What I know of farming Part 8

I insist that the States this side of the Delaware; though they will draw much grain from the Canadas after the political change that cannot be far distant, will be compelled to grow a very considerable share of their own breadstuff; that the West will cease to supply them unless at prices which they will deem exorbitant; and that grain-growing eastward of a line drawn from Baltimore this north to the Lakes will have to be very considerably extended. Let us see, then, whether this might not be done with profit even now, and whether the East is not unwise in having so generally abandoned grain-growing.

I leave out of the account most of New-England, as well as of Eastern New-York, and the more rugged portions of New-Jersey and Pennsylvania, where the rocky, hilly, swampy face of the country seems to forbid any but that _patchy_ cultivation, wherein machinery and mechanical power can scarcely be made available, and which seem, therefore, permanently fated to persevere in a system of agriculture and horticulture not essentially unlike that they now exhibit. In the valleys of the Pen.o.bscot, the Kennebec, the Hudson, and of our smaller rivers, there are considerable tracts absolutely free from these natural impediments, whereon a larger and more efficient husbandry is perfectly practicable, even now; but these intervales are generally the property of many owners; are cut up by roads and fences; and are held at high prices: so that I will simply pa.s.s them by, and take for ill.u.s.tration the "Pine Barrens" of Southern New-Jersey, merely observing that what I say of them is equally applicable, with slight modifications, to large portions of Long Island, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

The "Pine Barrens" of New-Jersey are a marine deposit of several hundred feet in depth, mainly sand, with which more or less clay is generally intermingled, while there are beds and even broader stretches of this material nearly or quite pure; the clay sometimes underlying the sand at a depth of 10 to 30 or 40 inches. Vast deposits of muck or leaf-mold, often of many acres in extent and from two to twenty feet in depth, are very common; so that hardly any portion of the dry or sandy land is two miles distant from one or more of them, while some is usually much nearer; and half the entire region is underlaid by at least one stratum of the famous marl (formed of the decomposed bones of gigantic marine monsters long ago extinct) which has already played so important and beneficent a part in the renovation and fertilization of large districts in Monmouth, Burlington, Salem, and other counties.

Let us suppose now that a farmer of ample means and generous capacity should purchase four hundred acres of these "barrens," with intent to produce therefrom, not sweet potatoes, melons, and the "truck" to which Southern Jersey is so largely devoted, but substantial Grain and Meat; and let us see whether the enterprise would probably pay.

Let us not stint the outlay, but, presuming the tract to be eligibly located on a railroad not too distant from some good marl-bed, estimate as follows:

Purchase-money of 400 acres at $25 per acre $10,000

Clearing, grubbing, fencing and breaking up ditto at $20 per acre, over and above the proceeds of the wood 8,000

One thousand bushels of best Marl per acre, at 6 cents per bushel delivered 24,000

One hundred loads of Swamp Muck, per acre, at 50 cents per load 20,000

Fifty bushels (unslaked) of Oyster-sh.e.l.l Lime (to compost with the Muck), per acre, at 25 cents per bushel, delivered 5,000

One hundred tuns of Bone Flour at $50 per tun 5,000 ------- [Net cost, $180 per acre.] Total $72,000

I believe that this tract, divided by light fences into four fields of 100 acres each, and seeded in rotation to Corn, Wheat, Clover and other gra.s.ses, would produce fully 60 bushels of Corn and 30 of Wheat per acre, with not less than 3 tuns of good Hay; and that by cutting, steaming, and feeding the stalks and straw on the place, not pasturing, but keeping up the stock, and feeding them, as indicated in a former chapter of these essays, and selling their product in the form of Milk, b.u.t.ter, Cheese and Meat, a greater profit would be realized than could be from a like investment in Iowa or Kansas. The soil is warm, readily frees itself, or is freed, from surplus water; is not addicted to weeds; may be plowed at least 200 days in a year; may be sowed or planted in the Spring, when Minnesota is yet solidly frozen; while the crop, early matured, is on hand to take advantage of any sudden advance in the European or our own seaboard markets. Labor, also, is cheaper and more rapidly procured in the neighborhood of this great focus of immigration than it is or can be in the West; and our capable farmers may take their pick of the workers thronging hither from Europe, at the moment of their landing on our sh.o.r.e. Of course, the owner of such an estate as I have roughly outlined, would be likely to keep a part of his purchase in timber, proving the quality thereof by cutting out the less desirable trees, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g up the rest, and planting new ones among them; and he would be almost certain to devote some part of his farm annually to the growth of Roots, Vegetables, and Fruits. But I have aimed to show only that he would grow grain here at a profit, and I think I have succeeded.

His 60 bushels of corn (sh.e.l.led) per acre could be sold at his crib, one year with another, for 60 silver dollars; and he need seldom wait a month after husking it for customers who would gladly take his grain and pay the money for it. This would be just about double what the Iowa or Missouri farmer can expect to average for _his_ Corn. The abundant fodder would also be worth in New-Jersey at least double its value in Iowa; and I judge that the farmer able to buy, prepare, fertilize, and cultivate 1,200 acres of the Jersey "barrens," could make more than thrice the profit to be realized by the owner of 400 acres. He would plow and seed as well as thrash, sh.e.l.l, cut stalks and straw, and prepare the food of his animals, wholly by steam-power, and would soon learn to cultivate a square mile at no greater expense than is now involved in the as perfect tillage of 200 acres.

This essay is not intended to prove that Grain is not or may not be profitably cultivated at the West, nor that it is unadvisable for Eastern farmers to migrate thither in order so to cultivate it. What I maintain is, that Wheat, Indian Corn, and nearly all our great food staples, may also be profitably produced on the seaboard, and that thousands of square miles, now nearly or quite unproductive, may be wisely and profitably devoted to such production. Let us regard, therefore, without alarm, the prospect of such a development and diversification of Western Industry as will render necessary a large and permanent extension (or rather revival) of Eastern grain-growing.

XXIX.

ESCULENT ROOTS--POTATOES.

In no other form can so large an amount and value of human food be obtained from an acre of ground as in that of edible roots or tubers; and of these the Potato is by far the most acceptable, and in most general use. Our ancestors, it is settled, were dest.i.tute and ignorant of the Potato prior to the discovery of America, though Europe would now find it difficult to subsist her teeming millions without it. In travelling pretty widely over that continent, I cannot remember that I found, any considerable district in which the Potato was not cultivated, though Ireland, western England, and northern Switzerland, with a small portion of northern Italy, are impressed on my mind as the most addicted to the growth of this esculent. Other roots are eaten occasionally, by way of variety, or as giving a relish to ordinary food; but the Potato alone forms part of the every day diet alike of prince and peasant. It is an almost indispensable ingredient of the feasts of Dives, while it is the cheapest and commonest resort for satiating or moderating the hunger of Lazarus. I recollect hearing my parents, fifty years ago, relate how, in their childhood and youth, the poor of New-England, when the grain-crop of that region was cut short, as it often was, were obliged to subsist through the following Winter mainly on Potatoes and Milk; and I then accorded to those unfortunates of the preceding generation a sympathy which I should now considerably abate, provided the Potatoes were of good quality. Roasted Potatoes, seasoned with salt and b.u.t.ter and washed down with bounteous draughts of fresh b.u.t.termilk, used in those days to be the regular supper served up in farmers' homes after a churning of cream into b.u.t.ter; and I have since eaten costly suppers that were not half so good.

The Potato, say some accredited accounts, was first brought to Europe from Virginia, by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1586 or 1587; but I do not believe the story. Authentic tradition affirms that the Potato was utterly unknown in New-England, or at all events east of the Connecticut, when the Scotch-Irish who first settled Londonderry, N. H., came over from _old_ Londonderry, Ireland, bringing the Potato with them. They spent the Winter of 1719 in different parts of Ma.s.sachusetts and Maine--quite a number of them at Haverhill, Ma.s.s., where they gave away a few Potatoes for seed, on leaving for their own chosen location in the Spring; and they afterward learned that the English colonists, who received them, tried hard to find or make the seed-b.a.l.l.s edible the next Fall but were obliged to give it up as a bad job; leaving the tubers untouched and unsuspected in the ground.

I doubt that the Potato was found growing by Europeans in any part of this country, unless it be in that we have acquired from Mexico. It is essentially a child of the mountains, and I presume it grew wild nowhere else than on the sides of the great chain which traversed Spanish America, at a height of from 5,000 to 8,000 feet above the surface of the ocean. Here it found a climate cooled by the elevation and moistened by melting snows from above and by frequent showers, yet one which seldom allowed the ground to be frozen to any considerable depth, while the pure and bracing atmosphere was congenial to its nature and requirements. In this country, the Potato is hardiest and thriftiest among the White Mountains of New-Hamps.h.i.+re, the Green Mountains of Vermont, on the Catskills and kindred elevations in our own State, and in similar regions of Pennsylvania and the States further South and West.

My own place is at least 15 miles from, and 500 feet above, Long Island Sound; yet I cannot make the Potato, by the most generous treatment, so prolific as it was in New-Hamps.h.i.+re in my boyhood, where I dug a bushel from 14 hills, grown on rough, hard ground, but which, having just been cleared of a thick growth of bushes and briars, was probably better adapted to this crop than though it had been covered an inch deep with barn-yard manure.

He who has a tolerably dry, warm sandy soil, covered two or three inches deep with decayed or decaying leaves and brush, may count with confidence on raising from it a good crop of Potatoes, provided his seed be sound and healthy. On the other hand, all authorities agree that animal manures, unless very thoroughly rotted and intimately mixed with the soil, are injurious to the quality of Potatoes grown thereon, stimulating any tendency to disease, if they do not originally produce such disease. I believe that Swamp Muck, dug in Summer or Autumn, deposited on a dry bank or glade, and cured of its acidity by an admixture of Wood-Ashes, of Lime, or of Salt (better still, of Lime and Salt chemically compounded by dissolving the Salt in the least possible quant.i.ty of Water, and slaking the lime with that Water), forms an excellent fertilizer for Potatoes, if administered with a liberal hand.

A bushel of either of these alkalies to a cord of muck is too little; the dose should be doubled if possible; but, if the quant.i.ty be small, mix it more carefully, and give it all the time you can wherein to operate upon the muck before applying the mixture to your fields.

Where the muck is not easily to be had, yet the soil is thin and poor, I would place considerable reliance on deep plowing and subsoiling in the Fall, and cross-plowing just before planting in the Spring. Give a good dressing of Plaster, not less than 200 lbs. to the acre, directly after the Fall plowing; if you have Ashes, scatter them liberally in the drill or hill as you plant; and, if you have them not, supply their place with Superphosphate or Bone-dust. I think many farmers will be agreeably surprised by the additional yield which will accrue from this treatment of their soil.

Those who have no swamp muck, and feel that they can afford the outlay, may, by plowing or subsoiling early in the Fall, seeding heavily with rye, and turning this under when the time comes for planting in the Spring, improve both crop and soil materially. But even to these I would say: Apply the Gypsum in the Fall, and the Ashes or Lime and Salt mixture in the Spring; and now, with good seed and good luck, you will be reasonably sure of a bounteous harvest. If a farmer, having a poor worn-out field of sandy loam, wants to do his very best by it, let him plow, subsoil, sow rye and plaster in the Fall, as above indicated, turn this under, and sow buckwheat late in the next Spring; plow this under in turn when it has attained its growth, and sow to clover; turn this down the following Spring, and Plant to late potatoes, and he will not merely obtain a large crop, but have his land in admirable condition for whatever way follow.

I am quite well aware that such an outlay of labor and seed, with an entire loss of crop for one season, will seem to many too costly. I do not advise it except under peculiar circ.u.mstances; and yet I am confident that there are many fields that would be doubled in value by such treatment, which would richly repay all its cost. That most farmers could not afford thus to treat their entire farms at once, is very true; yet it does not follow that they might not deal with field after field thus thoroughly, living on the products of 40 or 50 acres, while they devoted five or six annually to the work of thorough renovation.

A quarter of a century ago, we were threatened with a complete extinction of the Potato, as an article of food: the stalks, when approaching or just attaining maturity, were suddenly smitten with fatal disease--usually, after a warm rain followed by scalding suns.h.i.+ne--the growing tubers were speedily affected; they rotted in the ground, and they rotted nearly as badly if dug; and whole towns.h.i.+ps could hardly show a bushel of sound Potatoes.

A desolating famine in Ireland, which swept away or drove into exile nearly two millions of her people, was the most striking and memorable result of this wide-spread disaster. For several succeeding seasons, the Potato was similarly, though not so extensively, affected; and the fears widely expressed that the day of its usefulness was over, seemed to have ample justification. Speaking generally, the Potato has never since been so hardy or prolific as it was half a century ago; it has gradually recovered, however, from its low estate, and, though the malady still lingers, and from time to time renews its ravages in different localities, the farmer now plants judiciously and on fit ground, with a reasonable hope that his labor will be duly rewarded.

It seems to be generally agreed that clayey soils are not adapted to its growth; that, if the quant.i.ty of the crop be not stinted, its quality is pretty sure to be inferior; and I can personally testify that the planting of Potatoes on wet soil--that is, on swampy or spongy land which has not been thoroughly drained and sweetened--is a hopeless, thriftless labor--that the crop will seldom be worth the seed.

As to the ten or a dozen different insects to which the Potato-rot has been attributed, I regard them all as consequences, not causes; attracted to prey on the plant by its sickly, weakly condition, and not really responsible for that condition. If any care for my reasons, let him refer to what I have said of the Wheat-plant and its insect enemies.[1]

There has been much discussion as to the kind of seed to be planted; and I think the result has been a pretty general conviction that it is better to cut the tuber into pieces having two or three eyes each, than to plant it whole, since the whole Potato sends up a superfluity of stalks, with a like effect on the crop to that of putting six or eight kernels of corn in each hill.

Small Potatoes are immature, unripe, and of course should never be planted, since their progeny will be feeble and sickly. Select for seed none but thoroughly ripe Potatoes, and the larger the better.

My own judgment favors planting in drills rather than hills, with ample s.p.a.ce for working between them; not less than 30 inches: the seed being dropped about 6 inches apart in the drill. The soil must be deep and mellow, for the Potato suffers from drouth much sooner than Indian Corn or almost any other crop usually grown among us. I believe in covering the seed from 2 to 2-1/2 inches; and I hold to flat or level culture for this as for everything else. Planting on a ridge made by turning two furrows together may be advisable where the land is wet; but then wet land never can be made fit for cultivation, except by underdraining. And I insist upon setting the rows or drills well apart, because I hold that the soil should often be loosened and stirred to a good depth with the subsoil plow; and that this process should be persevered in till the plant is in blossom. Hardly any plant will pay better for persistent cultivation than the Potato.

As to varieties, I will only say that planting the tubers for seed is an unnatural process, which tends and must tend to degeneracy. The new varieties now most prized will certainly run out in the course of twenty or thirty years at furthest, and must be replaced from time to time by still newer, grown from the seed. This creation of new species is, and must be, a slow, expensive process; since not one in a hundred of these varieties possess any value. I don't quite believe in selling--I mean in buying--Potatoes at $1 per pound; but he who originates a really valuable new Potato deserves a recompense for his industry, patience, and good fortune; and I shall be glad to learn that he receives it.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Chapter XXII.

x.x.x.

ROOTS--TURNIPS--BEETS--CARROTS

If there be any who still hold that this country must ultimately rival that magnificent Turnip-culture which has so largely transformed the agricultural industry of England and Scotland, while signally and beneficently increasing its annual product, I judge that time will prove them mistaken. The striking diversity of climate between the opposite coasts of the Atlantic forbids the realization of their hopes. The British Isles, with a considerable portion of the adjacent coast of Continental Europe, have a climate so modified by the Gulf Stream and the ocean that their Summers are usually moist and cool, their Autumns still more so, and their Winters rarely so cold as to freeze the earth considerably; while our Summers and Autumns, are comparatively hot and dry; our Winters in part intensely cold, so as to freeze the earth solid for a foot or more. Hence, every variety of turnip is exposed here in its tenderer stages to the ravages of every devouring insect; while the 1st of December often finds the soil of all but our Southern and Pacific States so frozen that cannon-wheels would hardly track it, and roots not previously dug up must remain fast in the earth for weeks and often for months. Hence, the turnip can never grow so luxuriantly, nor be counted on with such certainty, here as in Great Britain; nor can animals be fed on it in Winter, except at the heavy cost of pulling or digging, cutting off the tops and carefully housing in Autumn, and then slicing and feeding out in Winter. It is manifest that turnips thus handled, however economically, cannot compete with hay and corn-fodder in our Eastern and Middle States; nor with these and the cheaper species of grain in the West, as the daily Winter food of cattle.

Still, I hold that our stock-growing farmers profitably may, and ultimately will, grow _some_ turnips to be fed out to their growing and working animals. A good meal of turnips given twice a week, if not oftener, to these, will agreeably and usefully break the monotony of living exclusively on dry fodder, and will give a relish to their hay or cut stalks and straw, which cannot fail to tell upon their appet.i.te, growth and thrift. Let our cattle-breeders begin with growing an acre or two each of Swedes per annum, so as to give their stock a good feed of them, sliced thin in an effective machine, at least once in each week, and I feel confident that they will continue to grow turnips, and will grow more and more of them throughout future years.

The Beet seems to me better adapted to our climate, especially south of the fortieth degree of north lat.i.tude, than any variety of the Turnip with which I am acquainted, and destined, in the good time coming, when we shall have at least doubled the average depth of our soil, to very extensive cultivation among us. I am not regarding either of these roots with reference to its use as human food, since our farmers generally understand that use at least as well as I do; nor will I here consider at length the use of the Beet in the production of Sugar. I value that use highly, believing that millions of the poorer cla.s.ses throughout Europe have been enabled to enjoy Sugar through its manufacture from the Beet who would rarely or never have tasted that luxury in the absence of this manufacture. The people of Europe thus made familiar with Sugar can hardly be fewer than 100,000,000; and the number is annually increasing.

The cost of Sugar to these is considerably less in money, while immeasurably less in labor, than it would or could have been had the tropical Cane been still regarded as the only plant available for the production of Sugar.

But the West Indies, wherein the Cane flourishes luxuriantly and renews itself perennially, lie at our doors. They look to us for most of their daily bread, and for many other necessaries of life; while several, if not all of them, are manifestly destined, in the natural progress of events, to invoke the protection of our flag. I do not, therefore, feel confident that Beet Sugar now promises to become an important staple destined to take a high rank among the products of our national industry. With cheap labor, I believe it might to-day he manufactured with profit in the rich, deep valleys of California, and perhaps in those of Utah and Colorado as well. On the whole, however, I cannot deem the prospect encouraging for the American promoters of the manufacture of Beet Sugar.

But when we shall have deepened essentially the soil of our arable acres, fertilized it abundantly, and cured it by faithful cultivation of its vicious addiction to weed-growing, I believe we shall devote millions of those acres to the growth of Beets for cattle-food, and, having learned how to harvest as well as till them mainly by machinery, with little help from hand labor, we shall produce them with eminent profit and satisfaction to the grower. On soil fully two feet deep, thoroughly underdrained and amply fertilized, I believe we shall often produce one thousand bushels of Beets to the acre; and so much acceptable and valuable food for cattle can hardly be obtained from an acre in any other form.

So with regard to Carrots. I have never achieved eminent success in growing these, nor Beets; mainly because the soil on which I attempted to grow them was not adapted to, or rather not yet in condition for, such culture. But, should I live a few years longer, until my reclaimed swamp shall have become thoroughly sweetened and civilized, I mean to grow on some part thereof 1,000 bushels of Carrots per acre, and a still larger product of Beets; and the Carrot, in my judgment, ought now to be extensively grown in the South and West, as well as in this section, for feeding to horses. I hold that 60 bushels of Carrots and 50 of Oats, fed in alternate meals, are of at least equal value as horse-feed with 100 bushels of Oats alone, while more easily grown in this climate. The Oat-crop makes heavy drafts upon the soil, while our hot Summers are not congenial to its thrift or perfection. Since we must grow Oats, we must be content to import new seed every 10 or 15 years from Scotland, Norway, and other countries which have cooler, moister Summers than our own; for the Oat will inevitably degenerate under such suns as blazed through the latter half of our recent June. Believing that the Carrot may profitably replace at least half the Oats now grown in this country, I look forward with confidence to its more and more extensive cultivation.

The advantage of feeding Roots to stock is not to be measured and bounded by their essential value. Beasts, like men, require a variety of food, and thrive best upon a regimen which involves a change of diet.

Admit that hay is their cheapest Winter food; still, an occasional meal of something more succulent will prove beneficial, and this is best afforded by Roots.