Ten Acres Enough
by Edmund Morris · English · Gutenberg #48753 · 395,328 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Ten Acres Enough
Author: Edmund Morris
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN ACRES ENOUGH ***
TEN ACRES ENOUGH:
A PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE,
SHOWING
HOW A VERY SMALL FARM MAY BE MADE TO
KEEP A VERY LARGE FAMILY.
WITH
Extensive and Profitable Experience
IN
THE CULTIVATION OF THE SMALLER FRUITS.
EIGHTH EDITION.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER,
(SUCCESSOR TO C. S. FRANCIS & CO.,)
522 BROADWAY.
MDCCCLXVI.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864,
BY JAMES MILLER,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
PREFACE.
The man who feeds his cattle on a thousand hills may possibly see the
title of this little volume paraded through the newspapers; but the
chances are that he will never think it worth while to look into the
volume itself. The owner of a hundred acres will scarcely step out of
his way to purchase or to borrow it, while the lord of every smaller
farm will be sure it is not intended for him. Few persons belonging to
these several classes have been educated to believe Ten Acres Enough.
Born to greater ambition, they have aimed higher and grasped at more,
sometimes wisely, sometimes not. Many of these are now owning or
cultivating more land than their heads or purses enable them to manage
properly. Had their ambition been moderate, and their ideas more
practical, their labor would be better rewarded, and this book, without
doubt, would have found more readers.
The mistaken ambition for owning twice as much land as one can
thoroughly manure or profitably cultivate, is the great agricultural sin
of this country. Those who commit it, by beginning wrong, too frequently
continue wrong. Owning many acres is the sole idea. High cultivation of
a small tract, is one of which they have little knowledge. Too many in
these several classes think they know enough. They measure a man’s
knowledge by the number of his acres. Hence, in their eyes the owner of
a plot so humble as mine must know so little as to be unable to teach
them any thing new.
Happily, it is not for these that I write, and hence it would be
unreasonable to expect them to become readers. I write more particularly
for those who have not been brought up as farmers--for that numerous
body of patient toilers in city, town, and village, who, like myself,
have struggled on from year to year, anxious to break away from the
bondage of the desk, the counter, or the workshop, to realize in the
country even a moderate income, so that it be a sure one. Many such are
constantly looking round in this direction for something which, with
less mental toil and anxiety, will provide a maintenance for a growing
family, and afford a refuge for advancing age--some safe and quiet
harbor, sheltered from the constantly recurring monetary and political
convulsions which in this country so suddenly reduce men to poverty. But
these inquirers find no experienced pioneers to lead the way, and they
turn back upon themselves, too fearful to go forward alone. Books of
personal experience like this are rare. This is written for the
information of the class referred to, for men not only willing, but
anxious to learn. Once in the same predicament myself, I know their
longings, their deficiencies, and the steps they ought to take. Hence,
in seeking to make myself fully understood, some may think that I have
been unnecessarily minute. But in setting forth my own crudities, I do
but save others from repeating them. Yet with all this amplification, my
little contribution will occasion no crowding even upon a book-shelf
which may be already filled.
I am too new a farmer to be the originator of all the ideas which are
here set forth. Some, which seemed to be appropriate to the topic in
hand, have been incorporated with the argument as it progressed; while
in some instances, even the language of writers, whose names were
unknown to me, has also been adopted.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Chapter I.--City Experiences--Moderate Expectations 9
CHAPTER II.--Practical Views--Safety of Investments in Land 15
CHAPTER III.--Resolved to go--Escape from Business--Choosing a
Location 22
CHAPTER IV.--Buying a Farm--Anxiety to sell--Forced to quit 29
CHAPTER V.--Making a Purchase--First Impressions 37
CHAPTER VI.--Planting a Peach-orchard--How to preserve Peach-trees 42
CHAPTER VII.--Planting Raspberries and Strawberries--Tricks of
the Nursery 53
CHAPTER VIII.--Blackberries--A Remarkable Coincidence 60
CHAPTER IX.--The Garden--Female Management--Comforts and Profits 69
CHAPTER X.--Cheated in a Cow--A Good and a Bad One--The Saint of
the Barnyard 76
CHAPTER XI.--A Cloud of Weeds--Great Sales of Plants 86
CHAPTER XII.--Pigs and Poultry--Luck and Ill Luck 98
CHAPTER XIII.--City and Country Life contrasted 110
CHAPTER XIV.--Two Acres in Truck--Revolution in Agriculture 118
CHAPTER XV.--Birds, and the Services they Render 131
CHAPTER XVI.--Close of my First Year--Its Loss and Gain 141
CHAPTER XVII.--My Second Year--Trenching the Garden--Strawberry
Profits 148
CHAPTER XVIII.--Raspberries--The Lawtons 167
CHAPTER XIX.--Liquid Manures--An Illustration 177
CHAPTER XX.--My Third Year--Liquid Manure--Three Years’ Results 188
CHAPTER XXI.--A Barnyard Manufactory--Land Enough--Faith in Manure 200
CHAPTER XXII.--Profits of Fruit-growing--The Trade in Berries 212
CHAPTER XXIII.--Gentleman-farming--Establishing a Home 230
CHAPTER XXIV.--Unsuccessful Men--Rebellion not Ruinous to Northern
Agriculture 238
CHAPTER XXV.--Where to Locate--East or West 248
TEN ACRES ENOUGH.
CHAPTER I.
CITY EXPERIENCES--MODERATE EXPECTATIONS.
My life, up to the age of forty, had been spent in my native city of
Philadelphia. Like thousands of others before me, I began the world
without a dollar, and with a very few friends in a condition to assist
me. Having saved a few hundred dollars by dint of close application to
business, and avoiding taverns, oyster-houses, theatres, and fashionable
tailors, I married and went into business the same year. These two
contemporaneous drafts upon my little capital proving heavier than I
expected, they soon used it up, leaving me thereafter greatly straitened
for means. It is true my business kept me, but as it was constantly
expanding, and was of such a nature that a large proportion of my annual
gain was necessarily invested in tools, fixtures, and machinery, I was
nearly always short of ready cash to carry on my operations with
comfort. At certain times, also, it ceased to be profitable. The crisis
of 1837 nearly ruined me, and I was kept struggling along during the
five succeeding years of hard times, until the revival of 1842 came
round. Previous to this crisis, necessity had driven me to the banks for
discounts, one of the sore evils of doing business upon insufficient
capital. As is always the case with these institutions, they compelled
me to return the borrowed money at the very time it was least convenient
for me to do so--they needed it as urgently as myself. But to refund
them I was compelled to borrow elsewhere, and that too at excessive
rates of interest, thus increasing the burden while laboring to shake it
off.
Thousands have gone through the same unhappy experience, and been
crushed by the load. Such can anticipate my trials and privations. Yet I
was not insolvent. My property had cost me far more than I owed, yet if
offered for sale at a time when the whole community seemed to want money
only, no one could have been found to give cost. I could not use it as
the basis of a loan, neither could I part with it without abandoning my
business. Hence I struggled on through that exhausting crisis, haunted
by perpetual fears of being dishonored at bank,--lying down at night,
not to peaceful slumber, but to dream of fresh expedients to preserve my
credit for to-morrow. I have sometimes thought that the pecuniary cares
of that struggle were severe enough to have shortened my life, had they
been much longer protracted.
Besides the mental anxieties they occasioned, they compelled a pinching
economy in my family. But in this latter effort I discovered my wife to
be a jewel of priceless value, coming up heroically to the task, and
relieving me of a world of care. Without her aid, her skill, her
management, her uncomplaining cheerfulness, her sympathy in struggles so
inadequately rewarded as mine were, I should have sunk into utter
bankruptcy. Her economy was not the mean, penny-wise, pound foolish
policy which many mistake for true economy. It was the art of
calculation joined to the habit of order, and the power of proportioning
our wishes to the means of gratifying them. The little pilfering temper
of a wife is despicable and odious to every man of sense; but there is a
judicious, graceful economy, which has no connection with an avaricious
temper, and which, as it depends upon the understanding, can be expected
only from cultivated minds. Women who have been well educated, far from
despising domestic duties, will hold them in high respect, because they
will see that the whole happiness of life is made up of the happiness of
each particular day and hour, and that much of the enjoyment of these
must depend upon the punctual practice of virtues which are more
valuable than splendid.
If I survived that crisis, it was owing to my wife’s admirable
management of my household expenses. She saw that our embarrassment was
due to no imprudence or neglect of mine. She thus consented to severe
privations, uttering no complaint, hinting no reproach, never
disheartened, and so rarely out of humor that she never failed to
welcome my return with a smile.
But in this country one convulsion follows another with disheartening
frequency. I lived through that of 1837, paid my debts, and had managed
to save some money. My wife’s system of economy had been so long adhered
to, that in the end it became to some extent habitual to her, and she
still continued to practise great frugality. I became insensibly
accustomed to it myself. Children were multiplying around us, and we
thought the skies had brightened for all future time. When in
difficulty, we had often debated the propriety of quitting the city and
its terrible business trials, and settling on a few acres in the
country, where we could raise our own food, and spend the remainder of
our days in cultivating ground which would be sure to yield us at least
a respectable subsistence. We had no longing for excessive wealth: a
mere competency, though earned by daily toil, so that it was reasonably
sure, and free from the drag of continued indebtedness to others, was
all we coveted.
I had always loved the country, but my wife preferred the city. I could
take no step but such as would be likely to promote her happiness. So
long as times continued fair, we ceased to canvass the propriety of a
removal. We had children to educate, and to her the city seemed the best
and most convenient place for qualifying them for future usefulness.
Then, most of our relations resided near us. Our habits were eminently
social. We had made numerous friends, and among our neighbors there had
turned up many valuable families. We felt even the thought of breaking
away from all these cordial ties to be a trying one. But the refuge of a
removal to the country had taken strong hold of my mind.
Indeed, it may be said that I was born with a passion for living on a
farm. It was fixed and strengthened by my long experience of the
business vicissitudes of city life. For many years I had been a constant
subscriber for several agricultural journals, whose contents I read as
carefully as I did those of the daily papers. My wife also, being a
great reader, came in time to study them almost as attentively. Every
thing I saw in them only tended to confirm my longing for the country,
while they gave definite views of what kind of farming I was fit for. In
fact they educated me for the position before I assumed it. I am sure
they exercised a powerful influence in removing most of my wife’s
objections to living in the country. I studied their contents as
carefully as did the writers who prepared them. I watched the reports of
crops, of experiments, and of profits. The leading idea in my mind was
this--that a man of ordinary industry and intelligence, by choosing a
proper location within hourly reach of a great city market, could so
cultivate a few acres as to insure a maintenance for his family, free
from the ruinous vibrations of trade or commerce in the metropolis. All
my reading served to convince me of its soundness. I did not assume that
he could get rich on the few acres which I ever expected to own; but I
felt assured that he could place himself above want. I knew that his
peace of mind would be sure. With me this was dearer than all. My
reading had satisfied me that such a man would find Ten Acres Enough,
and these I could certainly command.
As I did not contemplate undertaking the management of a large grain
farm, so my studies did not run in that direction. Yet I read every
thing that came before me in relation to such, and not without profit.
But I graduated my views to my means, and so noted with the utmost care
the experiences of the small cultivators who farmed five to ten acres
thoroughly. I noted their failures as watchfully as their successes,
knowing that the former were to be avoided, as the latter were to be
imitated. As opportunity offered, I made repeated excursions, year after
year, in every direction around Philadelphia, visiting the small farmers
or truckers who supplied the city market with fruit and vegetables,
examining, inquiring, and treasuring up all that I saw and heard. The
fund of knowledge thus acquired was not only prodigious, but it has been
of lasting value to me in my subsequent operations. I found multitudes
of truckers who were raising large families on five acres of ground,
while others, owning only thirty acres, had become rich.
On most of these numerous excursions I was careful to have my wife with
me. I wanted her to see and hear for herself, and by convincing her
judgment, to overcome her evidently diminishing reluctance to leaving
the city. My uniform consideration for her comfort at last secured the
object I had in view. She saw so many homes in which a quiet abundance
was found, so many contented men and women, so many robust and bouncing
children, that long before I was ready to leave the city, she was quite
impatient to be gone.
CHAPTER II.
PRACTICAL VIEWS--SAFETY OF INVESTMENTS IN LAND.
There was not a particle of romance in my aspirations for a farm,
neither had I formed a single visionary theory which was there to be
tested. My notions were all sober and prosaic. I had struggled all my
life for dollars, because abundance of them produces pecuniary comfort:
and the change to country life was to be, in reality, a mere
continuation of the struggle, but lightened by the assurance that if the
dollars thus to be acquired were fewer in number, the certainty of
earning enough of them was likely to be greater. Crops might fail under
skies at one time too watery, at another too brassy, but no such
disaster could equal those to which commercial pursuits are
uninterruptedly exposed. They have brassy skies above them as well as
farmers. For nearly twenty years I had been hampered with having notes
of my own or of other parties to pay; but of all the farmers I had
visited, only one had ever given a note, and he had made a vow never to
give another. My wife was shrewd enough to observe and remark on this
fact at the time, it was so different from my own experience. She
admitted there must be some satisfaction in carrying on a business which
did not require the giving of notes.
Looking at the matter of removal to the country in a practical light, I
found that in the city I was paying three hundred dollars per annum rent
for a dwelling-house. It was the interest of five thousand dollars; yet
it afforded nothing but a shelter for my family. I might continue to pay
that rent for fifty years, without, at the end of that time, having
acquired the ownership of either a stone upon the chimney, or a shingle
in the roof. If the house rose in value, the rise would be to the
owner’s benefit, not to mine. It would really be injurious to me, as the
rise would lead him to demand an increase of his rent. But put the value
of the house into a farm, or even the half of it--the farm would have a
dwelling-house upon it, in which my family would find as good a shelter,
while the land, if cultivated as industriously as I had always
cultivated business, would belie the flood of evidence I had been
studying for many years, if it failed to yield to my efforts the returns
which it was manifestly returning to others. We could live contentedly
on a thousand dollars a year, and here we should have no landlord to
pay. My wife, in pinching times, has financiered us through the year on
several hundred less. I confess to having lived as well on the
diminished rations as I wanted to. Indeed, until one tries it for
himself, it is incredible what dignity there is in an old hat, what
virtue in a time-worn coat, and how savory the dinner-table can be made
without sirloin steaks or cranberry tarts.
Thus, let it be remembered, my views and aspirations had no tinge of
extravagance. My rule was moderation. The tortures of a city struggle
without capital, had sobered me down to being contented with a bare
competency. I might fail in some particulars at the outset, from
ignorance, but I was in the prime of life, strong, active, industrious,
and tractable, and what I did not know I could soon learn from others,
for farmers have no secrets. Then I had seen too much of the uncertainty
of banks and stocks, and ledger accounts, and promissory notes, to be
willing to invest any thing in either as a permanency. At best they are
fluctuating and uncertain, up to-day and down to-morrow. My great
preference had always been for land.
In looking around among my wide circle of city acquaintances, especially
among the older families, I could not fail to notice that most of them
had grown rich by the ownership of land. More than once had I seen the
values of all city property, improved and unimproved, apparently
disappear;--lots without purchasers, and houses without tenants, the
community so poor and panic-stricken that real estate became the merest
drug. Yesterday the collapse was caused by the destruction of the
National Bank; to-day it is the Tariff. Sheriffs played havoc with
houses and lands incumbered by mortgages, and lawyers fattened on the
rich harvest of fees inaugurated by a Bankrupt Law. But those who,
undismayed by the wreck around them, courageously held on to land, came
through in safety. The storm, having run its course and exhausted its
wrath, gave place to skies commercially serene, and real estate swung
back with an irrepressible momentum to its former value, only to keep on
advancing to one even greater.
I became convinced that safety lay in the ownership of land. In all my
inquiries both before leaving the city, as well as since, I rarely heard
of a farmer becoming insolvent. When I did, and was careful to ascertain
the cause, it turned out that he had either begun in debt, and was thus
hampered at the beginning, or had made bad bargains in speculations
outside of his calling, or wasted his means in riotous living, or had in
some way utterly neglected his business. If not made rich by heavy
crops, I could find none who had been made poor by bad ones.
The reader may look back over every monetary convulsion he may be able
to remember, and he will find that in all of them the agricultural
community came through with less disaster than any other interest. Wheat
grows and corn ripens though all the banks in the world may break, for
seed-time and harvest is one of the divine promises to man, never to be
broken, because of its divine origin. They grew and ripened before banks
were invented, and will continue to do so when banks and railroad bonds
shall have become obsolete.
Moreover, the earthly fund for whose acquisition we are all striving, we
naturally desire to make a permanent one. As we have worked for it, so
we trust that it will work for us and our children. Its value, whatever
that may be, depends on its perpetuity--the continuance of its
existence. A man seeks to earn what will support and serve not only
himself, but his posterity. He would naturally desire to have the estate
descend to children and grandchildren. This is one great object of his
toil. What, then, is the safest fund in which to invest, in this
country? What is the only fund which the experience of the last fifty
years has shown, with very few exceptions, would be absolutely safe as a
provision for heirs? How many men, within that period, assuming to act
as trustees for estates, have kept the trust fund invested in stocks,
and when distributing the principal among the heirs, have found that
most of it had vanished! Under corporate insolvency it had melted into
air. No prudent man, accepting such a trust, and guaranteeing its
integrity, would invest the fund in stocks.
Our country is filled with pecuniary wrecks from causes like this.
Thousands trust themselves during their lifetime, to manage this
description of property, confident of their caution and sagacity. With
close watching and good luck, they may be equal to the task; but the
question still occurs as to the probable duration of such a fund in
families. What is its safety when invested in the current stocks of the
country? and next, what is its safety in the hands of heirs? There are
no statistics showing the probable continuance of estates in land in
families, and of estates composed of personal property, such as stocks.
But every bank cashier will testify to one remarkable fact--that an heir
no sooner inherits stock in the bank than the first thing he generally
does is to sell and transfer it, and that such sale is most frequently
the first notice given of the holder’s death.
This preference for investment in real estate will doubtless be objected
to by the young and dashing business man. But lands, or a fund secured
by real estate, is unquestionably not only the highest security, but in
the hands of heirs it is the only one likely to survive a single
generation. Hence the wisdom of the common law, which neither permits
the guardian to sell the lands of his ward, nor even the court, in its
discretion, to grant authority for their sale, except upon sufficient
grounds shown,--as a necessity for raising a fund for the support and
education of the ward. Even a lord chancellor can only touch so sacred a
fund for this or similar reasons. The common law is wise on this
subject, as on most others. It is thus the experience and observation of
mankind that such a fund is the safest, and hence the provisions of the
law.
Those, therefore, who acquire personal property, acquire only what will
last about a generation, longer or shorter. Such property is quickly
converted into money--it perishes and is gone. But land is hedged round
with numerous guards which protect it from hasty spoliation. It is not
so easily transferred; it is not so secretly transferred; the law
enjoins deliberate formalities before it can be alienated, and often the
consent of various parties is necessary. When all other guards give way,
early memories of parental attachment to these ancestral acres, or
tender reminiscences of childhood, will come in to stay the spoliation
of the homestead, and make even the prodigal pause before giving up this
portion of his inheritance.
Throughout Europe a passion to become the owner of land is universal,
while the difficulty of gratifying it is infinitely greater than with
us. It is there enormously dear; here it is absurdly cheap. It is from
this universal passion that the vast annual immigration to this country
derives its mighty impulse. As it reaches our shores it spreads itself
over the country in search of cheap land. Many of the most flourishing
Western States have been built up by the astonishing influx of
immigrants. In England, every landowner is prompt to secure every
freehold near him, be it large or small, as it comes into market. Hence
the number of freeholders in that country is annually diminishing by
this process of absorption. This European passion for acquiring land is
strangely contrasted with the American passion for parting with it.
CHAPTER III.
RESOLVED TO GO--ESCAPE FROM BUSINESS--CHOOSING A LOCATION.
The last thirty years have been prolific of great pecuniary convulsions.
I need not recapitulate them here, as too many of them are yet dark
spots on the memory of some who will read this. Their frequency, as well
as their recurrence at shorter intervals than at the beginning of the
century, are among their most remarkable features, baffling the
calculations of older heads, and confounding those of younger ones. As
the century advanced, these convulsions increased in number and
violence. The whole business horizon seemed full of coming storms, which
burst successively with desolating severity, not only on merchants and
manufacturers, but on others who had long before retired from business.
No one could foresee this state of things. I will not stop to argue
causes, but confine myself to facts which none will care to contradict.
These disasters made beggars of thousands in every branch of business,
and spread discouragement over every community. I passed through several
of them, striving and struggling, and oppressed beyond all power of
description. How many more the community was to encounter I did not
know; but I conceived it the part of prudence to place myself beyond
the circle of their influence before I also had been prostrated.
In spite of the losses thus encountered, I had been saving something
annually for several years, when the stricture of 1854 came on,
premonitory of the tremendous crash of 1857. Most unfortunately for my
comfort, that stricture seemed to fall with peculiar severity on a class
of dealers largely indebted to me. Many of them became embarrassed, and
failed to pay me at the time, while to this day some of them are still
my debtors. My old experiences of raising money revived, and to some
extent I was compelled to go through the humiliations of similar
periods. But the stricture was of brief duration, and I closed the year
in far better condition than I had anticipated.
But the trials of that incipient crisis determined me to abandon the
city. I found that by realizing all I then possessed, I could command
means enough to purchase ten to twenty acres, and I had grown nervous
and apprehensive of the future. While possessed of a little, I resolved
to make that little sure by investing it in land. I had worked for the
landlord long enough. My excellent wife was now entirely willing to make
the change, and our six children clapped their hands with joy when they
heard that “father was going to live in the country.”
I had long determined in my mind what sort of farming was likely to
prove profitable enough to keep us with comfort, and that was the
raising of small fruits for the city markets. My attention had always
been particularly directed to the berries. Some strawberries I had
raised in my city garden with prodigious success. My friends, when they
heard of my project, expressed fears that the market would soon be
glutted, not exactly by the crops which I was to raise, but they could
not exactly answer how. They confessed that they were extremely fond of
berries, and that at no time in the season could they afford to eat
enough; a confession which seemed to explode all apprehension of the
market being overstocked.
But my wife and myself had both examined the hucksters who called at the
door with small fruits, as to the monstrous prices they demanded, and
had begged them, if ever a glut occurred, that they would call and let
us know. But none had ever called with such information. It was the same
thing with those who occupied stalls in the various city markets. They
rarely had a surplus left unsold, and their prices were always high. A
glut of fruit was a thing almost unknown to them. It was a safe
presumption that the market would not be depressed by the quantity that
I might raise.
But here let me say something by way of parenthesis, touching this
common idea of the danger of overstocking the fruit-market of the great
cities. It is a curious fact that this idea is entertained only by those
who are not fruit-growers. The latter never harbored it. Their whole
experience runs the other way, they know it to be a gross absurdity. Yet
somehow, the question of a glut has always been debated. Twenty years
ago the nurserymen were advised to close up their sales and abandon the
business, as they would soon have no customers for trees--everybody was
supplied. But trees have continued to be planted from that day to this,
and where hundreds were sold twenty years ago, thousands are disposed of
now. Old-established nurseries have been trebled in size, while
countless new ones have been planted. The nursery business has grown to
a magnitude truly gigantic, because the market for fruit has been
annually growing larger, and no business enlarges itself unless it is
proved to be profitable.
The market cannot be glutted with good fruit. The multiplication of
mouths to consume it is far more rapid than the increase of any supply
that growers can effect. Within ten years the masses have had a slight
taste of choice fruits, and but little more. Indulgence has only served
to whet their appetites. The more of them there is offered in the
market, the more will there be consumed. Every huckster in her shamble,
every vender of peanuts in the street, will testify to this. The modern
art of semi-cookery for fruit, and of preserving it in cans and jars,
has made sale for enormous quantities of those choicer kinds which
return the highest profit to the grower. It is in the grain-market that
panic often rages, but never in the fruit-market. If it ever enters the
latter, the struggle is to obtain the fruit, not to get rid of it.
The proper choice of a location was now to be the great question of my
future success. I had determined on giving my attention to the raising
of the smaller fruits for the great markets of New York and
Philadelphia. I must therefore be somewhere on or near the railroad
between those cities, and as near as possible to a station. The soil of
Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, was too heavy for some of the lighter
fruits. New Jersey, with its admirable sandy loam light, warm, and of
surprisingly easy tillage, was proverbially adapted for the growth of
all market produce, whether fruit or vegetable, and was at the same time
a week or two earlier. Land was far cheaper, there was no State debt,
taxes were merely nominal, and an acre that could be bought for thirty
dollars could be made four times as productive as an acre of the best
wheat land in Pennsylvania. Such results are regularly realized by
hundreds of Jerseymen from year to year.
It was also of easy access from the city for manure-boats. Every town
within the range of my wants was well supplied with churches, schools,
and stores, together with an intelligent and moral population. I should
be surrounded by desirable neighbors, while an hour’s ride by steamboat
or railroad would place me, many times daily, among all my ancient
friends in the city. We should by no means become hermits. I knew the
country so well from my numerous visits among the fruit-growers, when in
search of information, as to anticipate but little difficulty in finding
the proper location.
By the mere accident of a slight revival in business in the early part
of 1855, a party came along who was thus induced to purchase my stock
and machinery. Luckily, he was able to pay down the whole amount in
cash. I received what I considered at the time an excellent price; but
when I came to settle up my accounts and pay what I owed, I found, to
my extreme disappointment, that but a little over two thousand dollars
remained.
This sum was the net gain of many years of most laborious toil. Was it
possible for farming to be a worse business than this? I had made ten
times as much, but my losses had been terrible. This, with my personal
credit, was all the surplus I had saved. I remember now, that when thus
discovering myself to be worth so little, I half regretted having given
up my business for what then appeared to me so inadequate a sum. When
selling, I was jubilant and thankful--when settled up, I was full of
regrets. I ought to have had more. So difficult is it for the human mind
to be satisfied with that which is really best.
But I little knew what the future was to bring forth, and how soon my
want of thankfulness was to be changed into the profoundest conviction
that I had providentially escaped from total ruin, and come out
comparatively rich. I had made myself snug upon my little farm when the
tornado of 1857 toppled my former establishment into utter ruin. My
successor was made a bankrupt, and his business was destroyed, leaving
him overwhelmed with debt. He had lost all, while I had saved all. Had I
not sold when I did, and secured what the sale yielded me, I too should
have been among the wrecks of that terrific visitation.
But I heard its warring in the quiet of my little farm-house, where it
brought me neither anxiety nor loss. My position was like that of one
sitting peacefully by his wintry fireside, gazing on the thick storm
without, and listening to the patter of the snow-flakes as the tempest
drove them angrily against the window-pane, while all within was calm
and genial. Instead of regrets for what I had failed to grasp, my heart
overflowed with thankfulness for the comparative abundance that remained
to me. My peace of mind was perfect. The unspeakable satisfaction was
felt of being out of business, out of debt, out of danger--not rich, but
possessed of enough. The thoughtful reader may well believe that
subsequent disturbances, rebellion, war, and even a more wide-spread
bankruptcy--from all which my humble position made me secure--have only
served to intensify my gratitude to that Divine Providence which so
mercifully shaped my ways.
CHAPTER IV.
BUYING A FARM--A LONG SEARCH--ANXIETY TO SELL--FORCED TO QUIT.
As already stated, I had in round numbers a clear two thousand dollars,
with which to buy and stock a farm, and keep my family while my first
crops were growing. As I was entirely free from debt, so I determined to
avoid it in the future. Debt had been the bitter portion of my life, not
from choice, but of necessity. My wife took strong ground in support of
this resolution--what we had she wanted us to keep. I had too long been
aided by her admirable counsel to reject it now. She had a singular
longing for seeing me my own landlord. Her resolution was a powerful
strengthener of my own convictions.
Thus resolved, we set out in the early part of March to seek a home. I
was particular to take my wife with me--I wanted her to aid in choosing
it. She was to occupy it as well as myself. She knew exactly what we
wanted as regarded the dwelling-house,--the land department she left
entirely to my judgment. I was determined that she should be made
comfortable from the start, not only because she deserved to be made so,
but to make sure that no cause for future discontent should arise.
Indeed, she was really the best judge in this matter. She knew what the
six children needed; she was the model of a housekeeper; there were
certain little conveniences indispensable to domestic comfort to be
secured, of which she knew more than I did, while her judgment on most
things was so correct, that I felt confident if she were fully
satisfied, the whole enterprise would be a successful one.
I loved her with the fervor of early married life--she had consented to
my plans--she was willing to share whatever inconveniences might belong
to our new position--was able to lighten them by her unflagging
cheerfulness and thrift--and I was unwilling to take a single step in
opposition either to her wishes or her judgment. Indeed, I had long
since made up my mind, from observation of the good or bad luck of other
men, that he who happens to be blessed with a wife possessing good sense
and good judgment, succeeds or fails in life according as he is
accustomed to consult her in his business enterprises. There is a world
of caution, shrewdness, and latent wisdom in such women, which their
husbands too frequently disregard to their ruin.
I am thus particular as to all my experiences; for this is really a
domestic story, intended for the multitudes who have suffered half a
lifetime from trials similar to mine, and who yet feel ungratified
longings for some avenue of escape. My object being to point out that
through which I emerged from such a life to one of certainty and
comfort, the detail ought to be valuable, even if it fail to be
interesting. It is possible that I may sink the practical in the
enthusiastic, and prove myself to be unduly enamored of my choice. But
as it is success that makes the hero, so let my experience be accepted
as the test.
I had settled it in my mind that I would use thousand dollars in the
purchase of land, and that I could make Ten Acres Enough. This I was
determined to pay for at once, and have it covered by no man’s
parchment. But when we set out on our search, we found some
difficulties. Every county in New Jersey contained a hundred farms that
were for sale. Most of them were too large for my slender purse, though
otherwise most eligibly situated. Then we must have a decent house, even
if we were forced to put up with less land. Numerous locations of this
kind were offered. The trouble was--keeping my slender purse in
view--that the farms were either too large or too small. My wife was not
fastidious about having a fine house. On the contrary, I was often
surprised to find her pleased with such as to me looked small and mean.
Indeed, it seemed, after ten days’ search, that the tables had been
turned--she was more easily suited than myself. But the same deference
which I paid to her wishes, she uniformly paid to mine.
It was curious to note the anxiety of so many landowners to sell, and to
hear the discordant reasons which they gave for desiring to do so. The
quantity in market was enormous. All the real-estate agents had large
books filled with descriptions of farms and fancy country-seats for
sale, some to be had by paying one-fourth of the purchase-money down,
and some which the owners would exchange for merchandise, or traps, or
houses in the city. Many of them appeared simply to want something else
for what they already had. They were tired of holding, and desired a
change of some kind, better if they could make it, and worse if they
could not. City merchants, or thriving mechanics, had built country
cottages, and then wearied of them--it was found inconvenient to be
going to and fro--in fact, they had soon discovered that the city alone
was their place. Many such told us that their wives did not like the
country.
Others had bought farms and spent great sums in improving them, only to
sell at a loss. Farming did not pay an owner who lived away off in the
city. Another class had taken land for debt, and wanted to realize. They
expected to lose anyhow, and would sell cheap. Then there was another
body of owners who, though born and raised upon the land, were tired of
country life, and wanted to sell and embark in business in the city.
Some few were desirous of going to the West. Change of some kind seemed
to be the general craving. As I discovered that much of all this land
was covered with mortgages of greater or less amount, it was natural to
suppose the sheriff would occasionally turn up, and so it really was.
There were columns in some of the county papers filled with his
advertisements. I sometimes thought the whole country was for sale.
But yet there was a vast body of owners, many of them descendants of the
early settlers, whom no consideration of price could tempt to abandon
their inheritances. They seemed to know and understand the value of
their ancestral acres. We met with other parties, recent purchasers,
who had bought for a permanency, and who could not be induced to sell.
In short, there seemed to be two constantly flowing streams of
people--one tending from city to country, the other from country to
city. Doubtless it is the same way with all our large cities. I think
the latter stream was the larger. If it were not so, our cities could
not grow in population at a rate so much more rapid than the country. At
numerous farm-houses inquiries were made if we knew of any openings in
the city in which boys and young men could be placed. The city was
evidently the coveted goal with too large a number.
This glut of the land-market did not discourage us. We could not be
induced to believe that land had no value because so many were anxious
to dispose of it. We saw that it did not suit those who held it, and
knew that it would suit us. But we could not but lament over the
infatuation of many owners, who we felt certain would be ruined by
turning their wide acres into money, and exposing it to the hazards of
an untried business in the city. I doubt not that many of the very
parties we then encountered have, long before this, realized the sad
fate we feared, and learned too late that lands are better than
merchandise.
One morning, about the middle of March, we found the very spot we had
been seeking. It lay upon the Amboy Railroad, within a few miles of
Philadelphia, within gunshot of a railroad station, and on the outskirts
of a town containing churches, schools, and stores, with quite an
educated society. The grounds comprised eleven acres, and the
dwelling-house was quite large enough for my family. It struck the fancy
of my wife the moment we came up to it; and when she had gone over the
house, looked into the kitchen, explored the cellar, and walked round
the garden, she expressed the strongest desire to make it our home.
There was barn enough to accommodate a horse and cow, with a ton or two
of hay, quite an extensive shed, and I noticed that the barnyard
contained a good pile of manure which was to go with the property. The
buildings were of modern date, the fences were good, and there was
evidence that a former occupant had exercised a taste for fruit and
ornamental trees, while the garden was in very fair condition. But the
land had been wholly neglected. All outside of the garden was a perfect
scarecrow of tall weeds, thousands of which stood clear up to the fence
top, making sure that they had scattered seeds enough for twenty future
crops.
But I noticed that the land directly opposite was in the most admirable
condition, and I saw at a glance that the soil must be adapted to the
very purpose to which it was to be applied. The opposite ground was
matted with a luxuriant growth of strawberries, while rows of stalwart
raspberries held up their vigorous canes in testimony of the goodness of
the soil. A fine peach-orchard on the same neighboring property, seemed
impatient to put forth and blossom unto harvest. The eleven acres could
be no worse land than this, and though I had a horror of weeds, yet I
was not to be frightened by them. I knew that weeds were more
indigenous to New Jersey than even watermelons.
This miniature plantation of eleven acres belonged to a merchant in the
city. He had taken it to secure a debt of eleven hundred dollars, but
had pledged himself to pay the former owner whatever excess over that
sum he might obtain for it. But pledges of that loose character seldom
amount to much--the creditor consults his own interest, not that of the
debtor. The latter had long been trying to sell, but in vain; and now
the former had become equally embarrassed, and needed money even more
urgently than the debtor had done. The whole property had cost the
debtor eighteen hundred dollars. His views in founding it were similar
to mine. He meant to establish for himself a home, to which at some
future period he might retire. But he made the sad mistake of continuing
in business in the city, and one disaster succeeding another, he had
been compelled to abandon his anticipated refuge nearly a year before we
came along.
All these facts I learned before beginning to negotiate for the
purchase. As the banished man related them to me, going largely into the
history of his hopes, his trials, his disappointments, I found cause for
renewed thankfulness over my superior condition. With a single
exception, his experience had been the counterpart of my own--he had
lost all and was loaded with debt, while I had saved something and owed
no man. But when, in language of the tenderest feeling, he spoke of his
wife, whose highest passion had been gratified by the possession of a
home so humble as even this--when he described how happy she had been in
her garden, and how grief-stricken at being compelled to leave it--his
eloquence fairly made my heart ache. I am sure my wife felt the full
force of all he said. Her own attachment to the spot had already begun
to take root, and she could sympathize with this rude sundering of a
long-established tie.
CHAPTER V.
MAKING A PURCHASE--FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
The owner of these eleven acres had been for some months in the furnace
of pecuniary affliction. He was going the way of nine-tenths of all the
business flesh within the circle of my acquaintance. As a purchaser I
did not seek him, nor to his representative did myself or my wife let
fall a single word indicating that we were pleased with the property.
When fifteen hundred dollars were named as the price, I did indulge in
some expression of surprise, thinking it was quite enough. Discovering
subsequently that the owner was an old city acquaintance, I dropped in
one morning to see him, and for an hour we talked over the times, the
markets, the savage rates demanded for money, and how the spring
business was likely to turn out. On real estate I was mute as a mouse,
except giving it as my decided opinion that some holders were asking
greater prices than they would be likely to realize.
This side-thrust brought my friend out. He mentioned his house and
eleven acres, and eagerly inquired if I did not know of some one who
would buy. With as much indifference as I could assume, I asked his
terms. He told me with great frankness that he was compelled to sell,
and that his need of money was so great, that he might possibly do so
whether the debtor got any thing or not. He urged me to find him a
purchaser, and finally gave me the refusal of the place for a few days.
Now, the plain truth was, that my anxiety to buy was quite as great as
his was to sell. During the next week we met several times, when he
invariably inquired as to the prospect of a purchaser. But I had no
encouragement to offer. When I thought I had fought shy long enough, I
surprised him by saying that I knew of a purchaser who was ready to take
the property at a thousand dollars. He sat down and indulged in some
figuring, then for a few moments was silent, then inquired if the offer
was a cash one, and when the money could be had. I replied, the moment
his deed was ready for delivery.
It was evident that the offer of instant payment determined him to sell
at so low a price--cash was every thing. Opening his desk, he took out a
deed for the property, ready to execute whenever the grantee’s name, the
date and the consideration should have been inserted, handed it to me,
and said he accepted the offer, only let him have the money as quickly
as possible.
I confess to both exultation and surprise. I had secured an unmistakable
bargain. The ready-made deed surprised me, but it showed the owner’s
necessities, and that he had been prepared to let the property go at the
first decent offer. The natural selfishness of human nature has since
induced me to believe that I could have bought for even less, had I not
been so precipitate. His searches and brief of title were also ready: a
single day or two was enough to bring them up--he had been determined
to sell.
The transaction seemed to involve a succession of surprises. His turn
for a new one came when he found that I had inserted my wife’s name in
the deed. So, paying him his thousand dollars, I returned with the deed
to my wife, telling her that she had now a home of her own; that, come
what might, the property was hers; that the laws of New Jersey secured
it to her, and that no subsequent destitution of mine could wrest it
from her. This little act of consideration was as gratifying a surprise
to her as any that either buyer or seller had experienced. If rejoiced
at my having secured the place, it gave to it a new interest in her
estimation, and fixed and made permanent the attachment she had
spontaneously acquired for it. Her gratification only served to increase
my own.
It is thus that small acts of kindness make life pleasant and desirable.
Every dark object is made light by them, and many scalding tears of
sorrow are thus easily brushed away. When the heart is sad, and
despondency sits at the entrance of the soul, a little kindness drives
despair away, and makes the path cheerful and pleasant. Who then will
refuse a kind act? It costs the giver nothing--just as this did; but it
is invaluable to the receiver. No broader acres, no more stately
mansion, whether in town or country, could now tempt my wife to leave
this humble refuge. Here she has been ever happy, and here, I doubt not,
she will end her earthly career.
In a week the house was vacated and cleansed, and we were in full
possession. My wife was satisfied, my children were delighted, and I had
realized the dream of twenty years! One strong fact forced itself on my
attention the first night I passed under my new roof. The drain of three
hundred dollars per annum into the pocket of my city landlord had been
stopped. My family received as safe a shelter for the interest of a
thousand dollars, as he had given them for the interest of five
thousand! The feeling of relief from this unappeasable demand was
indescribable. Curiously enough, my wife voluntarily suggested that the
same feeling of relief had been presented to her. But in addition to
this huge equivalent for the investment of a thousand dollars, there was
that which might be hereafter realized from the cultivation of eleven
acres of land.
This lodgment was effected on the first of April, 1855. When all our
household fixings had been snugly arranged, and I took my first walk
over my little plantation, on a soft and balmy morning, my feeling of
contentment seemed to be perfect. I knew that I was not rich, but it was
certain that I was not poor. In contrasting my condition with that of
others, both higher and lower upon fortune’s ladder, I found a thousand
causes for congratulation, but none for regret. With all his wealth,
Rothschild must be satisfied with the same sky that was spread over me.
He cannot order a private sunrise, that he may enjoy it with a select
circle of friends, nor add a single glory to the gorgeous spectacle of
the setting sun. The millionaire could not have more than his share of
the pure atmosphere that I was breathing, while the poorest of all men
could have as much. God only can give all these, and to many of the poor
he has thus given. All that is most valuable can be had for nothing.
They come as presents from the hand of an indulgent Father, and neither
air nor sky, nor beauty, genius, health, or strength, can be bought or
sold. Whatever may be one’s condition in life, the great art is to learn
to be content and happy, indulging in no feverish longings for what we
have not, but satisfied and thankful for what we have.
CHAPTER VI.
PLANTING A PEACH ORCHARD--HOW TO PRESERVE PEACH-TREES.
It was now the season for me to bustle about, fix up my land, and get in
my crops. I examined it more carefully, walked over it daily, and made
myself thoroughly acquainted with it. As before mentioned, it had been
utterly neglected for a whole season, and was grown up with enormous
weeds. These, after a day or two of drizzling rain, when the
seed-vessels were so wet as not to allow their contents to shatter out,
I mowed off, gathered into several large heaps, and burned--thus getting
rid of millions of pestiferous seeds. Then I purchased ploughs,
including a subsoiler, a harrow, cultivator, and other tools. One acre
of the whole was in clover, another was set aside as being occupied by
the dwelling-house, garden, stable, and barnyard; but much the larger
half of that acre was allowed for garden purposes. This left me just
nine acres for general fruit and vegetable culture. I hired a man to
plough them up, he finding his own team, and another to follow him in
the furrow with my subsoiler. The first went down ten inches, and the
latter ten more.
My neighbors were extremely kind with their suggestions. They had never
seen such deep ploughing, and warned me not to turn up the old subsoil,
and thus bring it to the surface. But they were not book-farmers.
Now, this business of deep subsoil ploughing is a matter of
indispensable value in all agriculture, but especially so in the
planting of an orchard. No tree can thrive as it ought to, unless the
earth is thoroughly and deeply loosened for the free expansion of the
roots. If I could have ploughed two feet deep, it would have been all
the better. In fact, the art of ploughing is in its mere infancy in this
country. Too many of us follow blindly in the beaten track. The first
plough was a tough, forked stick, of which one prong served as a beam,
while the other dug the earth as a coulter. Of course the ploughing was
only scratching. It would have been preposterous to expect the ploughman
of Hesiod’s or of Virgil’s time to turn up and mellow the soil to a
depth of fifteen or sixteen inches. Down to the present age, ploughing
was inevitably a shallow affair. But iron ploughs, steel ploughs,
subsoil ploughs, have changed all this. It is as easy to-day to mellow
the earth to the depth of two feet, as it was a century ago to turn over
a sward to the depth of six inches. Besides, our fierce, trying climate,
so different from the moist, milder one of England, Ireland, or even
Holland, whence our ancestors emigrated, absolutely requires of us deep
ploughing. Drought is our perpetual danger. Most crops are twenty to
sixty per cent. short of what they would have been with adequate and
seasonable moisture. That moisture exists not only in the skies above,
but in the earth beneath our plants. Though the skies may capriciously
withhold it, the earth never will, if we provide a rich, mellow subsoil
through which the roots can descend for moisture.
The hotter and dryer the weather, the better our plants will grow, if
they have rich, warm earth beneath them, reaching down to and including
moisture. We cannot, and we need not plough so very deep each year to
assure this, if the subsoil is so underdrained that the superabundant
moisture of the wet season does not pack it. Underdraining as the
foundation, and deep ploughing as the superstructure, with ample
manuring and generous tillage, will secure us ample crops, such as any
section of our country has rarely seen. Our corn should average seventy
bushels per acre. Every field should be ready to grow wheat, if
required. Every grass-lot should be good for three tons of hay per acre.
Abundant fruits should gladden our fields and enrich our farmers’
tables. So should our children no longer seek, in flight to crowded
cities or the remote West, an escape from the ill-paid drudgery and
intellectual barrenness of their fathers’ lives, but find abundance and
happiness in and around their childhood’s happy homes.
I laid out two hundred dollars in the purchase of old, well-rotted
stable manure from the city, spread it over the ten acres, and ploughed
up nine of them. I then set out my peach-trees on six acres, planting
them in rows eighteen feet apart, and eighteen feet asunder in the rows.
This accommodated a hundred and thirty-four to the acre, or eight
hundred and four in all. These would not be in the way of any other
crop, and in three years would be likely to yield a good return. The
roots of every tree underwent a searching scrutiny before it was
planted, to see that they harbored no members of that worm family which
is so surely destructive of the peach. As trees are often delivered from
the nursery with worms in them, so many of these were infected. The
enemy was killed, and the butt of each tree was then swabbed with common
tar, extending from where the roots begin to branch out, about twelve
inches up. It is just about there, say between wind and water, at the
surface of the ground, where the bark is soft, that in June and
September the peach-moth deposits her eggs. From these is hatched the
worm which kills the tree, unless picked out and destroyed.
To perform this searching operation on a thousand trees every year,
would be laborious and expensive. There would also be great danger of
its being imperfectly done, as many worms might escape the search, while
the vital power of the tree would be seriously impaired by permitting
them to prey upon its bark and juices even for a few months. Prevention
would be far cheaper than curing. The offensive odor of the tar will
cause the moth to shun the tree and to make her deposits somewhere else;
while if any chance to light upon it, they will stick to the tar and
there perish, like flies upon a sheet of fly paper.
The tar was occasionally examined during the season, to see that it kept
soft and sticky; and where any hardening was discovered, a fresh
swabbing was applied. The whole operation was really one of very little
trouble, while the result was highly remunerative. Thoughtfulness,
industry, and a little tar, did the business effectually. I believe no
nostrum of putting ashes round the butt of a peach-tree to kill the
worms, or any other nostrum of the kind is worth a copper. The only sure
remedy is prevention. Do not let the worms get in, and there will be no
effort needed to get them out.
I planted none but the rarest and choicest kinds. Economy of a few cents
in the price of a tree is no economy at all. It is the _best_ fruit that
sells the quickest and pays the highest profit. Yet there are still
large quantities of fruit produced which is not worth taking to market.
The best is cheaper for both buyer and seller. Hundreds of bushels of
apples and peaches are annually made into execrable pies in all the
large cities, merely because they can be purchased at less cost than
those of a better quality. But it is a mistaken economy with the buyer,
as a mild, good-flavored peach or apple requires less sugar, and will
then make a better pie. Many persons have a pride in, and attach too
much consequence to a tree which sprung up spontaneously on their own
farm, or perhaps which they have cultivated with some care; and then
numbers of comparatively worthless seedlings occupy the places that
should be improved by finer varieties, and which, if cultivated, would
afford a greater profit.
It is as easy to grow the choicest as the meanest fruit. I have a
relative in Ohio who has a peach orchard of eleven acres, which has
yielded him five thousand dollars in a single season, during which
peaches were selling in Cincinnati at twenty-five cents a bushel. It is
easy to understand that his orchard would not have produced him that sum
at that price. No, it did not. He received two dollars a bushel more
readily than his neighbors got twenty-five cents for the same variety of
peaches, and this is how he did it. When the peaches had grown as large
as a hickory nut, he employed a large force and put on one hundred and
eighty-five days’ work in picking off the excess of fruit. More than
one-half of the fruit then upon the trees was carefully removed. Each
limb was taken by hand, and where, within a space of eighteen inches,
there would be probably twenty peaches, but six or seven of the fairest
would be left to ripen. Thus, by carefully removing all but the
strongest specimens, and throwing all the vigor of the tree into them,
the peaches ripen early, and are remarkable for size and excellence of
quality.
But this was labor! Seven months’ labor of one man in a small peach
orchard! But be it so--the net profit was between three and four
thousand dollars. If he had neglected his trees, the owner’s profits
would have been a crop of peaches hardly fit to feed the pigs. I have
profited largely by following his example, and will relate my own
experience when the returns of my orchard come in.
I intend to be particular touching my peach orchard, as well for the
gratification of my own pride, as an incentive to those who cannot be
made to believe Ten Acres Enough. My success with it has far outstripped
my expectations; and I pronounce a peach orchard of this size, planted
and cultivated as it can be, and will be, by an intelligent man not
essentially lazy, as the sheet anchor of his safety. I was careful to
plant none but small trees, because such can be removed from the nursery
with greater safety than large ones, while the roots are less
multiplied, and thus receive fewer injuries; neither are they liable to
be displaced by high winds before acquiring a firm foothold in the
ground. Many persons suppose that newly planted trees should be large
enough to be out of danger from cattle running among them; but all
cattle should be excluded from a young orchard.
Moreover, small trees make a better growth, and are more easily trimmed
into proper shape. All experienced horticulturists testify to the
superior eligibility of small trees. They cost less at the nursery, less
in transportation, and very few fail to grow. One year old from the bud
is old enough, and the same, generally, may be said of apples and pears.
I dug holes for each tree three feet square and two feet deep, and
filled in with a mixture of the surrounding top-soil and leached ashes,
a half bushel of the latter to each tree. Knowing that the peach-tree
delights in ashes, I obtained four hundred bushels from a city
soap-works, and am satisfied they were exactly the manure my orchard
needed. Every root which had been wounded by the spade in removing the
tree from the nursery, was cut off just back of the wound, paring it
smooth with a sharp knife. The fine earth was settled around the roots
by pouring in water; after which the mixture of earth and ashes was
thrown on until the hole was filled, leaving a slight depression round
the tree, to catch the rain, and the tree at about the same level it had
maintained when standing in the nursery.
I did not stake up the trees. They were too small to need it; besides, I
should be all the time on hand to keep them in position. Being a
new-comer, I had no straw with which to mulch them, to retain the proper
moisture about the roots, or it would have been applied. But the season
turned out to be abundantly showery, and they went on growing from the
start. Not a tree was upset by storm or wind, nor did one of them die. I
do not think the oldest nurseryman in the country could have been more
successful.
This operation made a heavy draft on the small cash capital which I
possessed. But small as it was, it was large enough to show that capital
is indispensable to successful farming. Had I been without it, my
orchard would have been a mere hope, instead of a reality, and I might
have been compelled to wait for years before feeling rich enough to
establish it. But when the work of planting was over, my satisfaction
was extreme; and when I saw the trees in full leaf, giving token that
the work had been well done, I felt that I had not only learned but
accomplished much. I had been constantly on the ground while the
planting was progressing--had seen for myself that every tree was
cleared of worms--had held them up while the water and the earth and
ashes had been thrown in and gently packed about the roots--and had
given so much attention in other ways, as to feel sure that no part of
the whole operation had been neglected; and hence I had a clear right to
regard it as my own job.
The cost of planting this orchard was as follows:
804 trees at 7 cents $56.28
Planting them 2 cents 16.08
Ploughing and harrowing 20.00
400 bushels of ashes 48.00
Manure 200.00
------
340.36
I have unfairly saddled on the orchard the whole charge of two hundred
dollars for manure, because it went to nourish other crops which the
same ground produced. But let that go--the land was quite poor, needed
all it got, and I had no faith in farming without manure. Had my purse
been heavy enough, the quantity should have been trebled.
As I am writing for the benefit of others, who, I hope, are not yet
tired of peaches, let me add that this fruit will not succeed on ground
where a previous orchard has been recently grown; neither can one be
sure of getting healthy trees from any nurseryman who grows his on land
from which he had recently produced a similar crop. The seed must be
from healthy trees, and the buds from others equally free from disease.
The peach, unless carefully watched and attended, is a short-lived tree.
But it returns a generous income to a careful and generous grower. Of
latter years the worm is its most formidable enemy. But with those who
think a good tree is as much worth being taken care of as a good horse,
there will be neither doubt nor difficulty in keeping the destroyer out.
Ten well-grown, bearing trees, which I found in the garden, were
harboring a hundred and ninety worms among them when I undertook the
work of extermination. I bared the collar and roots of each tree as far
as I could track a worm, and cut him out. I then scrubbed the whole
exposed part with soap-suds and a regular scrubbing-brush; after which I
let them remain exposed for a week. If any worms had been overlooked,
the chips thrown out by their operations would be plainly visible on the
clean surface at the week’s end. Having tracked and cut out them also, I
felt sure the enemy was exterminated, and covered up the roots, but
first using the swab of common tar, applying it all round the collar,
and some distance up.
These garden-trees were terribly scarified by the worms. But the
cleaning out I gave them was effectual. The soap-suds purged the injured
parts of the unhealthy virus deposited by the worms, leaving them so
nice and clean that the new bark began immediately to close over the
cavities, and soon covered them entirely. I thus saved ten valuable
bearing trees. Then I shortened in the long, straggling branches, for
the peach will certainly grow sprawling out on every side, forming long
branches which break down under the weight of a full crop at their
extremities, unless the pruning-knife is freely used every season. All
this was the work of less than a day, and shows that if peach-orchards
perish after bearing only two or three crops, it may be attributed
solely to mere neglect and laziness on the part of their owners. They
plant trees, refuse to take care of them, and then complain if they die
early. The world would soon be without pork, if all the pigs were as
much neglected. These ten trees have never failed to produce me generous
crops of luscious fruit. I cannot think of any investment which has paid
me better than the slight labor annually required to keep them in good
condition.
I have tried with entire success two other methods of protecting
peach-trees from the ravages of the worm. I have found gas-tar equally
effectual with the common tar, and much more easily obtained. But care
must be taken not to cover a height of more than four to six inches of
the butt of the tree. If the whole stem from root to branch be covered,
the tree will surely die. Another method is to inclose the butt in a
jacket of pasteboard, or even thick hardware paper, keeping it in place
with a string, and lowering it an inch or two below the ground, so as to
prevent the fly having access to the soft part of the bark. These
jackets will last two or three years, as they should be taken off at the
approach of winter, to prevent them from becoming a harbor for insects.
But they are an infallible preventive. I have recently procured a supply
of the thick tarred felt which is used for making paper roofs, to be cut
up and turned into jackets. This material will last for years, being
water-proof, while the odor of the gas-tar in which it has been steeped
is peculiarly offensive to the whole tribe of insects.
CHAPTER VII.
PLANTING RASPBERRIES AND STRAWBERRIES--TRICKS OF THE NURSERY.
My peach-orchard was no sooner finished than I filled each row with
raspberries, setting the roots two feet apart in the rows. This enabled
me to get seven roots in between every two trees, or five thousand six
hundred and fifty-six in all. This was equivalent to nearly two acres
wholly planted with raspberries according to the usual plan. They would
go on growing without injuring the peach-trees, or being injured by
them; and when the latter should reach their full growth, their shade
would be highly beneficial to the raspberries, as they thrive better and
bear more freely when half protected from the burning sun. The tops were
cut off within a few inches of the ground, thus preventing any excessive
draft upon the newly planted roots. No staking up was needed. These
roots cost me six dollars per thousand, or thirty-four dollars for the
lot, and were the ordinary Red Antwerp. The season proving showery, they
grew finely. Some few died, but my general luck was very satisfactory. I
planted the whole lot in three days with my own hands.
I am sure the growth of my raspberries was owing, in a great degree, to
the deep ploughing the land had received. The soil they delight in is
one combining richness, depth, and moisture. It is only from such that
a full crop may be expected every season. The roots must have abundance
of elbow-room to run down and suck up moisture from the abundant
reservoir which exists below. Deep ploughing will save them from the
effects of dry weather, which otherwise will blast the grower’s hopes,
giving him a small berry, shrivelled up from want of moisture, instead
of one of ample size, rich, and juicy. Hence irrigation has been known
to double the size of raspberries, as well as doubling the growth of the
canes in a single season. Mulching also is a capital thing. One row so
treated, by way of experiment, showed a marked improvement over all the
others, besides keeping down the weeds.
As a market fruit the raspberry stands on the same list with the best,
and I am satisfied that one cannot produce too much. For this purpose I
consider the Red Antwerp most admirably adapted. There are twenty other
varieties, some of which are probably quite as valuable, but I was
unwilling to have my attention divided among many sorts. One really good
berry was enough for me. Some of my neighbors have as much as ten acres
in this fruit, from which they realize prodigious profits. Like all the
smaller fruits, it yields a quick return to an industrious and
pains-taking cultivator.
Immediately on getting my raspberries in, I went twice over the six
acres with the cultivator, stirring up the ground some four inches deep,
as it had been a good deal trampled down by our planting operations.
This I did myself, with a thirty-dollar horse which I had recently
bought. Having eighteen feet between two rows of peach-trees, I divided
this space into five rows for strawberries, giving me very nearly three
feet between each row. In these rows I set the strawberry plants, one
foot apart, making about 10,000 plants per acre, allowing for the
headlands. I bought the whole 60,000 required for $2 per thousand,
making $120. This was below the market price.
In planting these I got three of the children to help me, and though it
was more tiresome work than they had ever been accustomed to, yet they
stood bravely up to it. Every noon we four went home with raging
appetites for dinner, where the plain but well-cooked fare provided by
my wife and eldest daughter--for she kept no servant--was devoured with
genuine country relish. The exercise in the open air for the whole week
which it took us to get through this job did us all a vast amount of
good. Roses came into the cheeks of my daughters, to which the cheeks
aforesaid had been strangers in the city; and it was the general remark
among us at breakfast, that it had never felt so good to get to bed the
night before. Thus honest labor brought wholesome appetites and sound
repose. Most of us complained of joints a little stiffened by so much
stooping, but an hour’s exercise at more stooping made us limber for the
remainder of the day.
It occupied us a whole week to set out these plants, for we were all new
hands at the business. But the work was carefully done, and a shower
coming on just as we had finished, it settled the earth nicely to the
roots, and I do not think more than two hundred of them died. I intended
to put a pinch of guano compost or a handful of poudrette into each
hill, but thought I could not afford it, and so let them go, trusting to
being able to give them a dressing of some kind of manure the following
spring. I much regretted this omission, as I was fully aware of the
great value of the best strawberries, and plenty of them. My wife
thought at first that six acres was an enormous quantity to
have--inquired if I expected to feed the family on strawberries, and
whether it was not worth while to set about raising some sugar to go
with them, feeling certain that a great deal of _that_ would be wanted.
I forgot to say that I had planted Wilson’s Albany Seedling. This was
the berry for which we had been compelled to pay such high prices while
living in the city. Everybody testified to its being the most profuse
bearer, while its great size and handsome shape made it eagerly sought
after in the market. It was admitted, all things considered, to be the
best market berry then known. My experience has confirmed this. True, it
is a little tarter than most other varieties, and therefore requires
more sugar to make it palatable; but this objection is more theoretical
than practical, as I always noticed that when the berries came upon the
table, while living in the city, we continued to pile on the sugar, no
matter what the price or quantity. The berries were there, and must be
eaten.
On one occasion, on repeating this observation to my wife, she admitted
having noticed the same remarkable fact, and added that she believed
strawberries would continue to be eaten, even if each quart required a
pound of sugar to sweeten it. She declared that for her part, she and
the children intended to do so in future.
Now, although she was extravagantly fond of strawberries, and had
brought up our children in the same faith, this threat did not alarm me,
for I knew that hereafter our berries would cost me nothing, and that if
they devoured them too freely, sugar included, a slight pain under the
apron of some of them would be likely to moderate their infatuation. I
then suggested to her, how would it do--whether it would not make our
establishment immensely popular--if in selling my berries, when the crop
came in next year, to announce to the public that we would throw the
sugar in? She looked at me a moment, and must have suspected that I was
quizzing her; for she got up and left the room, saying she must go into
the kitchen, as she heard the tea-kettle boiling over. But though I
waited a full half hour, yet she did not return.
The reader may have been all this time watching the condition of my
purse. But he has not been so observant as myself. These plants did not
cost me cash. I had intended to plant an acre or two to begin with. But
after buying my peach-trees and raspberries, the nurseryman inquired if
I did not intend to plant strawberries also, as he had a very large
quantity which he would sell cheap. His saying that he had a very large
lot, and that he would sell them cheap, seemed to imply that he found a
difficulty in disposing of them. Besides, the selling season was pretty
nearly over. I therefore fought shy, and merely inquired his terms. This
led to a long colloquy between us, in the course of which I held off
just in proportion as he became urgent. At last, believing that I was
not disposed to buy, although I went there for that very purpose, he
offered to sell me 60,000 plants for $120, and to take his money out of
the proceeds of my first crop. This offer I considered fair enough, much
better than I expected; and after having distinctly agreed that he
should depend upon the crop, and not on me, for payment, and that if the
coming season yielded nothing he should wait for the following one, I
confessed to him that his persuasions had overcome me, and consented to
the bargain.
In other words, I did not run in debt--I saved just that much of my
capital, and could make a magnificent beginning with our favorite fruit.
As I was leaving this liberal man, he observed to me:
“Well, I am glad you have taken this lot, as I was intending to plough
them in to-morrow.”
“How is that?” I inquired, not exactly understanding his meaning.
“Oh,” said he, “I have so many now that I must have the ground for other
purposes, and so meant to plough them under if you had not bought them.”
This was an entirely new wrinkle to me, and fully explained why he could
afford to farm them out on the conditions referred to. Though a capital
bargain for me, yet it was a still better one for him. What he was to
receive was absolutely so much clear gain. But then, after all that has
been said and written, is it not a truth that cannot be disputed, that
no bargain can be pronounced a good one unless all the parties to it are
in some way benefited?
Here, now, were six acres of ground pretty well crowded up, at least on
paper. But the strawberries would never grow higher than six inches; the
raspberries would be kept down to three or four feet, while the peaches
would overtop all. Each would be certain to keep out of the other’s way.
Then look at the succession. The strawberries would be in market first,
the raspberries would follow, and then the peaches, for of the latter I
had planted the earliest sorts; so that, unlike a farm devoted wholly to
the raising of grain, which comes into market only once a year, I should
have one cash-producing crop succeeding to another during most of the
summer. On the remaining three acres I meant to raise something which
would bring money in the autumn, so as to keep me flush all the time.
You may say that this was reckoning my chickens before they were
hatched; but you will please remember that thus far I have not even
mentioned chickens, and I pray that you will be equally considerate. I
know, at least I have some indistinct recollection of having heard that
the proof of the pudding lay in the eating. But pray be patient, even
credulous, until the aforesaid mythical pudding is served up. I am now
cooking it, and you ought all to know that cooks must not be hurried. In
good time it will come smoking on the table.
CHAPTER VIII.
BLACKBERRIES--A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE.
In the course of my agricultural reading for some years previous to
coming into the country, I had noticed great things said of a new
blackberry which had been discovered in the State of New York. The
stories printed in relation to it were almost fabulous. It was
represented as growing twenty feet high, and as bearing berries nearly
as large as a walnut, which melted on the tongue with a lusciousness to
which the softest ice-cream was a mere circumstance, while the fruit was
said to be strung upon its branches like onions on a rope. A single bush
would supply a large family with fruit! I was amazed at the extravagant
accounts given of its unexampled productiveness and matchless flavor. I
had supposed that I knew all about blackberries, but here was a great
marvel in a department which had been proverbially free from
eccentricities of that kind.
But I followed it--in the papers--for a long time. At last I saw it
stated that the rare plant could not be propagated from the seed, but
only from suckers, and therefore very slowly. Of course it could not be
afforded for less than a dollar apiece! It would be unreasonable to look
for blackberries for less! It struck me that the superior flavor claimed
for it must be a little of the silvery order--that in berries bought at
that price, a touch might be detected even of the most auriferous
fragrance. Still, I was an amateur--in a small way. I rejoiced in a city
garden which would readily accommodate a hundred of this extraordinary
berry, especially as it was said to do better and bear more fruit, when
cut down to four feet, instead of being allowed to grow to a height of
twenty.
It thus seemed to be made for such miniature gardeners as myself. One
generous advertiser offered to send six roots by mail for five dollars,
provided ten red stamps were inclosed with the money. I had never before
heard of blackberries being sent by mail; but the whole thing was
recommended by men in whose standing all confidence could be placed, and
who, as far as could be discovered, had no plants to sell. Under such
circumstances, doubt seemed to be absurd.
I sent five dollars and the stamps. But this was one of the secrets I
never told my wife until she had eaten the first bowlful of the fully
ripened fruit, eighteen months afterwards. Well, the plants came in a
letter--mere fibres of a greater root--certainly not thicker than a thin
quill, not one of them having a top. They looked like long white worms,
with here and there a bud or eye. I never saw, until then, what I
considered the meanest five dollars’ worth of any thing I had ever
bought; and when my wife inquired what those things were I was planting,
I replied that they were little vegetable wonders which a distant
correspondent had sent me. Not dreaming that they cost me near a dollar
apiece, at the very time I owed a quarter’s rent, she dropped the
subject.
But I planted them in a deeply spaded and rich sunny border, deluged
them every week with suds from the family wash, and by the close of the
season they had sent up more than a dozen strong canes which stood six
feet high. The next summer they bore a crop of fruit which astonished
me. From the group of bushes I picked fifteen quarts of berries superior
to any thing of the kind we had ever eaten. I then confided the secret
to my wife: she considered the plants cheap at five dollars, and
pronounced my venture a good one. I think we had more than five dollars’
worth of satisfaction in showing them to our friends and neighbors. We
gave away some pints of the fruit, and such was its fame and popularity,
that I feel convinced we could have readily disposed of it all in the
same way.
One of the reporters for a penny-paper hearing of the matter, called in
my absence to see them. My wife politely acted as showman, and being
very eloquent of speech on any matter which happens to strike her fancy,
she was quite as communicative as he desired. She did not know that the
fellow was a penny-a-liner, whose vocation it was to magnify an ant-hill
into a mountain. To her extreme consternation, as well as to mine, the
next morning’s paper contained a half-column article describing my
blackberries, even giving my name and the number of the house. By ten
o’clock that day the latter was run down with strangers, who had thus
been publicly invited to call and see the new blackberry. Our opposite
neighbors laughed heartily over my wife’s vexation, and for the first
time in my life I saw her almost immovable good temper give way. The
nuisance continued for weeks, as the vile article had been copied into
some of the neighboring country papers, and thus new swarms of bores
were inflamed with curiosity. This little vexatious circumstance
afforded unmistakable evidence of the great interest taken by the public
in the discovery of a new and valuable fruit. I could have disposed of
thousands of plants if I had had them for sale.
This was the New Rochelle or Lawton Blackberry. The numerous suckers
which came up around each root I transplanted along my border, until I
had more than two hundred of them. This was long before a single berry
had been offered for sale in the Philadelphia market, though the papers
told me that the fruit was selling in New York at half a dollar per
quart, and that the great consuming public of that city, having once
tasted of it, was clamorous for more. I am constrained to say that the
nurserymen who had these plants to sell did not over praise them. This
berry has fully realized all they promised in relation to it; and a debt
of thankfulness is owing to the men who first discovered and caused it
to be propagated. It has taken its place in public estimation beside the
strawberry and raspberry, and will henceforth continue to be a favorite
in every market where it may become known.
This extraordinary fruit was first noticed in 1834, by Mr. Lewis A.
Secor, of New Rochelle, New York, who observed a single bush growing
wild in an open field, but loaded with astonishing clusters of larger
berries than he had ever seen, and of superior richness of flavor. At
the proper season he removed the plant to his garden, where he continued
to propagate it for several years, during which time it won the
unqualified admiration of all who had an opportunity of either seeing or
tasting the fruit. Numerous plants were distributed, and its propagation
in private gardens and nurseries began. A quantity of the fruit being
exhibited at the Farmers’ Club, by Mr. William Lawton, the club named it
after him, leaving the discoverer unrecognized.
Great sums of money have been made by propagators of this berry. It
possesses peculiar merits in the estimation of market gardeners. It
ripens just as the supply of strawberries and raspberries has been
exhausted, and before peaches and grapes have made their appearance,
filling with delicious fruit a horticultural vacuum which had long
existed. Its mammoth size and luscious qualities insure for it the
highest prices, and it has steadily maintained its original character.
It pays the grower enormously, is a sure bearer, is never touched by
frost or attacked by insect enemies, and when well manured and staked up
from the wind, and cut down to four feet high, with the limbs shortened
to a foot, will readily produce two thousand quarts to the acre. Some
growers have greatly exceeded this quantity. I have known a single plant
to yield eighteen hundred berries, and three plants to produce sixteen
quarts. Its flavor is entirely different from that of the common wild
blackberry, while it abounds in juice, and contains no core. It is
evidently a distinct variety. It has also long been famous for yielding
a most superior wine.
When I went into the country I had two hundred of the Lawton blackberry
to plant, all which were the product of my five-dollar venture. In
digging them up from my city garden, every inch of root that could be
found was carefully hunted out. They had multiplied under ground to a
surprising extent--some of them being as much as twenty feet in length.
These roots were full of buds from which new canes would spring. Their
vitality is almost unconquerable--everybody knows a blackberry is the
hardest thing in the world to kill. I cut off the canes six inches above
the root, then divided each stool into separate roots, and then cutting
up the long roots into slips containing one to two eyes each, I found my
number of sets to exceed a thousand, quite enough to plant an acre.
These I put out in rows eight feet apart, and eight feet asunder in the
rows. Not ten of them died, as they came fresh out of the ground in one
place, only to be immediately covered up some three inches deep in
another. Thus this whole five-dollar speculation was one of the luckiest
hits I ever made; because I began early, before the plant had passed
into everybody’s hands; and when it came into general demand, I was the
only grower near the city who had more than a dozen plants. Very soon
everybody wanted the fruit, and the whole neighborhood wanted the
plants. How I condescended to supply both classes of customers will
appear hereafter.
Yet, while setting out these roots, several of my neighbors, as usual
when I was doing any thing, came to oversee me. On former occasions they
had expressed considerable incredulity as to my operations; and it was
easy to see from their remarks and inquiries now, that they thought I
didn’t know much, and would have nothing for my labor but my pains. I
always listened good-humoredly to their remarks, because I discovered
that now and then they let fall something which was of real value to me.
When they discovered it was blackberries I was planting, some of them
laughed outright. But I replied that this Lawton berry was a new
variety, superior to any thing known, and an incredible bearer. They
answered me they could find better ones in any fence corner in the
township, and that if I once got them into my ground I could never get
them out. It struck me the last remark would also apply as justly to my
peach-trees.
But I contented myself with saying that I should never want to get them
out, and that the time would come when they would all want the same
thing in their own ground. Thus it is that pioneers in any thing are
generally ridiculed and discouraged by the general multitude. Of all my
visitors, only two appeared to have any correct knowledge of the new
plant. They offered to buy part of my stock; but on refusing to sell,
they engaged to take some in the autumn.
I have been thus particular in writing of the Lawton, because of my
singular success with it from the start. I thus occupied my seventh
acre; but the rows being eight feet apart, abundant room was left to
raise a crop of some kind between them. Even in the rows, between the
roots, I planted corn, which grew well, and afforded a most beneficial
shade to the young blackberries as they grew up. I am satisfied they
flourished, better for being thus protected the first season from the
hot sun. When in full maturity, they need all the sun they can get. They
will grow and flourish in almost any soil in which they once become well
rooted, though they are rank feeders on manure. Like a young pig, feed
them well and they will grow to an astonishing size: starve them, and
your crops will be mere runts. It is from the same skinning practice
that so many corn-cribs are seen to abound in nubbins.
I had thus two acres left unoccupied; one acre, as previously stated,
was most fortunately in clover. On this I put four bushels of ground
plaster mixed with a sprinkling of guano, the two costing me only five
dollars. I afterwards devoted an acre to tomatoes, and the last to
parsnips, cabbages, turnips, and sweet corn. This latter was scattered
in rows or drills three feet apart, intending it for green fodder for
the horse and cow when the clover gave out. The turnips were sowed
between the corn-rows, and were intended for winter feeding for horse
and cow. On the acre of blackberries, between the rows, I planted
cabbage, putting into each hill a spoonful of mixed plaster and guano,
and wherever I could find vacant spots about the place, there also a
cabbage plant was set out. A few pumpkin hills were started in suitable
places. In fact, my effort was to occupy every inch of ground with
something. The cabbage and tomato plants cost me thirty dollars.
These several crops were put in as the season for each one came round.
The green-corn crop was not all put in at one time, but at intervals
about two weeks apart, so that I should have a succession of succulent
food during the summer. The horse and cow were to be kept in the
barnyard, as I had no faith in turning cattle out to pasture, thus
requiring three times as much land as was necessary, besides losing half
the manure. The latter was a sort of hobby with me. I was determined to
give my crops all they could profitably appropriate, and so soil my
little stock; that is, keep them in the barnyard in summer, and in the
stable in winter, while their food was to be brought to them, instead of
their being forced to go after it. I knew it would cost time and
trouble; but I have long since discovered that most things of value in
this world come to us only as the result of diligent, unremitted labor.
The man, even upon ten acres, who is content to see around him only
barren fields, scanty crops, and lean, starving animals, does not
deserve the name of farmer. Unless he can devise ways and means for
changing such a condition of things, and cease ridiculing all
propositions of amendment that may be pointed out to him, he had better
be up and off, and give place to a live man. Such skinning and
exhausting tillage is one cause of the annual relative decline of the
wheat-crop all over the Union, and of the frequent changes in the
ownership of lands. The fragrance of a fat and ample manure heap is as
grateful to the nostrils of a good farmer, as the fumes of the tavern
are notoriously attractive to those of a poor one.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GARDEN--FEMALE MANAGEMENT--COMFORTS AND PROFITS.
I mentioned some time ago that the wife of the former owner of this
place had left it with a world of regrets. She had been passionately
fond of the garden which now fell to us. As daylight can be seen through
very small holes, so little things will illustrate a person’s character.
Indeed, character consists in little acts, and honorably performed;
daily life being the quarry from which we build it up and rough-hew the
habits that form it. The garden she had prepared, and cultivated for
several years, doing much of the work of planting, watching, watering,
and training with her own hands, bore honorable testimony to the
goodness of hers. She had filled it with the choicest fruit-trees, most
of which were now in full bearing. There was abundance of all the usual
garden fruits, currants, gooseberries, grapes, and an ample asparagus
bed. It was laid out with taste, convenience, and liberality. Flowers,
of course, had not been omitted by such a woman. Her vocation had
evidently been something beyond that of merely cooking her husband’s
dinners. But her garden bore marks of long abandonment. Great weeds were
rioting in the borders, grass had taken foothold in the alleys, and it
stood in need of a new mistress to work up into profitable use the
store of riches it contained. It struck me that if one woman could
establish a garden like this, I could find another on my own premises to
manage it.
After I had got through with the various plantings of my standard
fruits--indeed, while much of it was going on--I took resolute hold of
the garden. It was large enough to provide vegetables for three
families. I meant to make it sure for one. With all the lights and
improvements of modern times, and they are many, three-fourths of the
farm gardens in our country are still a disgrace to our husbandry. As a
rule, the most easily raised vegetables are not to be found in them; and
the small fruits, with the exception of currants and gooseberries, are
universally neglected. Many of our farmers have never tasted an early
York cabbage. If they get cabbages or potatoes by August, they think
they are doing pretty well. They do not understand the simple mysteries
of a hotbed, and so force nothing. Now, with this article, which need
not cost five dollars, and which a boy of ten years can manage, you can
have cabbages and potatoes in June, and beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and
squashes, and a host of other delicious vegetables, a little later.
By selecting your seed, you can have salad, green peas, onions, and
beets by the last of June, or before without any forcing. A good
asparagus bed, covering two square rods of ground, is a luxury that no
farmer should be without. It will give him a palatable dish, green and
succulent from the bosom of the earth every day, from May to July. A
good variety of vegetables is within the reach of every farmer the year
round. They are not only an important means of supporting the family,
paying at least one-half the table expenses, but they are greatly
conducive to health. They relieve the terrible monotony of salt junk,
and in the warm season prevent the fevers and bowel complaints so often
induced by too much animal food.
Neglect is thus too much the rule. A row of currants, for example, is
planted in a garden. It will indeed bear well with neglect; but an
annual manuring and thinning out of old wood, would at least triple the
size of the fruit, and improve its quality. The row of currants will
furnish a daily supply of refreshing fruit to the table for months
together. Why should its culture then be totally neglected, when a row
of corn by its side of equal length, which will supply only a single
feeding to a pen of hogs, is most carefully manured, watched, ploughed,
and hoed? I have sometimes seen farmers who, after expending large sums
in establishing a young orchard of trees, would destroy one-half by
choking them with a crop of oats or clover, because they could not
afford to lose the use of the small strip of land a few feet wide in the
row, which ought to have been kept clean and cultivated.
I began by deepening the garden soil wherever a spade could be put in. I
hired a man for this purpose, and paid him ten dollars for the job,
including the hauling and digging in of the great pile of manure I had
found in the barnyard, and the clearing up of things generally. I would
have laid out fifty dollars in manure, if the money could have been
spared; but what I did afforded an excellent return. My wife and eldest
daughter, Kate, then in her eighteenth year, did all the planting. I
spent five dollars in buying for them a complete outfit of hoes, rakes,
and trowels for garden use, lightly made on purpose for female handling,
with a neat little wheelbarrow to hold the weeds and litter which I felt
pretty sure would have to be hoed up and trundled away before the season
was over.
They took to the garden manfully. I kept their hoes constantly sharpened
with a file, and they declared it was only pastime to wage warfare on
the weeds with weapons so keen. Now and then one of the boys went in to
give them a lift; and when a new vegetable bed was to be planted, it was
dug up and made ready for them. But the great bulk of all other work was
done by themselves.
Never has either of them enjoyed health so robust, or appetites so
wholesome. As a whole year’s crop of weeds had gone to seed, they had
millions of the enemy to contend with, just as I had anticipated. I did
not volunteer discouragements by repeating to them the old English
formula, that
“One year’s seeding
Makes seven years’ weeding,”
but commended their industry, exhorted them to persevere, and was lavish
in my admiration of the handsome style in which they kept the grounds. I
infused into their minds a perfect hatred of the whole tribe of weeds,
enjoined it upon them not to let a single one escape and go to seed,
and promised them that if they thus exterminated all, the next year’s
weeding would be mere recreation.
I will say for them, that all our visitors from the city were surprised
at seeing the garden so free from weeds, while they did not fail to
notice that most of the vegetables were extremely thrifty. They did not
know that in gardens where the weeds thrive undisturbed, the vegetables
never do. As to the neighbors, they came in occasionally to see what the
women were doing, but shook their heads when they saw they were merely
hoeing up weeds--said that weeds did no harm, and they might as well
attempt to kill all the flies--they had been brought up among weeds,
knew all about them, and “it was no use trying to get rid of them.”
But the work of weeding kept on through the whole season, and as a
consequence, the ground about the vegetables was kept constantly
stirred. The result of this thorough culture was, that nearly every
thing seemed to feel it, and the growth was prodigious, far exceeding
what the family could consume. We had every thing we needed, and in far
greater abundance than we ever had in the city. I am satisfied this
profusion of vegetables lessened the consumption of meat in the family
one-half. Indeed, it was such, that my wife suggested that the garden
had so much more in it than we required, that perhaps it would be as
well to send the surplus to the store where we usually bought our
groceries, to be there sold for our benefit.
The town within half a mile of us contained some five thousand
inhabitants, among whom there was a daily demand for vegetables. I took
my wife’s advice, and from time to time gathered such as she directed,
for she and Kate were sole mistresses of the garden, and sent them to
the store. They kept a regular book-account of these consignments, and
when we came to settle up with the storekeeper at the year’s end, were
surprised to find that he had eighty dollars to our credit. But this was
not all from vegetables--a good deal of it came from the fruit-trees.
After using in the family great quantities of fine peaches from the ten
garden-trees, certainly three times as many as we could ever afford to
buy when in the city, the rest went to the store. The trees had been so
hackled by the worms that they did not bear full crops, yet the yield
was considerable. Then there were quantities of spare currants,
gooseberries, and several bushels of common blue plums, which the
curculio does not sting. When my wife discovered there was so ready a
market at our own door, she suffered nothing to go to waste. It was a
new feature in her experience--every thing seemed to sell. Whenever she
needed a new dress for herself or any of the children, all she had to do
was to go to the store, get it, and have it charged against her garden
fund. I confess that her success greatly exceeded my expectations.
Let me now put in a word as to the cause of this success with our
garden. It was not owing to our knowledge of gardening, for we made many
blunders not here recorded, and lost crops of two or three different
things in consequence. Neither was it owing to excessive richness of
the ground. But I lay it to the unsparing warfare kept up upon the
weeds, which thus prevented their running away with the nourishment
intended for the plants, and kept the ground constantly stirred up and
thoroughly pulverized. I have sometimes thought one good stirring up,
whether with the hoe, the rake, or the cultivator, was as beneficial as
a good shower.
When vegetables begin to look parched and the ground becomes dry, some
gardeners think they must commence the use of the watering-pot. This
practice, to a certain extent, and under some circumstances, may perhaps
be proper, but as a general rule it is incorrect. The same time spent in
hoeing, frequently stirring the earth about vegetables, is far
preferable. When watering has once commenced it must be continued, must
be followed up, else you have done mischief instead of good; as, after
watering a few times, and then omitting it, the ground will bake harder
than if nothing had been done to it. Not so with hoeing or raking. The
more you stir the ground about vegetables, the better they are off; and
whenever you stop hoeing, no damage is done, as in watering. Vegetables
will improve more rapidly, be more healthy, and in better condition at
maturity, by frequent hoeing than by frequent watering. This result is
very easily shown by experiment. Just notice, after a dewy night, the
difference between ground lately and often stirred, and that which has
lain unmoved for a long time. Or take two cabbage plants under similar
circumstances; water one and stir the other just as often, stirring the
earth about it carefully and thoroughly, and see which will distance the
other in growth.
There are secrets about this stirring of the earth which chemists and
horticulturists would do well to study with the utmost scrutiny and
care. Soil cultivated in the spring, and then neglected, soon settles
together. The surface becomes hard, the particles cohere, they attract
little or no moisture, and from such a surface even the rain slides off,
apparently doing little good. But let this surface be thoroughly
pulverized, though it be done merely with an iron rake, and only a few
inches in depth, and a new life is infused into it. The surface becomes
friable and soft, the moisture of the particles again becomes active,
attracting and being attracted, each seeming to be crying to his
neighbor, “Hand over, hand over--more drink, more drink.” Why this
elaboration should grow less and less, till in a comparatively short
time it should seem almost to cease, is a question of very difficult
solution; though the varying compositions of soils has doubtless
something to do with the matter.
But let the stirring be carefully repeated, and all is life again.
Particles attract moisture from the atmosphere, hand it to each other,
down it goes to the roots of vegetables, the little suction fibres drink
it in; and though we cannot see these busy operations, yet we perceive
their healthy effects in the pushing up of vegetables above the surface.
The hoe is better than the water-pot. My garden is a signal illustration
of the fact.
CHAPTER X.
CHEATED IN A COW--A GOOD AND A BAD ONE--THE SAINT OF THE BARNYARD.
Both myself and wife had always coveted a cow. All of the family were
extravagantly fond of milk. Where so many children were about, it seemed
indispensable to have one; besides, were we not upon a farm? and what
would a farm be without having upon it at least one saint of the
barnyard? As soon as we came on the place, I made inquiries of two or
three persons for a cow. The news flew round the neighborhood with
amazing rapidity, and in the course of two weeks I was besieged with
offers. They haunted me in the street, as I went daily to the
post-office; even in the evening, as we sat in our parlor. It seemed as
if everybody in the township had a cow to sell. Indeed, the annoyance
continued long after we had been supplied.
Now, though I knew a great deal of milk, having learned to like it the
very day I was born, yet I was utterly ignorant of how to choose a cow,
and at that time had no friend to advise with. But I suspected that no
one who had a first-rate animal would voluntarily part with it, and so
expected to be cheated. I hinted as much to my wife, whereupon she
begged that the choice might be left to her; to which I partially
consented, thinking that if we should be imposed on, I should feel
better if the imposition could be made chargeable somewhere else than to
my own ignorance. Besides, I knew that she could hardly be worse cheated
than myself.
One morning a very respectable-looking old man drove a cow up to the
door, and called us out to look at her. My wife was pleased with her
looks the moment she set eyes on her, while the children were delighted
with the calf, some two weeks old. I did not like her movements--she
seemed restless and ill-tempered; but the old man said that was always
the way with cows at their first calving. Still, I should not have
bought her. But somehow my wife seemed bewitched in her favor, and was
determined to have her. This the old man could not fail to notice, and
was loud in extolling her good qualities, declaring that she would give
twenty quarts of milk a day. After some further parley, he inadvertently
admitted that she had never been milked. My wife did not notice this
striking discrepancy of a cow giving twenty quarts daily, when as yet no
one had ever milked her; but the lie was too bouncing a one to escape my
notice. As I saw my wife had set her heart upon the cow, I said nothing,
and finally bought cow and calf for thirty dollars, though quite certain
they could have been had for five dollars less, if my wife had not so
plainly shown to the old sinner that she was determined to have them. I
do not think she will ever be up to me in making a bargain. But as it
had been agreed that she should choose a cow, so she was permitted to
have her own way.
At the end of the week the calf was sold for three dollars--a low
price; but then my wife wanted the milk, and she and Kate were anxious
to begin the milking. I am sure I was quite willing they should have all
they could get. When they did begin, there was a great time. Now, most
women profess to understand precisely how a cow should be milked, and
yet comparatively few know any thing about it. They remind me of the
Irish girls who are hunting places. These are all first-rate cooks, if
you take their word for it, and yet not one in a hundred knows any thing
of even the first principles of cooking.
The first process in the operation of milking is to fondle with the cow,
make her acquaintance, and thus give her to understand that the man or
maid with the milking pail approaches her with friendly intentions, in
order to relieve her of the usual lacteal secretion. It will never do to
approach the animal with combative feelings and intentions. Should the
milker be too impetuous; should he swear, speak loud and sharp, scold or
kick, or otherwise abuse or frighten the cow, she will probably prove
refractory as a mule, and may give the uncouth and unfeeling milker the
benefit of her heels,--a very pertinent reward, to which he, the uncouth
milker, is justly entitled. Especially in the case of a new milker, who
may be a perfect stranger to the cow, the utmost kindness and
deliberation are necessary.
Before commencing to milk, a cow should be fed, or have some kind of
fodder offered her, in view of diverting her attention from the
operation of milking. By this means the milk is not held up, as the
saying is, but is yielded freely. All these precautions are more
indispensable when the cow has just been deprived of her calf. She is
then uneasy, fretful, and irritable, and generally so disconsolate as to
need the kindest treatment and the utmost soothing. The milker should be
in close contact with the cow’s body, for in this position, if she
attempt to kick him, he gets nothing more than a push, whereas if he
sits off at a distance, the cow has an opportunity to inflict a severe
blow whenever she feels disposed to do so.
All milkers of cows should understand that the udder and teats are
highly organized, and consequently very sensitive; and these facts
should be taken into consideration by amateur milkers, especially when
their first essay is made on a young animal after the advent of her
first calf, and that one just taken from her. At this period, the hard
tugging and squeezing to which many poor dumb brutes have to submit in
consequence of the application of hard-fisted, callous, or inexperienced
fingers, is a barbarity of the very worst kind; for it often converts a
docile creature into a vicious one, from which condition it is extremely
difficult, if not impossible, to wean her.
Of every one of these requisites both wife and daughter were utterly
ignorant. They went talking and laughing into the barn, one with a
bright tin pail in her hand, an object which the cow had never before
seen, and both made at her, forgetting that they were utter strangers to
her. Besides, she was thinking of her absent calf, and did not want to
see any thing else. Their appearance and clamor of course frightened
her, and as they approached her, so she avoided them. They followed, but
she continued to avoid, and once or twice put down her head shook it
menacingly, and even made an incipient lunge at them with her sharply
pointed horns. These decided demonstrations of anger frightened them in
turn, and they forthwith gave up the pursuit of milk in the face of
difficulties so unexpected. We got none that night. In the morning we
sent for an experienced milker, but she had the utmost difficulty in
getting the cow to stand quiet even for a moment. My wife was quite
subdued about the matter. It would never do to keep a cow that nobody
could milk. She said but little, however--it was _her_ cow. Longer trial
produced no more encouraging result, as she seemed untamable, and my
wife was glad to have me sell her for twenty dollars, at the same time
resolving never again to buy a cow with her first calf.
It was voted unanimously that another should be procured, and that this
time the choice should be left to me. Now, I never had any idea of
buying poor things of any kind merely because they were cheap. When
purchasing or making tools or machinery, I never bought or made any but
the very best, as I found that even a good workman could never do a good
job with poor tools. So with all my farm implements--I bought the best
of their kind that could be had. If my female gardeners had been
furnished with heavy and clumsy hoes and rakes, because such were cheap,
their mere weight would have disgusted them with the business of hoeing
and weeding. So with a cow. It is true, I had become the owner of a
magnificent thirty-dollar horse; but it was the only beast I could get
hold of at the moment when a horse must be had. Besides, he turned out
to be like a singed cat, a vast deal better than he looked.
I had repeatedly heard of a cow in the neighboring town, which was said
to yield so much milk as to be the principal support of a small family
whose head was a hopeless drunkard. She had cost seventy-five dollars,
and had been a present to the drunkard’s wife from one of her relatives.
By careful inquiry, I satisfied myself that this cow gave twenty quarts
daily, and that five months after calving, and on very indifferent
pasture. I went to see her, and then her owner told me she was going to
leave the place, and would sell the cow for fifty dollars. I did not
hesitate a moment, but paid the money and had the cow brought home the
same evening. My wife and daughter had not the least difficulty in
learning to milk her. Under their treatment and my improved feeding, we
kept her in full flow for a long time. She gave quite as much milk as
two ordinary cows, while we had the expense of keeping only one. This I
consider genuine good management: the best is always the cheapest.
The cow was never permitted to go out of the barnyard. A trough of water
enabled her to drink as often as she needed, but her green food was
brought to her regularly three times daily, with double allowance at
night. I began by mowing all the little grass-plots about the house and
lanes, for in these sheltered nooks the sod sends up a heavy growth far
in advance of field or meadow. But this supply was soon exhausted,
though it lasted more than a week: besides, these usually neglected
nooks afforded several mowings during the season, and the repeated
cuttings produced the additional advantage of maintaining the sod in
beautiful condition, as well as getting rid of numberless weeds. When
the grass had all been once mowed over, we resorted to the clover. This
also was mowed and taken to her; and by this treatment my little
clover-field held out astonishingly. Long before I had gone over it
once, the portion first mowed was up high enough to be mowed again.
Indeed, we did secure some hay in addition. In this way both horse and
cow were soiled. When the clover gave out, the green corn which I had
sowed in rows was eighteen inches to two feet high, and in capital
condition to cut and feed. It then took the place of clover. Both horse
and cow devoured it with high relish. It was the extra sweet corn now so
extensively cultivated in New Jersey for market, and contained an excess
of saccharine matter, which made it not only very palatable, but which
sensibly stimulated the flow of milk.
The yield of green food which this description of corn gives to the
acre, when thus sowed, is enormous. Not having weighed it, I cannot
speak as to the exact quantity, but should judge it to be at least seven
times that of the best grass or clover. Even without cutting up with a
straw-knife, the pigs ate it with equal avidity. In addition to this,
the cow was fed morning and night with a little bran. The unconsumed
corn, after being dried where it grew, was cut and gathered for winter
fodder, and when cut fine and mixed with turnips which had been passed
through a slicer, kept the cow in excellent condition. She of course
got many an armful of cabbage-leaves during the autumn and all through
the winter, with now and then a sprinkling of sliced pumpkins, from
which the seeds had first been taken, as they are sure to diminish the
flow of milk.
Thus I was obliged to lay out no money for either horse or cow, except
the few dollars expended for bran. By this treatment I secured all the
manure they made. By feeding the barnyard itself, as well as the
hog-pen, with green weeds and whatever litter and trash could be
gathered up, the end of the season found me with a huge manure pile, all
nicely collected under a rough shed, out of reach of drenching rain, hot
sun, and wasting winds. I certainly secured thrice as much in one season
as had ever been made on that place in three. In addition to this, the
family had had more milk than they could use, fresh, rich, and buttery.
Even the pigs fell heir to an occasional bucket of skim-milk.
When our city friends came to spend a day or two with us, we were able
to astonish them with a tumbler of thick cream, instead of the usual
staple beverages of the tea-table. My wife evidently felt a sort of
pride in making a display of this kind, and Kate invariably spread
herself by taking our visitors to the barnyard, to let them see how
expert she had become at milking. When they remarked, at table, on the
surpassing richness of the cream, as well as the milk, my wife was very
apt to reply--
“Yes, but when your turn comes to go in the country, be particular not
to buy a cheap cow.”
This remark generally led to inquiry, and then Kate was brought out
with the whole story of our first and second cow, which she accordingly
gave with illustrations infinitely more amusing than any I have been
able to introduce. Indeed, her power of amplification sometimes
astonished me. She told the story of our having been cheated by the old
sinner, with such graphic liveliness, my wife now and then interposing a
parenthesis, that the company invariably concluded it was by far the
better policy to give a wide berth to cheap cows. I am not certain
whether the fun occasioned by Kate’s narratives was not really very
cheaply purchased by the small loss we suffered on that occasion.
This abundance of milk wrought quite a change in our habits as to tea
and coffee. At supper, during the summer, we drank milk only; but
insensibly we ran on in the same way into cold weather. In the end, we
found that we liked coffee in the morning only. This was a clear saving,
besides being quite as wholesome. Our city milk bill had usually been a
dollar a week. I am quite sure it did not cost over sixty cents a week
to keep the cow. Then we had puddings and other dishes, which milk alone
makes palatable, whenever we wanted them; and at any time of a hot
summer’s day a full draught of cold milk was always within reach. Then
the quality was much superior, exceeding any thing to be found in city
milk. I must admit that keeping a cow, like most other good things,
involves some trouble; but my family would cheerfully undertake twice as
much as they have ever had with ours, rather than dispense with this yet
uncanonized saint of the barnyard.
CHAPTER XI.
A CLOUD OF WEEDS--GREAT SALES OF PLANTS.
June came without my being obliged to hire any thing but occasional help
on the farm. But when the month was fairly set in, I found every inch of
my ploughed land in a fair way of being smothered by the weeds. I was
amazed at the countless numbers which sprang up, as well as at the
rapidity with which they grew. There was almost every variety of these
pests. It seemed as if the whole township had concentrated its wealth of
weeds upon my premises. In the quick, warm soil of New Jersey, they
appear to have found a most congenial home, as they abound on every farm
that I have seen. Cultivators appear to have abandoned all hope of
eradicating them. Knowing that the last year’s crop had gone to seed, I
confess to looking for something of the kind, but I was wholly
unprepared for the thick haze which everywhere covered the ground.
I can bear any quantity of snakes, but for weeds I have a sort of
religious aversion. I tried one week to overcome them with the
cultivator, but I made discouraging headway. I then bought a regular
horse-weeder, which cut them down rapidly and effectually. But meantime
others were growing up in the rows, and corners, and by-places, where
nothing but the hoe could reach them, and robbing the crops of their
support. It would never do to cultivate weeds--they must be got rid of
at any cost, or my crops would be worthless. Several neighboring
farmers, who had doubtless counted on this state of things, came along
about the time they supposed my hands would be full, looked over the
fence at my courageous onslaught, laughed, and called out, “It’s no
use--you can’t kill the weeds!” Such was the sympathy they afforded. If
my house had been on fire, every one of them would have promptly hurried
to the rescue; but to assist a man in killing his weeds was what no one
dreamed of doing. He didn’t kill his own.
In this dilemma I was forced to hire a young man to help me, contracting
to give him twelve dollars a month and board him. He turned out sober
and industrious. We went to work courageously on the weeds. I will admit
that my man Dick was quite as certain as my neighbors that we could
never get permanently ahead of them, and that thus lacking faith he took
hold of the cultivator and weeder, while I attacked the enemy in the
rows and by-places. I kept him constantly at it, and worked steadily
myself. A week’s labor left a most encouraging mark upon the ground. The
hot sun wilted and dried up the weeds as we cut them off. Two weeks
enabled us to get over the whole lot, making it look clean and nice. I
congratulated myself on our success, and inquired of Dick if he didn’t
think we had got ahead of the enemy now. This was on a Saturday evening.
Dick looked up at the sky, which was then black and showery, with a warm
south wind blowing, and a broad laugh came over his features as he
replied, “This will do till next time.” The fellow was evidently
unwilling either to encourage or to disappoint me.
That night a powerful rain fell, with a warm sultry wind, being what
farmers call “growing weather.” I found it to be even so, good for weeds
at least. Monday morning came with a hot, clear sun, and, under the
combined stimulating power of sun, rain, and temperature, I found that
in two nights a new generation had started into life, quite as numerous
as that we had just overcome. As I walked over the ground in company
with Dick, I was confounded at the sight. But I noticed that he
expressed no astonishment whatever--it was just what he knew was to
come--and so he declared it would be if we made the ground as clean as a
parlor every week.
He said he never knew the weeds to be got out of Jersey ground, and
protested that it couldn’t be done. He admitted that they were
nuisances, but so were mosquitoes. But as neither, in his opinion, did
any great harm, so he thought it not worth while to spend much time or
money in endeavoring to get rid of them. In either case he considered
the attempt a vain one, and this was the whole extent of his philosophy.
He had in fact been educated to believe in weeds. I was mortified at his
indifference, for I had labored to infuse into his mind the same hatred
of the tribe with which my wife and Kate had been so happily inoculated.
But Dick was proof against inoculation--his system repudiated it.
But it set me to thinking. As to defining what a weed was, I did not
undertake that, beyond pronouncing it to be a plant growing out of its
proper place. Neither did I undertake to settle the question as to the
endless variety there seemed to be of these pests, nor by what
unaccountable agency they had become so thoroughly diffused over the
earth. I could not fail to admit, however, that it seemed, in the
providence of God, that whenever man ceased to till the ground and cover
it with cultivated crops, at his almighty command there sprung up a
profuse vegetation with which to clothe its nakedness. While man might
be idle, it was impossible for nature to be so--the earth could not lie
barren of every thing. But it seemed to me impossible that these ten
acres of mine could contain an absolutely indefinite number of seeds of
these unwelcome plants. There must be some limitation of the number. At
what figure did it stop? Was it one million, or a hundred millions?
Neither Dick nor myself could answer this question.
Yet I came resolutely to the conclusion that there must be a limitation,
and that if we could induce all the seeds contained in the soil to
vegetate, and then destroy the plants before they matured a new crop, we
should ever afterwards be excused from such constant labor as we had
gone through, and as was likely to be our experience in the future. I
submitted this proposition to Dick--that if we killed all the weeds as
they grew, the time would come when there would be no weeds to kill. It
struck me as being so simple that even Dick, with all his doggedness,
could neither fail to comprehend nor acknowledge it. He did manage to
comprehend it, but as to acknowledging its force, one might have argued
with him for a month. He utterly denied the premises--he had no faith in
our Jersey weeds ever being killed, no matter how much luck we had thus
far had with them, and I would see that he was right.
But having originated the dogma, I fully believed in it, and felt bound
to maintain it; so Dick and I went resolutely to work a second time, as
soon as the new crop was well out of the ground. The labor was certainly
not as great as on the first crop, but it was hot work. I carried a file
in my pocket, and kept my hoe as sharp as I have always kept my carving
knife, and taught Dick to put his horse-weeder in prime order every
evening when we had quit work. The perspiration ran in a stream from me
in the hot sun, and a few blisters rose on my hands, but my appetite was
rampant, and never have my slumbers been so undisturbed and peaceful.
About the third week in June we got through the second cleaning, and
then rested. From that time to the end of the first week in July there
had been no rain, with a powerfully hot sun. During this interval the
weeds grew again, and entirely new generations, some few of the first
varieties, but the remainder being new sorts. Thus there were
wet-weather weeds and dry-weather weeds; and as I afterwards found,
there was a regular succession of varieties from spring to winter, and
even into December--cold-weather weeds as well as hot-weather weeds.
Against each new army as it showed itself an onslaught was to be made. I
was persuaded in my mind that the same army which we killed this year
could not show itself the next, and that therefore there ought to be
that number less. But Dick could not see this.
I observed, moreover, that each variety had its particular period when
it vegetated, so that it might have time to get ahead and keep out of
the way of its successor. It was evident that the seeds of any one kind
did not all vegetate the same season. Herein was a wonderful provision
of Providence to insure the perpetuity of all; for if all the rag-weed,
for instance, had vegetated the first season of my experience, they
would assuredly have been killed. But multitudes remained dormant in the
earth, as if thus stored up for the purpose of repairing, another year,
the casualties which their forerunners had encountered during the
present one. Thus no one weed can be extirpated in a single season;
neither do we have the whole catalogue to attack at the same time.
My warfare against the enemy continued unabated. As the time came for
each new variety to show itself, so we took it in hand with hoe and
weeder. Dick and his horse made such admirable progress, that I cannot
refrain from recommending this most efficient tool to the notice of
every cultivator. With one man and a horse it will do the work of six
men, cutting off the weeds just below the ground and leaving them to
wilt on the surface. It costs but six dollars, and can be had in all the
cities. It would have cost me a hundred dollars to do the same amount of
work with the hoe, which this implement did within four weeks.
Thus aided, our labors extended clear into November. In the intervals
between the different growths of weeds, we looked after the other crops.
But when the winter closed in upon us, the whole ground was so
thoroughly cleaned of them as to be the admiration of the jeerers and
croakers who, early in the season, had pitied my enthusiasm or ridiculed
my anticipations. Even Dick was somewhat subdued and doubtful. I do not
think a single weed escaped our notice, and went to seed that season.
I saw this year a beautiful illustration of the idea that there are
specific manures for certain plants. I can hardly doubt that each has
its specific favorite, and that if cultivators could discover what that
favorite is, our crops might be indefinitely increased. On a piece of
ground which had been sowed with turnips, on which guano had previously
been sprinkled during a gentle rain, there sprang up the most marvellous
growth of purslane that ever met one’s eyes. The whole ground was
covered with the rankest growth of this weed that could be imagined.
Every turnip was smothered out. It seemed as if the dormant
purslane-seed had been instantly called into life by the touch of the
guano. It was singular, too, that we had noticed no purslane growing on
that particular spot previous to the application of this rapidly-acting
fertilizer.
I confess the sight of a dense carpet of purslane instead of a crop of
turnips, almost staggered me as to the correctness of my theory that the
number of seeds in the ground, yet to vegetate, must somewhere have a
limit. Here were evidently millions of a kind which, up to this time,
had not even showed themselves. After allowing the purslane to grow two
weeks, Dick cut it off with his horse-weeder, raked it up, and carried
it to the pigs, who consumed it with avidity. We then recultivated the
ground and sowed again with turnips; but the yield was very poor. Either
the purslane had appropriated the whole energy of the guano, or the
sowing was too late in the season.
But this little incident will illustrate the value of observation to a
farmer. Book-farming is a good thing in its place, but observation is
equally instructive. The former is not sufficient, of itself, to make
good tillers of the soil. It will not answer in place of attentive
observation. It forms, indeed, but the poorest kind of a substitute for
that habit which every farmer should cultivate, of going all over his
premises daily during the growing season, and noticing the peculiarities
of particular plants; the habits of destructive animals or insects; the
depredations as well as the services of birds; the when, the how, and
the apparent wherefore of the germination of seeds; the growth of the
stem, the vine, or the stalk that proceeds from them, and the formation,
growth, and ripening of the fruit which they bear. Let no farmer,
fruit-grower, or gardener, neglect observation for an exclusive reliance
on book-farming.
It would be a most erroneous conclusion for the reader to suppose that
all this long-continued labor in keeping the ground clear of weeds was
so much labor thrown away. On the contrary, even apart from ridding the
soil of so many nuisances, so many robbers of the nourishment provided
for useful plants, it kept the land in the most admirable condition. The
good conferred upon the garden by hoeing and raking, was re-enacted
here. Every thing I had planted grew with surprising luxuriance. I do
think it was an illustration of the value of thorough culture, made so
manifest that no one could fail to observe it. It abundantly repaid me
for all my watchfulness and care. Dick was forced to acknowledge that he
had seen no such clean work done in that part of New Jersey.
My nurseryman came along at the end of the season, to see how I had
fared, and walked deliberately over the ground with me, examining the
peach-trees. He said he had never seen young trees grow more vigorously.
Not one of them had died. The raspberries had not grown so much as he
expected, but the strawberry-rows were now filled with plants. As
runners were thrown out, I had carefully trained them in line with the
parent stools, not permitting them to sprawl right and left over a great
surface, forming a mass that could not be weeded, even by hand. This he
did not approve of. He said by letting them spread out right and left
the crop of fruit would be much greater, but admitted that the size of
the berries would be much smaller. But he contended that _quantity_ was
what the public wanted, and that they did not care so much for
_quality_. Yet he could not explain the damaging fact that the largest
sized fruit was always the most eagerly sought after, and invariably
commanded the highest price. Though he did not approve of my mode of
cultivation, yet he could not convince me that I had made a mistake.
From these we walked over to the blackberries. They, too, had grown
finely under my thorough culture of the ground. Besides sending up good
canes which promised a fair crop the next season, each root had sent up
several suckers, some of them several feet away, and out of the line of
the row. These I had intended to sell, and had preserved as many as
possible, knowing there would be a demand for all. The interest in the
new berry had rapidly extended all round among my neighbors, and I very
soon discovered that my nurseryman wanted to buy. In fact, I believe he
came more for that purpose than to see how I was doing. But I talked
offish--spoke of having engaged two or three lots, and could hardly
speak with certainty. Finally, he offered to give me a receipt for the
$120 he was to receive out of the strawberries he had sold me, and pay
me $100 down, for a thousand blackberry plants. Though I felt pretty
sure I could do better, yet I closed with him. As he had evidently come
prepared with money to clinch some sort of bargain, he produced it and
paid me on the spot. He afterwards retailed nearly all of the plants for
a much larger sum. But it was a good bargain for both of us. It paid me
well, and was all clear profit.
I may add that these blackberry roots came into more active demand from
that time until the next spring; and when spring opened, more suckers
came up, as if knowing they were wanted. These, with my previous stock,
amounted to a large number. A seed-man in the city advertised them for
sale, and took retail orders for me. His sales, with my own, absorbed
every root I could spare. When they had all been disposed of, and my
receipts were footed up, I found that they amounted to four hundred and
sixty dollars, leaving me three hundred and forty dollars clear, after
paying for my strawberry plants.
This was far better than I had anticipated. It may sound curiously now,
when the plants can be had so cheaply, but it is a true picture of the
market at the time of which I write. It is the great profit to be
realized from the sale of new plants that stimulates their cultivation.
Many men have made fortunes from the sale of a new fruit or flower, and
others are repeating the operation now. In fact, it is the hope of this
great gain that has given to the world so many new and valuable plants,
some originated from seed, some by hybridization, some from solitary
hiding-places in the woods and mountains, and some by importation from
distant countries. Success in one thing stimulates to exertion for
another, and thus the race of a vast and intelligent competition is
maintained. But the public is the greatest gainer after all.
My profits from this source, the first year, may by some be regarded as
an exceptional thing, to be realized only by the fortunate few, and not
to be regularly counted on. But this is not the case. There are
thousands of cultivators who are constantly in the market as purchasers.
If it were not so, the vast nursery establishments which exist all over
the country could not be maintained. Every fruit-grower, like myself,
has been compelled to buy in the beginning of his operations; but his
turn for selling has invariably come round. As a general rule, whatever
outlay a beginner makes in supplying himself with the smaller fruits, is
afterwards reimbursed from the sale of surplus plants he does not need.
This sale occurs annually, and in time will far exceed his original
outlay.
If the plants be rare in the market, and if he should have gone into the
propagation at a very early day, before prices have found their lowest
level, his profits will be the larger. Hence the utmost watchfulness of
the market should be maintained. New plants, better breeds of animals,
and in fact every improvement connected with agriculture, if judiciously
adopted at the earliest moment, will generally be found to pay, even
after allowing for losses on the numerous cheats which are continually
turning up.
CHAPTER XII.
PIGS AND POULTRY--LUCK AND ILL LUCK.
Very early after taking possession, I invested twelve dollars in the
purchase of seven pigs of the ordinary country breed. They were wanted
to eat the many odds and ends which are yielded by ten acres, a good
garden, and the kitchen. I did not look for much money profit from them,
but I knew they were great as architects in building up a manure heap.
Yet they were capital things with which to pack a meat-tub at Christmas,
saving money from the butcher, as well as much running abroad to market.
They shared with the cow in the abundant trimmings and surplus from the
garden, eating many things which she rejected, and appropriating all the
slop from the kitchen. In addition to this, we fed them twice a day with
boiled bran, sometimes with a handful of corn meal, but never upon whole
corn. This cooking of the food was no great trouble in the kitchen, but
its effect on the pigs was most beneficial. They grew finely, except one
which died after four months’ feeding, but from what cause could not be
ascertained.
The consequence was, that when October came round, the six remaining
ones were estimated by Dick to average at least one hundred and fifty
pounds each, and were in prime condition for fattening. In the early
part of that month their supply of cooked mush was increased. I am of
opinion that farmers leave the fattening of their hogs too late, and
that a month on corn, before December, is worth three months after it.
By the tenth of December they were ready for the butcher, and on being
killed, were found to average two hundred and twenty-four pounds, or
nine hundred and forty-four in all. This being three times as much as we
needed for home use, the remainder was sent to the store, where it
netted me forty-nine dollars.
I am quite certain there was a profit on these pigs. They consumed
quantities of refuse tomatoes, and devoured parsnips with the greatest
eagerness. One day I directed Dick to cut up some stalks of our green
sweet corn, by means of the fodder-cutter, which delivers them in pieces
half an inch long, and mix them with bran for the pigs. I found they
consumed it with great avidity. Ever after that they were served twice
daily with the same mess. It seemed to take the place of stronger food,
as well as of grass, and was an acceptable variety. In this way the
money cost of food was kept at a low figure, and the labor we spent on
the pigs showed itself in the fine yield of prime pork, which brought
the highest price in the market. The yield of rich manure was also very
satisfactory, all which, at intervals through the season, was removed
from the pen and put under cover, for manure thus housed from the sun
and rain is worth about double that which is exposed all the year round.
This was another item of profit: if the pigs had not manufactured it,
money would have been required to pay for its equivalent.
After these six had been killed, I purchased seven others, some two
months old, having abundance of roots, offal cabbages, and a stack of
the sweet-corn fodder on hand. These seven cost the same as the others,
twelve dollars. As Dick was found to be a good, trustworthy fellow, he
was to be kept all the year round; and as he would be hanging about the
barnyard during the winter, when the ground was wet and sloppy, looking
after the horse and cow, the pigs would help to fill up his time. The
cooking of food for both cow and pigs was a great novelty to him. At
first he could not be made to believe in it. When I ventured to
insinuate to him that it would be any thing but agreeable to him to eat
his dinners raw, the force of the idea did not strike him. So much is
there in the power of long-established habit. Yet he did condescend to
admit that he knew all pigs throve better on plenty of common
kitchen-swill than on almost any thing else. I told him there was but
one reason for this, and that was because all such swill had been
cooked. When the improvement made by the first lot of pigs became too
manifest for even him to dispute, he, together with the pigs,
acknowledged the corn and gave in.
When out-door operations for the season were over, Dick undertook the
whole business of cooking for the pigs and cow himself. In fact, on one
occasion I succeeded in getting him to curry down both cow and pigs.
They all looked and showed so much better for near a week thereafter,
that coming on him unexpectedly one day, I found him repeating the
operation of his own motion, and so he voluntarily continued the
practice during the whole winter. The pigs seemed delighted with the
process, and had very little scratching of their own to do. Their backs
and sides were kept continually smooth, while their whole appearance was
changed for the better. As to the cow, she took to being curried with
the best possible grace, and improved under it as much as the pigs; but
whether it increased the flow of milk I cannot say, as no means were
taken to solve that question. But as Dick’s devotion to the currycomb
excited my admiration, so there was abundant evidence that both pigs and
cow were equally captivated.
This business of raising and carefully attending to only half a dozen
hogs, is worthy of every small farmer’s serious study and attention. The
hog and his food, with what is cheapest and best for him, is really one
of the sciences, not an exact one, it is true, but still a science. One
must look at and study many things, and they can all be made to pay. The
propensity to acquire fat in many animals seems to have been implanted
by nature. The hog fattens most rapidly in such a condition of the
atmosphere as is most congenial to his comfort--not too hot, nor too
cold. Hence the months of September, October, and November are the best
for making pork. The more agreeable the weather, the less is the amount
of food required to supply the waste of life. It has been found by some
persons that a clover-field is the best and cheapest place to keep hogs
in during the spring and summer months, where they have a plenty of
water, the slop from the house, and the sour milk from the dairy. All
sour feed contains more nitrogen than when fed in a sweet state. The
first green herbage of the spring works off the impurities of the blood,
cleanses the system, renovates the constitution, and enables the animal
to accumulate a store of strength to carry it forward to its destined
course.
Many object to beginning the fattening process so early in the season,
as the corn relied on for that purpose is not then fully matured. But,
taking all things into consideration, it is perhaps better to feed corn
before it is ripe, as in that state it possesses more sweetness. Most
varieties are in milk in September, when the hogs will chew it, swallow
the juice, and eject the dry, fibrous matter. During the growing season
of the year, swine can be fed on articles not readily marketable, as
imperfect fruit, vegetables, &c. When such articles are used, cooking
them is always economical. Most vegetables, when boiled or steamed, and
mixed with only an eighth of their bulk of mill-feed or meal, whey, and
milk left to sour, will fatten hogs fast. In this state they will eat it
with avidity, and derive more benefit from it than when fed in an
unfermented state. Articles of a perishable nature should be used first,
to prevent waste, as it is desirable to turn all the products of the
farm to the best account. Another quite important advantage of early
feeding is the less trouble in cooking the food. Convenience of feeding
is promoted, as there is no cost nor trouble to guard against freezing.
The more you can mix the food, the better, as they will thrive faster on
mixed food than when fed separately. In feeding, no more should be given
at a time than is eaten up clean, and the feeding should be regular as
to time. It is of the greatest importance to get the best varieties,
those that are well formed, and have an aptitude for taking on fat
readily, and consume the least food. As to which is the best kind, there
seems to be a great diversity of opinion, some preferring one kind and
some another. The Suffolks come to maturity earliest, and probably are
the most profitable to kill at from seven to ten months; but others
prefer the Berkshires. The pork of both is excellent: they will usually
weigh from 250 to 300 pounds at the age of eight or ten months. The
better way is to have the pigs dropped about the first of April, and
feed well until December, and then butcher.
From a variety of experiments, I am satisfied it is wrong to let a hog
remain poor twelve months of his life, when he could be made as large in
nine months as he generally is in fifteen; and I conceive it a great
error to feed corn to hogs without grinding. It has been proved by the
Shakers, after thirty years’ trial, that ground corn is one-third better
for hogs and cattle-feed than if unground. In the case of another
feeder, he ascertained the ratio of gain to be even greater than that of
the Shakers. Others assert that cooking corn-meal nearly doubles its
value. A distinguished agriculturist in Ohio proved that nineteen pounds
of cooked meal were equal in value to fifty pounds raw. If pigs are well
kept for three months after being dropped, they cannot be stunted after
that, even if the supply of food is less than it should be.
It is desirable that hogs should be provided with a dry floor for eating
and sleeping only, and the whole pen completely sheltered, to prevent
any washing or waste of the manure. The commonwealth of the piggery
should be furnished with plenty of straw, potato-vines, leaves, sawdust,
and the like, with an occasional load of muck, and almost any quantity
of weeds, all of which will be converted into the most efficient
supports of vegetable life. Hogs are the best composters known, as they
delight in upturning any such article as the farmer wishes to convert
into manure for the coming year.
There can be no question as to its paying to make pork, though men
differ on this as widely as their pork differs when brought to market.
The poorer the pork, the more the owner complains of his profits, or
rather of his losses; and the better the pork, the more is the owner
satisfied. There can be no profit in raising a poor breed of hogs, that
have no fattening qualities; nor even a good breed, without conveniences
or proper care. A good hog cannot be fatted to any profit in mud or
filth, nor where he suffers from cold. His comfort should be consulted
as much as that of any other animal. It is a great error to assume that
he is naturally fond of living among filth. On the contrary, hogs are
remarkably neat, and those which fatten the best always keep themselves
the cleanest. One farmer assured me that he had made his corn bring
$1.25 per bushel by passing it through the bowels of his hogs, besides
having the manure clear. Another did much better by cooking his meal.
As no farm is pronounced complete without poultry, and as both my wife
and daughters were especially fond of looking after chickens,--at least
they thought they would be,--so, to make their new home attractive, I
invested $7 in the purchase of a cock and ten hens. They were warranted
to be powerful layers, and would hatch fifteen eggs apiece. It struck me
that this sounded very large, but on my wife observing it would be only
a hundred and fifty chickens the first season, I gave in without a word.
The fact is that chickens were not my hobby. I did not think they would
pay, even after hearing my wife dilate on the luxury it would be to have
fresh eggs every morning for breakfast, for pies and puddings, and
various other things which she enumerated, and, as she expressed it,
“eggs of our own laying.”
I could not see how this circle of wonders was to be accomplished by
only ten hens, and insinuated that it would be a good thing if she could
make a bargain with each of her hens to lay two eggs a day. In reply to
this, she astonished me by saying that Americans did not know how to
make the most of things, but that the French did. She said that a
certain Frenchman, mentioning his name--he was either a marquis or
count, of course--had recently discovered the art of making hens lay
every day by feeding them on horse-flesh, and that he feeds out
twenty-five horses a day, which he obtains among the used-up hacks of
Paris. She said he had a hennery which furnishes forty thousand dozens
of eggs a week, and that it yields the proprietor a clear profit of
five thousand dollars every seven days. After hearing this I felt
certain she had been reading some modern poultry-book. But as she did
not speak of requiring me to furnish horse-flesh for her pets, nor
contemplate the establishment of a fresh-laid egg company, but only
suggested the consumption of a little raw meat now and then, I
volunteered no objections. Her enthusiasm was such as to make it unsafe
to do so. Why should not she and the children be gratified?
The hens came home, and were put into a cage in the barnyard, to
familiarize them with their new home. But they did not lay so freely as
she had expected, while some did not lay at all. Worse than that, as
soon as let out of their cage, they got over the fence into the garden,
where they scratched as violently as if each one had a brood of fifteen
to scratch for. They made terrible havoc among the young flowers and
vegetables, and tore up the beds which had been so nicely raked. One of
the girls was employed half her time in driving them out. I thought it
too great an expense to raise the barnyard fence high enough to keep
them in, and so they were marched back into the cage. It happened to be
too small for so many fowls, which my wife did not suspect, until one
day, putting her hand in to draw forth a sick hen, she discovered her
whole arm and sleeve to be swarming with lice. Here was something she
did not remember to have been treated of in her poultry-book. But the
nuisance was so great, as well as so active, soon extending itself all
over her person, as to compel her to strip and change her entire dress,
and to plunge the lousy one in a tub of water.
I confess the difficulty was a new one to me. My experience in poultry
had been limited. My knowledge of them was exclusively anatomical,
obtained by frequent dissections with the carving-knife. On calling
Dick, however, it appeared that he knew more about this trouble than the
whole family together. When my wife described her condition to him, and
how she had swarmed with the vermin, the fellow laughed outright, but
said they wouldn’t hurt--he knew all about them, for he had been full of
lice more than once! He said he expected this, as the fowls had been
kept up too close: they would neither lay, thrive, nor keep clear of
vermin, unless allowed to run about.
But he took the case in hand, clipped their wings, saturated their heads
with lamp oil, provided abundance of ashes for them to roll in, and then
turned them loose in the barnyard. He then obtained poles of sassafras
wood for them to roost on, as he said the peculiar odor of that tree
would drive the enemy away. I presume his prescriptions answered the
purpose; at all events, we discovered no more hen-lice, because the
whole family were careful never to touch a fowl again.
I think this little catastrophe took all the romance out of my wife
touching chickens. I rarely heard her mention eggs afterwards, except
when some of us were going to the store for other things, and she was
careful never to purchase chickens with the feathers on. She never
referred to the hundred and fifty she was to hatch out that season; nor
have I ever heard her even mention horse-flesh as a sure thing for
making hens lay all the year round. That winter Dick fattened and killed
the whole lot. My wife did not seem to have much stomach for them when
they came upon the table. I was not sorry for it, except that she had
been disappointed. Her knowledge of keeping poultry had been purely
theoretical, and her first disappointment had completely weaned her of
her fondness for the art.
But this brief and unlucky experience of ours should by no means operate
to discourage others. Money is undoubtedly made by skilful men at
raising poultry. It cannot be a losing business, or so many thousand
tons would not be annually produced. Volumes have been written on the
subject, which all who contemplate embarking in the business may consult
with profit. As an incident of farm life it will always be interesting,
and with those who understand the art it ought to be profitable.
Foreigners must be more experienced in the business of raising poultry
than Americans, judging by the vast quantities they annually produce for
market. The quantity imported into England is so enormous, that it is
impossible to determine its amount. Into only two of the principal
London markets there is annually brought from France and Belgium,
75,000,000 eggs, 2,000,000 fowls, 400,000 pigeons, 200,000 geese and
turkeys, and 300,000 ducks. In addition to these, the large amount sent
to poulterers and private houses must be considered. The Brighton
railroad alone carries yearly 2,600 tons of eggs which come from France
and Belgium. Yet, with all these immense supplies, the London markets
are frequently very meagrely supplied with butter and eggs. The trade is
shown by these figures to be one of great national value. Americans have
strangely neglected its cultivation with the method and precision of
foreigners. We can raise food more cheaply than they, while none of them
can boast of possessing our incomparable Indian corn.
There are several of my neighbors who are highly skilled in the art of
raising poultry. One of them is quite a poultry-fancier, and, by keeping
only choice breeds, he realizes fancy prices for them. Another confines
his fowls in a plum-orchard, and thus secures an annual crop of plums
without being stung by the curculio. In general, the female portion of
the family attend to this branch of domestic business, and realize a
snug sum from it annually. A brood of young chickens turned into a
garden, the hen confined in her coop, will soon clear it of destructive
insects.
CHAPTER XIII.
CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE CONTRASTED.
The pensive reader must not take it for granted that in going into the
country we escaped all the annoyances of domestic life peculiar to the
city, or that we fell heir to no new ones, such as we had never before
experienced. He must remember that this is a world of compensations, and
that nowhere will he be likely to find either an unmixed good or an
unmixed evil. Such was exactly our experience. But on summing up the
two, the balance was decidedly in our favor. It is true that though the
town close by us had well-paved streets, yet the walk of half a mile to
reach them was a mere gravel path, which was sometimes muddy in summer,
and sloppy with unshovelled snow in winter. But I walked over it almost
daily to the post-office, not even imagining that it was worse than a
city pavement. The tramp of the children to school was not longer than
they had been used to, and my wife and daughters thought it no hardship
to go shopping among the well-supplied stores quite as frequently as
when living in the city. Indeed, I sometimes thought they went a little
oftener. They were certainly as well posted up as to the new fashions as
they had ever been, while the fresh country air, united with constant
exercise, kept them in good appetite, even to the rounding of their
cheeks, and the maintenance of a better color in them than ever.
As to society, they very soon made acquaintances quite as agreeable as
could be desired. Visiting became a very frequent thing; and after a few
months I let in a suspicion that the girls found twice as many beaux as
in the city, though there the average number is always larger than in
the country. On throwing out an insinuation of this kind to Kate, one
summer evening, after a large party of young folks had concluded their
visit, she made open confession that it was so, and volunteered her
conviction that they were decidedly more agreeable. I admit this
confession did not surprise me, as there was one young man among the
party who had become especially attentive to Kate--bringing her the new
magazines as soon as they were out, sundry books and pictorials, and
always having a deal to say to her, with a singular genius for getting
her away from the rest of the company, so that most of their mysterious
small-talk could be heard by none but themselves. Another remark which I
made to Kate on a subsequent occasion, touching this subject, covered
her bright face with so many blushes that I ventured to mention the
whole matter to my wife; but she made so light of the thing that I said
no more at the time, thinking, perhaps, that the women were most likely
the best judges in such cases. But I have since discovered that my
prognostications were much more to be depended on than hers.
Then the walks for miles around us were excellent, and we all became
great walkers, for walking we found to be good. Not merely stepping
from shop to shop, or from neighbor to neighbor, but stretching away out
into the country, to the freshest fields, the shadiest woods, the
highest ridges, and the greenest lawns. We found that however sullen the
imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it cheered up
and smiled. However listless the limbs may have been by steady toil,
here they were braced up, and the lagging gait became buoyant again.
However stubborn the memory may be in presenting that only which was
agonizing, and insisting on that which cannot be retrieved, on walking
among the glowing fields it ceases to regard the former, and forgets the
latter. Indeed, we all came to esteem the mere breathing of the fresh
wind upon the commonest highway to be rest and comfort, which must be
felt to be believed.
But then we had neither gas nor hydrant water, those two prime luxuries
of city life. Yet there was a pump in a deep well under a shed at the
kitchen door, from which we drew water so cold as not at any time to
need that other city luxury, ice. It was gratifying to see how expertly
even the small children operated with the pump-handle. In a month we
ceased to regret the hydrants. As to gas, we had the modern lamps, which
give so clear a light not so convenient, it must be confessed, but then
they did not cost us over half as much, neither did we sit up near so
long at night. There were two mails from the city daily, and the newsboy
threw the morning paper into the front door while we sat at breakfast.
The evening paper came up from the city before we had supped. We had
two daily mails from New York, besides a telegraph station. The baker
served us twice a day with bread, when we needed it; the oysterman
became a bore, he rang the bell so often; and the fish-wagon, with
sea-fish packed in ice, directly from the shore, was within call as
often as we desired, with fish as cheap and sound as any to be purchased
in the city. Groceries and provisions from the stores cost no more than
they did there, but they were no cheaper. But in the item of rent the
saving was enormous,--really half enough, in my case, to keep a moderate
family. Many’s the time, when sweating over the weeds, have I thought of
this last heavy drain on the purse of the city toiler, and thanked
Heaven that I had ceased to work for the landlord.
We had books as abundantly as aforetime, as we retained our share in the
city library, and became subscribers to that in the adjoining town. It
is true that the road in front of us was never thronged like
Chestnut-street, but we neither sighed after the crowd nor missed its
presence. We saw no flash of jewelry, nor heard the rustling of
expensive silks, except the few which on particular occasions were
sported within our own unostentatious domicil. Our entire wardrobes were
manifestly on a scale less costly than ever. Our old city friends were
apparently a great way off, but as they could reach us in an hour either
by steamboat or rail, they quickly found us out. The relish of their
society was heightened by distance and separation. In short, while far
from being hermits, we were happy in ourselves. I think my wife became
a perfectly happy woman--what it had been the great study of my wedded
life to make her--the very sparkle and sunshine of the house. She
possessed the magic secret of being contented under any circumstances.
The current of my life had never been so dark and unpropitious, that the
sunshine of her happy face, falling across its turbid course, failed to
awake an answering gleam.
Speaking of visitors from abroad, I noticed that our city friends came
to make their visits on the very hottest summer days, when, of all
others, we were ourselves sufficiently exhausted by the heat, and were
disposed to put up with as little cooking and in-door work as possible.
But as such visitations were not exactly comfortable to the visited, so
we could not see how they could be any more agreeable to the visitors.
Yet they generally remarked, even when the mercury was up to
ninety-five, “How much cooler it is in the country!” They did really
enjoy either themselves or the heat. But my wife told them it was only
the change of scene that made the weather tolerable, and that if they
lived in the country they would soon discover it to be quite as hot as
in the city. For my part, I bore the heat admirably, though tanned by
the sun to the color of an aborigine; but I enjoyed the inexpressible
luxury of going constantly in my shirt sleeves. I can hardly find words
to describe the feeling of comfort which I enjoyed for full seven months
out of the twelve from this little piece of latitudinarianism, the
privilege of country life, but an unknown luxury in the city.
I saw that this press of company in the very hottest weather imposed an
unpleasant burden on my wife, for she and my two oldest daughters were
the sole caterers; and I intended to say something to her concerning it,
as soon as a large party, then staying several days with us, should have
concluded their visit. But on going into our chamber that very evening,
she surprised me by asking if I could tell her why, when Eve was made
from one of Adam’s ribs, there was not a hired girl made at the same
time, for to her mind it took three to make a pair--he, she, and a hired
girl. I replied that I had not given much time to the study of
navigation, but that I quite understood her meaning, and that it was
exactly what I had myself been thinking of. If Adam’s rib, after
producing Eve, had not held out to produce a hired girl also, I told her
there was a much quicker way of getting what she wanted, and that the
first morning paper she might pick up would produce her twenty hired
girls.
In this way, before the summer was over, I procured her a servant, thus
making her little establishment complete. For this luxury we paid city
wages. But this was a small item, when I saw how much her presence
relieved my wife. After that, I do not think she complained quite as
much of the hot weather, nor was she inclined so frequently to repeat
her former observation, that the sultry days always brought the most
company. Indeed, I am certain that on one or two occasions, when the
dog-days were terribly oppressive, she prevailed on different parties to
prolong their stay for nearly a week.
Now, this taking on of Betty did not imply that my daughters were to be
brought up to do nothing--or to do every thing that is fashionable
imperfectly. My wife had already educated them in domestic duties--not
merely to marry, to go off _with_ husbands in a hurry, and afterwards
_from_ them. To the two eldest she had taught a trade, and they were
both able to earn their salt. They could not only dress themselves, but
knew how to make their dresses and bonnets, and all the clothing for the
younger children. She cultivated in them all that was necessary in the
position in which they were born, one thing at a time, but that thing in
perfection; so that if parents were impoverished, or if in after-life
reverses should overtake themselves, they might feel independent in the
ability to earn their own support. She frowned upon the senseless
rivalries of social life, as destructive of morals, mind, and health,
and imbued their spirits with a devout veneration for holy things. She
taught them no worship of the almighty dollar, but sound, practical
economy, the art of saving the pieces. Surely it must be education alone
which fills the world with two kinds of girls--one kind which appears
best abroad, good for parties, rides, and visits, and whose chief
delight is in such things--good, in fact, for little else. The other is
the kind that appears best at home, graceful in the parlor, captivating
in social intercourse, useful in the sick chamber as in the dining-room,
and cheerful in all the precincts of home. They differ widely in
character. One is often the family torment; the other the family
blessing: one a moth consuming every thing about her; the other a
sunbeam, inspiring life and gladness all along her pathway. As my wife
embodied in herself all that to me appeared desirable in woman, so she
possessed the faculty of transfusing her own virtues into the
constitution of her daughters.
CHAPTER XIV.
TWO ACRES IN TRUCK--REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE.
I had one acre in tomatoes, a vegetable for whose production the soil of
New Jersey is perhaps without a rival. The plants are started in
hot-beds, where they flourish until all danger from frost disappears,
when they are set out in the open air, with a generous shovel-full of
well-rotted stable manure deposited under each plant. A moist day is
preferred for this operation; but even without it this plant generally
goes on growing. It has been observed that the oftener it is
transplanted, the more quickly it matures; and as the great effort among
growers is to be first in market, so some of them take pains to give it
two transplantings. Having no hot-bed on my premises, and my time being
fully occupied with other things, I was compelled to purchase plants
from those who had them to spare, the cost of which is elsewhere stated.
But the operation paid well.
The quantity produced by an acre of well-manured tomatoes is almost
incredible. When in full bearing, the field seems to be perfectly red
with them. Those which come first into market, even without being
perfectly ripe, sell for sixpence apiece. So popular has this vegetable
become, and so great is the profit realized by cultivating it, that for
nearly twenty years it has been grown in large quantities by Jerseymen
who emigrated to Virginia for the purpose of taking advantage of the
earlier climate of that genial region. There they bought farms, improved
them by using freely the unappropriated and unvalued stores of manure to
be found in the vicinity, and produced whole cargoes of the choicest
early vegetables required by the great consuming public of the northern
cities. They shipped them hither two weeks ahead of all the Jersey
truckers, and were rewarded by fabulous prices, from the receipt of
which large fortunes resulted. This mutually advantageous traffic had
become a very important one, when rebellion broke it up. Intercourse was
stopped, cultivation was abandoned, and the Virginia truckers were
ruined.
Although this competition seriously interfered with the profits of New
Jersey farmers, yet it did not destroy them. The cultivation of early
truck and fruit continued to pay, though not so well as formerly. When
prices fell, the Southern growers could not afford the cost of delivery
here, and thus left us in undisputed possession of the market. But, as a
general rule, the Virginia competitors invariably obtained the highest
prices. A great portion of their several crops, however, perished on
their hands; because, as they had no market here when prices fell, so
the scanty population around them afforded none at home.
For the first few baskets of early tomatoes I sent to market, I obtained
two dollars per basket of three pecks each. Other growers coming in
competition with me, the price rapidly diminished as the supply
increased, until it fell to twenty-five cents a bushel. At less than
this the growers refused to pick them; and seasons have been repeatedly
known when tens of thousands of bushels were left to perish on the
vines. When this low price could be no longer obtained, they were
gathered and thrown to the pigs, who consumed them freely. But as the
season advanced the supply diminished, and the price again rose to a
dollar a basket, the demand continuing as long as any could be procured.
The tomatoes are at this season picked green from the vines, and placed
under glass, where they are imperfectly ripened; but such is the public
appreciation of this wholesome vegetable, that when thus only half
reddened, they are eagerly sought after by hotels and boarding-houses.
But of latter years measures have been taken to prevent, to some extent,
the enormous waste of tomatoes during the height of the season, by
preserving them in cans. Establishments have been started, at which any
quantity that may be offered is purchased at twenty-five cents a bushel;
and now they can be kept through the whole year, and be preserved for
winter consumption, the same as potatoes or turnips. By hermetically
sealing them in cans from which the air has been expelled by heat, they
are not only preserved, but made to retain their full flavor; and may be
enjoyed, at a very moderate cost, in the winter as well as the summer.
The demand for them is constant, large, and increasing, and putting up
canned tomatoes has become an extensive business. One person, who
commenced the business two years ago, is literally up to the eyes in
tomatoes once a year. He provides for a single year’s trade over fifty
thousand cans, all of which are manufactured by himself; and he employs
over thirty persons, most of them women. He engages tomatoes at
twenty-five cents a bushel, a price at which the cultivator clears about
a hundred dollars an acre, and they come in at the rate of a hundred and
fifty bushels a day, requiring the constant labor of all-hands into the
night to dispose of them.
The building in which the business is carried on was constructed
expressly for it. At one end of the room in which the canning is done is
a range of brick-work supporting three large boilers; and adjoining is
another large boiler, in which the scalding is done. The tomatoes are
first thrown into this scalder, and after remaining there a sufficient
time, are thrown upon a long table, on each side of which are ten or
twelve young women, who rapidly divest them of their leathery hides. The
peeled tomatoes are then thrown into the boilers, where they remain
until they are raised to a boiling heat, when they are rapidly poured
into the cans, and these are carried to the tinmen, who, with a
dexterity truly marvellous, place the caps upon them, and solder them
down, when they are piled up to cool, after which they are labelled, and
are ready for market. The rapidity and the system with which all this is
done is most remarkable, one of the tinmen soldering nearly a hundred
cans in an hour.
The tomatoes thus preserved are readily salable in all the great cities,
both for home consumption and for use at sea. Thus, few vegetables have
gained so rapid and wide-spread a popularity as this. Until lately, but
few persons would even taste them; and they were raised, when cultivated
at all, more from curiosity than any thing else. Now scarcely a person
can be found who is not fond of them, and they occupy a prominent place
on almost every table.
My single acre of tomatoes produced me a clear profit of $120. I am
aware that others have realized more than double this amount, but they
were experienced hands at the business. My gains were quite as much as I
had anticipated.
From all the remainder of the three acres but little money was produced.
It gave me parsnips, turnips, and pumpkins. Between the rows of sweet
corn a fine crop of cabbages was raised, of which my sales amounted to
$82. Thus, an abundant supply of succulent food was provided for horse,
cow, and pigs during the winter, all which saved the outlay of so much
cash. I admit that a few of my vegetables did not yield equal to the
grounds of some of my neighbors, thus disappointing some of my
calculations. But I was inexperienced, had much to learn, and was not
discouraged. On the other hand, I had gone far ahead of them in the
growth of my standard fruits; and the evident hit I had made with the
new blackberry had the effect of impressing them with considerable
respect for my courage and sagacity.
This business of raising vegetables for the great city markets,
“trucking,” as it is popularly called, is now the great staple of New
Jersey agriculture. All the region of country stretching from Camden
some forty miles towards New York, once enjoyed the reputation of being
either all sand or all pine. It is traversed by the old highway between
Philadelphia and New York, laid out by direction of royalty in colonial
days, and protected at various points by barracks, in which troops were
garrisoned. Some of the barracks remain to this day; though in chambers
where high military revel once was held, devout congregations now
worship. Along this royal highway passed all the early travel between
the colonies; and after they had been severed from their parent stem, up
to the advent of steamboats and railroads, it was the only thoroughfare
between the two cities of New York and Philadelphia. Stages occupied
five weary days between them, the horses exhausted by wading through a
deep, laborious sand in summer, or the still deeper mud through which
they floundered in winter. On miles of this road the sand was frightful.
No local authorities worked it, no merciful builder of turnpikes ever
thought of reclaiming it. It lay from generation to generation, as waste
and wild as when the native pines were first cleared away. Access was so
laborious, that few strangers visited the region through which it
passed; and the land was held in large tracts, whereon but few settlers
had made clearings. All judged the soil as worthless as the deep sand in
the highway. Where some settler did clear up a farm, his labors
presented no inviting spectacle to the passing traveller. If manure was
known in those days, the farmer did not appear to value it, for he
neither manufactured nor used it. Phosphates and fertilizers had not
been dreamed of. If he spread any fertilizer over his fields, it was but
a starveling ration; hence his corn crop was a harvest of nubbins. Wheat
he never thought of raising; rye was the sole winter grain, and rye
bread, rye mush, and rye pie-crust, held uncontested dominion, squalid
condiments as they all are, in each equally squalid farm-house. Ragweed
and pigweed took alternate possession of the fields; cultivation was at
its last point of attenuation; none grew rich, while all became poor;
and as autumn came on, even the ordinarily thoughtless grasshopper
climbed feebly up to the abounding mullein top, and with tears in his
eyes surveyed the melancholy desolation around him. Such is a true
picture of the king’s highway up to the building of the Camden and Amboy
Railroad.
No wonder that the great public who traversed it through this part of
New Jersey should think it, and speak of it everywhere, as being all
sand, seeing that in their passage through it they beheld but little
else. Hence, the reputation thus early established continues to the
present day, and the tradition has been incorporated into the public
vernacular. The sandy road alone was seen, while the green and fertile
tracts that lay beyond and around it were unknown, because unseen. Like
the traveller from Dan to Beersheba, the cry was that all was barren.
But time, improvement, education, railroads, and the marvellous growth
of Philadelphia, New York, and fifty intermediate towns, have changed
all this as by enchantment. Every mile of the old highway is now a
splendid gravel turnpike, intersected by a dozen similar roads, which
stretch away up into the country.
As good roads invite settlement, so population, the great promoter of
the value of land, has come in rapidly, and changed the aspect of every
farm-house. Good fences line the roadside, rank hedge-rows have
disappeared, new farm-houses have been everywhere built, low lands have
been drained, manures have been imported from the cities, wheat is now
the staple winter-grain, rye has ceased to be cultivated, and rye bread
is now a mere reminiscence of the old dispensation. But chief, perhaps,
of all, the whole agricultural world of New Jersey has been educated by
the agricultural press to a high standard of intelligence and
enterprise. Its labors have led to the establishment of numerous
extensive nurseries, by the pressure of a general demand for trees and
smaller fruits, whose wilderness of blossoms now annually blush and
brighten upon every farm. It has taught them to cultivate new vegetables
and fruits for city consumption alone, salable for cash in each
successive month; in doing which, they have changed from a
poverty-stricken to a money-making generation. It has taught them, what
none previously believed, that no good farming can be done without high
manuring, and banished the ignorance and meanness that prevented them
from spending money to secure it. It has introduced to their notice new
and portable manures, improved tools, better breeds of stock of all
kinds, and sharpened their perceptions, until they have now become men
of business as well as farmers, and so proved its value to them, that
he upon whose table no agricultural journal can be found, may be written
down as the laggard of a progressive age.
But in addition to all these stimulants to progress the Camden and Amboy
Railroad came in, giving it a vast momentum. Terminating at Philadelphia
and New York, it opened up a cash market among thousands asking for
daily bread. When this road was first opened, its annual way-freight
yielded less than one hundred dollars a year. But its managers wisely
built station-houses at every cross-road, as the farmers called for
them. To these nuclei the produce of entire townships quickly gathered
in astonishing quantities. Agents from the great cities traversed the
country, and bought every thing that was for sale. A cash market being
brought to their very doors, where none had previously existed, an
immense stimulus to production followed, and a new spirit was infused
into the whole region. Hundreds of farms were renovated, cleared of foul
weeds, drained, and liberally manured. New vegetables were cultivated.
Tomatoes, peas, rhubarb, and early potatoes rose into prime staples.
Green corn has been taken from a single county to the extent of two
thousand tons daily. Other products go to market by thousands of baskets
at a time. Way-trains are run for the sole accommodation of this truck
business, stopping every few miles to take in the waiting contributions
collected at the stations. To both railroad and farmer it has proved a
highly remunerating traffic. These way-freights, thus wisely cultivated
by the railroad, now amount to many thousands annually, and are
steadily growing larger. Meantime, steamboats on the Delaware stop
several times daily at new wharves on the river, sometimes taking at one
trip two thousand baskets of truck, from a point where, twelve years
ago, the same number could not be gathered during an entire season. The
grower thus has the choice of the two richest markets in the country. He
reaches Philadelphia in one hour, and New York in three.
It must be manifest that crops of such magnitude cannot be produced on
mere sand. Hence the traditional notion that New Jersey is a sand heap,
desolate and barren at that, has long been proved to be a fallacy. Men
do not grow rich upon a burning desert, such as this region has been
described. Yet the farmers who occupy it are notoriously becoming so.
They lend money annually on mortgage, after spending thousands in
manure, while farms have advanced from $30 to $100 and $200 per acre.
The last ten years have added thirty per cent. to the population.
Schools, churches, and towns have proportionately increased in number.
The soil of this truck region contains a large proportion of sand with
loam, on which manure acts with an energetic quickness that brings all
early truck into the great markets in advance of the neighboring
country. This secures high prices. Southern competition has only
stimulated the growers to increased exertion. Though from this cause
losing some of the high rewards of former years, yet the aggregate of
profit does not seem to diminish. Better cultivation, higher manuring,
changing one product for another, with more land brought into tillage,
enable them to foot up as large an amount of sales at the end of the
season as aforetime. They see that the world cannot be overfed, and that
any thing they can produce will command a ready market. Consumers
increase annually, and the public appetite loses none of its rampant
fierceness. Hence, competition stimulates instead of discouraging.
A vast area is planted with tomatoes. Though thousands of bushels perish
every season, yet two hundred, and even four hundred dollars an acre is
frequently the clear profit. Thirty years ago, three bunches of rhubarb
were brought to the London market for sale, but as no one could be found
to buy them, they were given away; yet London now consumes seven
thousand tons annually. So, in New Jersey--the planter of the first half
acre was pitied for his temerity. Now, there are hundreds of acres of
rhubarb. The production of peas, pickles, cucumbers, melons, and
cabbages is immense. Early corn is raised in vast quantities. All these
various products command cash on delivery.
The soil of this region has long been famous for its growth of melons.
Formerly they were raised by ship-loads, but Southern competition has
checked their production. Yet New Jersey citrons possess a flavor so
exquisite, that they cannot be driven from the market. Peaches have long
since become almost obsolete, the yellows and the worm having been great
discouragements. But within three years, hundreds of acres of them have
been planted in New Jersey, and the nurseries find ready sale, in
seasons of average prosperity, for all they can produce. Numerous
orchards will annually come into bearing; and the chances are that this
once famous staple will again be domesticated in its ancient stronghold.
Among the smaller fruits, strawberries occupy an important place in New
Jersey, whose soil seems peculiarly adapted to them. The yield per acre
is enormous. One grower has gathered 400 bushels from three acres of the
Albany seedling. He began his plantation with a single dozen plants, at
$2.50 per dozen. New York and Philadelphia took them all at an average
of eighteen cents a quart. This patch was a marvel to look at. The
ground appeared fairly red with berries of great size, and were so
abundant that pickers abandoned other fields at two cents a quart, and
volunteered to pick this at one and a half. Other neighboring growers
realized large returns. The two counties of Burlington and Monmouth are
believed to yield more berries of all kinds than any district of equal
area in the Union, and the cultivation is rapidly extending.
A year or two ago, somebody invented and patented a new box for taking
them to market, lighter, neater, cheaper than the old one, and securing
thorough ventilation to the fruit. A club of Connecticut men forthwith
organized a company with a capital of $10,000 for manufacturing them;
built a factory, started an engine, and now have forty hands at work. An
agent of the company went through the State last fall, from Middletown
to Camden, showing samples, and taking orders. He sold three hundred
thousand boxes, many to those who had the old ones, but more to others
just wanting them. As he travelled on foot, with samples in his hand,
he inquired his way over the country, from farm to farm, and probably
discovered every grower of an acre of berries. Of course he could not
fail to visit and supply me. He gave me many curious items of
information touching the extent of the berry business. There are parties
in this country who have fifty acres of strawberries on a single farm,
with a thousand dollars invested merely in the small boxes in which they
are taken to market. He reports that the two counties of Burlington and
Monmouth produce more berries than all the remainder of the State.
Strawberries and raspberries are now the staples, to which the
blackberry has recently been added. The great consuming stomach of the
large cities, having long been fed on these delicious fruits, must
continue to buy. Growers seem to know that after thirty years’
propagation of the strawberry, this devouring stomach has never been
surfeited,--that the more it is fed the more it consumes.
CHAPTER XV.
BIRDS, AND THE SERVICES THEY RENDER.
One morning in September, hearing shots fired repeatedly at the further
end of my grounds, and proceeding thither to ascertain the cause, I
discovered three great, overgrown boobies, with guns in their hands,
trampling down my strawberries, and shooting bluebirds and robins. On
inquiring where they belonged, they answered in the next township. I
suggested to them that I thought their own township was quite large
enough to keep its own loafers, without sending them to depredate on me,
warned them never to show themselves on my premises again, and then
drove them out. This happened to be the only occasion on which I was
invaded by any of the worthless, loafing tribe of gunners, who roam over
some neighborhoods, engaged in the manly occupation of killing tomtits
and catbirds.
For all such my aversion was as decided as my partiality for the birds
was strong. One of the little amusements I indulged in immediately on
taking possession of my farm, was to put up at least twenty little rough
contrivances about the premises, in which the birds might build. Knowing
their value as destroyers of insects, I was determined to protect them;
and thus, around the dwelling-house, in the garden-trees, and upon the
sides of the barn, as well as in other places which promised to be
popular, I placed boxes, calabashes, and squashes for them to occupy.
The wrens and bluebirds took to them with gratifying readiness, built,
and reared their families. But I observed that the wren quickly took
possession of every one in which the hole was just large enough to admit
himself, and too small to allow the bluebird to enter; while in those
large enough to admit a bluebird no wren would build. This was because
the bluebird has a standing spite against the wrens, which leads him to
enter the nests of the latter, whenever possible, and destroy their
eggs. Almost any number of wrens may thus be attracted round the house
and garden, where they act as vigilant destroyers of insects.
These interesting creatures soon hatched out large broods of young, to
provide food for which they were incessantly on the wing. They became
surprisingly tame and familiar, those especially which were nearest the
house, and in trees beneath which the family were constantly passing. We
watched their movements through the season with increasing interest. No
cat was permitted even to approach their nests, no tree on which a
family was domiciled was ever jarred or shaken; and the young children,
instead of regarding them as game to be frightened off, or hunted,
caught, and killed, were educated to admire and love them. Indeed, so
carefully did we observe their looks and motions, that many times I felt
almost sure that I could identify and recognize the tenants of
particular boxes. They ranged over the whole extent of my ten acres,
clearing the bushes and vegetables of insects and worms; while the
garden, in which they sang and chattered from daybreak until sunset, was
kept entirely clear of the destroyers. I encountered them at the
furthest extremity of my domain, peering under the peach-leaves,
flitting from one tomato-vine to another, almost as tame as those at
home. They must have known me, and felt safe from harm. I am persuaded
that I recognized them. Yet it was at this class of useful birds that
the boobies calling themselves sportsmen were aiming their weapons, when
I routed them from the premises, and forbid the murderous foray.
Insects are, occasionally, one of the farmer’s greatest pests. But high,
thorough farming is a potent destroyer. It is claimed by British writers
to be a sure one. When the average produce of wheat in England was only
twenty bushels per acre, the ravages of the insect tribe were far more
general and destructive than they have been since the average has risen
to forty bushels per acre. Why may not the cultivation of domestic birds
like these, that nestle round the house and garden, where insects mostly
congregate, be considered an important feature in any system of thorough
farming?
Besides the wrens and bluebirds, the robins built under the eaves of the
wood-shed, and became exceedingly tame. The more social swallow took
possession of every convenient nestling-place about the barn, while
troops of little sparrows came confidingly to the kitchen door to pick
up the crumbs of bread which the children scattered on the pavement as
soon as they discovered that these innocent little creatures were fond
of them. Thus my premises became a sort of open aviary, in which a
multitude of birds were cultivated with assiduous care, and where they
shall be even more assiduously domesticated, as long as I continue to be
lord of the manor. I pity the man who can look on these things, who can
listen to the song of wrens, the loud, inspiring carol of the robin on
the tree-top, as the setting sun gilds its utmost extremities, listening
to these vocal evidences of animal comfort and enjoyment, without
feeling any augmentation of his own pleasures, and that the lonesome
blank which sometimes hangs around a rural residence is thus gratefully
filled.
One morning, hearing a great clamor and turmoil in a thicket in the
garden, where a nest of orioles had been filled with young birds, I
cautiously approached to discover the cause. A dozen orioles were
hovering about in great excitement, and for some time it was impossible
to discover the meaning of the trouble. But remaining perfectly quiet,
so as not to increase the disturbance, I at length discovered an oriole,
whose wing had become so entangled in one end of a long string which
formed part of the nest that she could not escape. The other birds had
also discovered her condition, and hence their lamentation over a
misfortune they were unable to remedy. But they did all they could, and
were assiduously bringing food to a nest full of voracious young ones,
as well as feeding the imprisoned parent. I was so struck with the
interesting spectacle that my family were called out to witness it;
then, having gazed upon it a few moments, I cautiously approached the
prisoner, took her in my hands, carefully untied and then cut away the
treacherous string, and let the frightened warbler go free. She
instantly flew up into her nest, as if to see that all her callow brood
were safe, gave us a song of thanks, and immediately the crowd of
sympathizing birds, as if conscious that the difficulty no longer
existed, flew away to their respective nests.
It takes mankind a great while to learn the ways of Providence, and to
understand that things are better contrived for him than he can contrive
them for himself. Of late, the people are beginning to learn that they
have mistaken the character of most of the little birds, and have not
understood the object of the Almighty in creating them. They are the
friends of those who plant, and sow, and reap. It has been seen that
they live mostly on insects, which are among the worst enemies of the
agriculturist; and that if they take now and then a grain of wheat, a
grape, a cherry, or a strawberry, they levy but a small tax for the
immense services rendered. In this altered state of things, legislatures
are passing laws for the protection of little birds, and increasing the
penalties to be enforced upon the bird-killers.
A farmer in my neighborhood came one day to borrow a gun for the purpose
of killing some yellow-birds in his field of wheat, which he said were
eating up the grain. I declined to loan the gun. In order, however, to
gratify his curiosity, I shot one of them, opened its crop, and found in
it two hundred weevils, and but four grains of wheat, and in these four
grains the weevil had burrowed! This was a most instructive lesson, and
worth the life of the poor bird, valuable as it was. This bird resembles
the canary, and sings finely. One fact like this affords an eloquent
text for sermonizing, for the benefit of the farmers and others who may
look upon little birds as inimical to their interests. Every hunter and
farmer ought to know that there is hardly a bird that flies that is not
a friend of the farmer and gardener.
Some genial spirits have given the most elaborate attention to the
question of the value of birds. One gentleman took his position some
fifteen feet from the nest of an oriole, in the top of a peach-tree, to
observe his habits. The nest contained four young ones, well fledged,
which every now and then would stand upon the edge of the nest to try
their wings. They were, therefore, at an age which required the largest
supply of food. This the parents furnished at intervals of two to six
minutes, throughout the day. They lighted on the trees, the vines, the
grass, and other shrubbery, clinging at times to the most extreme and
delicate points of the leaves, in search of insects. Nothing seemed to
come amiss to these sharp-eyed foragers--grasshoppers, caterpillars,
worms, and the smaller flies. Sometimes one, and sometimes as many as
six, were plainly fed to the young ones at once. They would also carry
away the refuse litter from the nest, and drop it many yards off. A
little figuring gives the result of this incessant warfare against the
insects. For only eight working hours it will be 1000 worms destroyed by
a single pair of birds. But if a hundred pairs be domesticated on the
premises, the destruction will amount to 100,000 daily, or 3,000,000 a
month!
This may seem to be a mere paper calculation, but the annals of
ornithology are crowded with confirmatory facts. The robin is accused of
appropriating the fruit which he has protected during the growing season
from a cloud of enemies. But his principal food is spiders, beetles,
caterpillars, worms, and larvæ. Nearly 200 larvæ have been taken from
the gizzard of a single bird. He feeds voraciously on those of the
destructive worm. In July he takes a few strawberries, cherries, and
pulpy fruits generally, more as a dessert than any thing else, because
it is invariably found to be largely intermixed with insects. Robins
killed in the country, at a distance from gardens and fruit-trees, are
found to contain less stone-fruit than those near villages; showing that
this bird is not an extensive forager. If our choicest fruits are near
at hand, he takes a small toll of them, but a small one only. In
reality, a very considerable part of every crop of grain and fruit is
planted, not for the mouths of our children, but for the fly, the
curculio, and the canker-worm, or some other of these pests of
husbandry. Science has done something, and will no doubt do more, to
alleviate the plague. It has already taught us not to wage equal war on
the wheat-fly and the parasite which preys upon it; and it will,
perhaps, eventually persuade those who need the lesson, that a few peas
and cherries are well bes
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