March 17, 1852 - March 28, 1852

Mar 25: "we laid the worm of new ground fence" makes no sense to me, but I the lettering seems clear.

I did a search and found the following attestation:

From George C. Duffield, "Youthtime in Frontier Iowa", Annals of Iowa (1907) pp 354-355: "The course of the fence being designated by markers or guide stakes often by blazes on the trees a worm stick is provided This was a perpendicular staff sharpened at the lower end to admit of its being stuck into the ground when so desired The fence builder sighted across the top of this staff and shifted it into line It marked the middle of the worm or foundation Near the bottom of the staff and inserted in a hole through it was a stick two feet two inches long which turned to the right or left at right angles with the course of the fence located at its outer end a corner Taking up the worm stick and moving it forward some eight feet and turning the horizontal piece to the other side located the next corner The one of us who laid the worm placed a stone or chunk at each point thus located as a corner and on this was laid the ground rail The one who laid this rail selected the largest and heaviest and used great care in placing it so as to insure a good foundation for the rails placed later and so the fence could be made tight The big end of the rail was always placed forward the smaller end on the top of the rail last laid If there was a crook in it it was turned up because the large crack necessarily made by the crook could more easily be stopped by laying a chunk on the ground than by fastening anything between the first and second rails The worm thus laid was in a straight course yet made of ten foot rails each overlapping the other about a foot described a zig zag of panels and each two rails or double panel formed a rod in the length of the fence Returning to the place of beginning five or six rails are laid up the smaller and straighter ones at the bottom Before the next rail is laid on the fence is staked That is at each corner and two or three feet on each side a piece is inserted in the ground some ten inches and being eight feet in length is leaned across the corner the two thus forming an X over the corner and resting on the rails In the cross thus formed is laid the smaller end of the next rail the larger and forward end upon the next corner Then this corner is staked and so on Again going back to the beginning the largest roughest and heaviest rails are laid in on the riders forming the double rider This is the fence which when pig tight horse high and bull strong was the buncomb fence of the rail fence age "

I'm not sure how much sense that makes, but it looks like "laid the worm" is totally a part of fence construction.

This version has an illustration as well:
https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3295&context=annals-of-iowa

Fabulous! As I said, the writing looks clear, but I had never heard this and it seems so odd.