Irving Batcheller once told a story of a farmer on the Connecticut hills.

    “Pretty steep land for planting, isn’t it?” a visitor asked the tiller of the soil.

    “Pretty steep,” the farmer assented.

    “I suppose it’s quite difficult to plant your corn?“

    “Quite difficult,” came the echo.

    The visitor was interested, and would not be put off with short replies.

    “Eh—how do you manage to plant on this hill?” he persisted.

    The farmer gazed at him pityingy.

    “We have to shoot it all into the earth with shotguns, stranger,” he assured his guest.

    The visitor gasped. “Really?” he ejaculated. “Really now? Is that actually true?”

    The farmer sighed and turned upon his guest a look of withering scorn.

    “No, that isn’t true,” he answered. “I'm trying to make conversation.”

The Pickens Sentine-Journal. (Pickens. S.C.). 30 March 1911. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.