[ This is a portion of the correspondence from Dr. Clarence
 [ Hickman to his great niece, Judy, provided to MMDigest through
 [ the generosity of Dr. Hickman's family and MMDer James Brady.

June 3, 1978

Dear Judy:

When I was in the eighth grade we were living on a 320 acre farm in
Morgan County, Indiana.  We had about 120 acres of what they called
bottom land.

This is the part that we farmed.  Each year it would be flooded by water
from the creek.  Former owners had tried to drain the land with tile
ditches but they filled with dirt, and in any case were not fast enough.
My father decided that he needed one big open ditch to carry the water
off fast.  However, he did not have money to pay a surveyor and I
offered to survey the ditch for him.

He was skeptical but let me try.  All I used was a level and a carpen-
ter's square.  I set up stakes about every ten yards with information as
to how deep to dig the ditch.  We dug the ditch using horse and scraper.
After it was finished he was frantic, for he was sure that it would let
water from the creek run onto his land, instead of it going the other
way.

The first big rain we had he went out in the rain to see if the water
was running from the creek onto his land.  However, he found that the
water was running in the ditch to the creek.  Now I do not think that
it took much knowledge to make that survey.

When we were living on the farm now owned by Ruth, my father wanted to
make some large gates for the farm.  He was going to make them like most
of the farmers had, with the [wood] braces running from the bottom of
the gate to the top of the other end of the gate.  I told him that was
wrong, for it put the braces under compression and that it tended to
make the gate warp.

He finally agreed to make the gates my way, with the braces running
from the top of the gate at the hinge end to the bottom of the gate at
the other end.  This put the braces under tension and, as far as I know,
they never did warp.

Clarence