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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—than 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 anything 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 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 anything, 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 anything 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.
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