While going to attend the funeral of an old friend, Mrs. John O’Neal, we were led into the neighborhood of Preston Prairie, a part of our county which we have not been able to visit much in late years, yet a place very familiar to us by reason of former associations. We find that nearly all the farms on that Prairie are owned and occupied by the same farmers who owned them many years ago; the Prestons, O’Neals, Downings, Kneales, Kinney, Francis, Bliss, Pettys, etc. In fact, these are the veritable Knickerbockers of Carroll County, and stick to their beautiful prairie with all the ardor of their first love. Some new residences have been built, and on the farm of Mr. Jacob Hartman (the old Bliss farm) there has been erected one of the finest barns that we have seen in this county.

We paid a brief visit to our old friend, Samuel Preston, Esq., and enjoyed for a short season the hospitality of his excellent family. We were naturally attracted to Mr. Preston’s orchard, and found his trees beautifully loaded with fine fruit. By the way, we would say that Mr. P. is an advocate of close planting in the orchard, and of tree pruning in the present month. He claims for the first a greater absence of injurious insects in summer and greater protection for trees in winter. He believes that August pruning is not injurious to the trees, and that pruning in spring or early summer is.

We observed some chestnut trees in his orchard. He thought at one time that they would succeed in this latitude, but these exceedingly hard winters have killed some of his trees and injured others. He will be able to gather some chestnuts from his trees this fall. We also observed that he has an eye to the introduction of fish culture, and is at present constructing a fish pond for the purpose of experimenting in that direction.

Alice Horner’s note: This last bit of information answers the question of when the pond was dug. Or maybe only when fish were added. My mother and members of her generation thought the pond was always there. However, other accounts suggest that whereas the spring was always there (and its presence was one of Samuel Preston’s primary considerations for claiming that part of the land), the pond was dug later. This August 1876 account certainly implies the fish pond was dug in the summer of 1876.