Sappington P. O.
St. Louis Co. Mo.
December 28th 1856.
DEAR FATHER:
Your's & Mary's letter inclosing Land Warrant was recieved a few days since. I will mail it in a few days.
Evry day I like farming better and I do not doubt but that money is to be made at it. So far I have been laboring under great disadvantages but now that I am on my place, 1 and shall not have to build next summer I think I shall be able to do much better. This year if I could have bought seed I should have made out still better than I did. I wanted to plant sixty or seventy bushels of potatoes, but I had not the money to buy them. I planted twenty however and have sold 225 bushels and have about 125 on hand, besides all that I have used. Next summer I shall plant what is left of them and buy about fifty bushels of choise seed besides. I have in some twenty five acres of wheat that looks better, or did before the cold weather, than any in the neighborhood. My intention is to raise about twenty acres of Irish potatoes, on new ground, five acres of sweet potatoes, about the same of early corn, five or six acres cabbage, beets, cucumber pickles & mellons and keep a wagon going to market evry day. This last year my place was not half tended because I had but one span of horses, and one hand, and we had to do all the work of the place, living at a distance too, all the hawling for my building, and take wood to the city for the support of the family. Since the 1st of April my teams have earned me about fifty dollars per month independent of doing my own work. This year I presume I shall be compelled to neglect my farm some to make a living in the mean time, but by next year I hope to be independent. If I had an opportunity of geting about $500 00 for a year at 10 pr. cent I have no doubt but it would be of great advantage to me.
-334-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: 1837-1861.
Volume: 1.
Contributors: John Y. Simon - Editor.
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press.
Place of publication: Carbondale, IL.
Publication year: 1967.
Page number: 334.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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