On one of my corn strips, only 12 feet wide and about 400 feet long, there is, half way down one strip, a six inch gully created by a rain so heavy it melted a salt block in the pasture nearby.

Back at the smokehouse, Turner showed me the two concrete-block Chambers where the eels-dressed and brined in salt, brown sugar, and local honey-are hung on rods.

Anything the credit rating agencies say has to be taken with a block of salt.