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June came without my being obliged to hire anything
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 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 line, 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 denning 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 sprang 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 everything. 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 Dor 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 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 he 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 shown 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. Everything 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 dale 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.
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