Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/432

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CANOEING IN THE DISMAL SWAMP.
381

ing over a most fertile and admirable farm several miles in extent.

"I t'ink dat farm 'longs to ole man Douglass?" says the yellow fellow, with a sound, as usual, like a note of interrogation at the end of his assertion.

"Does it belong to Mr. Douglass?" we ask the black boy.

"No, dat farm Muss Lindsey's," answered the firm little oracle. And the yellow boy never resented or questioned the black boy's knowledge, while the black boy never derided or corrected the yellow boy's ignorance.

Lindsey's superb farm, stretching four miles along the canal and reaching eastward nearly five miles, is as level as a floor and wonderfully fertile. It was originally dismal swamp, most of it having been reclaimed within the last thirty years by its present owner, who is a first-rate farmer, judging from his estate. The canal at first ran right through the swamp, but now all the land to the east has been cleared. (See map, page 350.)

One of the striking features of this superb Lindsey farm was a row of enormous barns about three-quarters of a mile apart, and placed along its centre. Not another building was to be seen.

Were this the time and place for such consideration, we might dwell on the landlord system evi-