He said when the county elected him to fill an important office, it used his shoulder as a prop for the nation, so it became his business to stand firmly, and use every ounce of strength and brains he had, first of all to make his own possessions a model, then his township, his county, and his state, and if every one worked together doing that, no nation on earth had our amount of territory and such fine weather, so none of them could beat us.
Our road was like the barn floor, where you drove: on each side was a wide grassy strip, and not a weed the length of our land.

All the rails in the fences were laid straight, the gates were solid, sound, and swung firmly on their beams, our fence corners were full of alders, wild roses, sumac, blackberry vines, masses of wild flowers beneath them, and a bird for every bush.

Some of the neighbours thought that to drive two rails every so often, lay up the fences straight, and grub out the shrubs was the way, but father said they were vastly mistaken.
He said that was such a shortsighted proceeding, he would be ashamed to indulge in it.

You did get more land, but if you left no place for the birds, the worms and insects devoured your crops, and you didn't raise half so much as if you furnished the birds shelter and food.

So he left mulberries in the fields and fence corners and wild cherries, raspberries, grapes, and every little scrub apple tree from seeds sown by Johnny Appleseed when he crossed our land.
Mother said those apples were so hard a crane couldn't dent them, but she never watched the birds in winter when the snow was beginning to come and other things were covered up.