himself as a farmer because of land ownership, an acquaintance had his sense of nicety offended, and inquired why the opprobrium. It is said of some country folk that they are "city-minded, and of city folk that they are country-minded," and it is unfortunate that they cannot "change places with themselves." While the farmer may not labor as in the past, although seed time and harvest still impress him, he must know how to manipulate levers, switches and buttons, and mechanical knowledge is his only salvation. It is a fast age in which mind is more than matter, and the master mind solves the problems of progress. Some one writes : "Gradually is all of the romance going out of country life ; we almost shed tears to read the old home paper, and find that folks who used to go 'visiting' over Sunday now spend 'week-ends,' " and that social animadversion illustrates the change from man power to machinery in doing everything. The man who knows the farm and leaves it, is unable to manipulate the machinery when he comes back again. FARMING VS. CITYING The oldest good story is about the boy who left the farm and got a job in the city ; he wrote a letter to his brother who remained on the farm, saying : "Thursday we autoed out to the country club where we golfed until dark ; then we motored to the beach for the week-end," and the brother on the farm replied : "Yesterday we buggied to town, and baseballed all afternoon. Today we muled out to the cornfield, and gee-hawed until sundown ; then we suppered and piped for a while bef ore we staircased to our room where we bedsteaded until the clock fived again," and those who know the routine of "feeding sheep and feeding sheep" understand all about it. In the People's Forum of a Springfield newspaper was a discussion of daylight saving, one of the writers saying it was a misnomer—that it was not in the interest of farmers, but of golf players. Men who play golf find the hours of daylight insufficient, and since the farmer works all day and half the night, he uses the lantern for overtime. Those who breathe the morning air before the sun has warmed it, do not care to save it, and a wag penned the lines : "Walk on the street, look at a clock— Then look at the one in the very next block ; One says five and the other says six— How shall we straighten this awful mix ? * * * * * Don't ask me the time—let me alone, Friends, I'm keeping a time of my own. * * * * * When it is dark I go to bed— Get up when the sun's well overhead ; Eat when I'm hungry—don't ride on the cars ; Always go home when they hang out the stars." SPRINGFIELD AND CLARK COUNTY - 99 It was Thoreau who said : "Thank fortune we are not rooted to the soil, and here is not all the world." In one unbroken sentence, Old Timer raises the question: "How many of us cherish childhood memories of this new and sparsely settled country, when the only minister we had was the circuit-rider, and mother spun all our clothes and knit our socks, and the schoolmaster boarded round with his pupils, and corn pone and molasses were on the table for each meal, and we had oil cloth table covers, and we went to the spring for water, and drank out of the long handled gourd ?" What a flood of memories, and with what lightning speed they correlate themselves. No place for the voice to fall when reading that reminiscent inquiry. Better not read it aloud. Old Timer omitted a cross-cut saw, and the other fellow riding the saw ; no need of a gymnasium under such environment. In the March issue, 1922, of the American Magazine published in Springfield, the Hoosier jokesmith—George Ade, says : "Nowadays we haven't any out-in-the-country. The telephone, the rural free delivery, and the motor car have co-operated to eliminate distance, until every villager lives just across the street from the city fellow, and every farmer next door to the villager. If you were to take an average working girl of Boston, a girl of corresponding social importance from any small city in Ohio, and the daughter of a well-to-do farmer in the corn belt and stand them in a row, attired in their most circus regalias, each of them short-skirted and high-heeled and hair dressed according to her own specifications, you couldn't tell which was which, unless the country girl should betray herself by putting on too much face powder," and not long ago in a discussion of city versus country life, the city girl objected to the country because she wears silk stockings. "Where ignorance is bliss," but until the city girl visits the country, she cannot be "wise" about it.