My farm of Edgewood : a country book

Front matter

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Preface

A FRIEND afks, — "Are you not tired, then, of that fancy of Farming ? Is it not an expensive amusement ; is it not a stupefying bufiness ?

" Do you find your brain taking breadth or color out of Carrot-raifmg, or Pumpkins ? Poultry is a pretty thing, between Tumblers, and Muscovy ducks ; but can you not buy cheaper than you raise, — without the fret of foxes and vermin, — in any city market ?

" Shall I sell out and join you ? Shall I teach this boy of mine (you know his physique and that gray eye of nis, looking after some eidolon) to love the country — so far as to plant himself there, and grow into the trade of farming ? A victory over the forces of nature, and of the seafons, — compelling them to abundance, — is no doubt large ; but is not a victory over the forces of mind, which can only viii . PREFACE.

come out of sharp contadt with the world, immenfely larger?"

In my reply, — loving the country as I do, and wiihing to set forth its praifes ; and believing as I do, in the Godappointed duty of working land to its top limit of producing power, — I said a great deal that looked like a mild Georgic.

And yet, with a feeling for his poor boy, and a remembrance of what crisp salads I had found in the city markets, after mine were all mined and devoured by the field-mice, — I wrote a great deal that had the twang of Melibceus in the eclogue,

En ipse capellas

Protenus /eger ago !

In short, in my reply, I beat about the bum : — so much about the bufh in fact, that this book came of it.

Edgewood, 1863.

Contents

PAGE

I.— THE SEARCH AND FINDING, .... 1

II.— TAKING REINS IN HAND.

II. Taking Beins In Hand

Around the House.

ALTHOUGH possessing all the special requisites of which I had been in search, yet the farm was by no means without its inaptitudes and roughnesses. There was an accumulation of half-decayed logs in one quarter, of mouldering chips in another, — being monumental of the choppings and hewings of half a score of years. Old iron had its establishment in this spot; cast-away carts and sleds in that; walls which had bulged out with the upheaval of — I know not how many — frosts, had been ingeniously mended with discarded harrows or axles ; there was the usual debris of clam shells, and there were old outbuildings standing awry, and showing rhomboidal angles in their outline. These approached the house very nearly, — so nearly, in fact, that in one direction at least, it was difficult to say where the province of the poultry and calves ended, and where the human occupancy began.

There was a monstrous growth of dock and burdock about the outer doors, and not a few rank shoots of that valuable medicinal herb — stramonium. There were the invariable clumps of purple lilacs, in most unmanageable positions ; a few straggling bunches of daffodils ; an ancient garden with its measly looking, mossy gooseberries; a few strawberry plants, and currant bushes keeping up interruptedly the pleasant formality of having once been set in rows, and of having nodded their crimson tassels at each other across the walk. There were some half dozen huge old pear trees, immediately in the rear of the house, mossy, and promising inferior native fruit ; but full of a vigor that I have since had the pleasure of transmuting into golden Bartletts. There were a few plum trees, loaded with black knot ; a score of peach trees in out of the way places, all showing unfortunate marks of that vegetable jaundice, the yellows, which throughout New England is the bane of this delicious fruit.

There was the usual huge barn, a little wavy in its ridge, and with an aged settle to its big doors ; while under the eaves were jagged pigeon holes, cut by adventurous boys, ignorant of cmvilinear harmonies. Upon the peak was a lively weather-cock of shingle, most preposterously active in its motions, and trimming to every flaw of wind with a nervous rapidity, that reminded me of nothing so much as of the alacrity of a small newspaper editor. There was the attendant company of farm sheds, low sheds, high sheds, tumble-down sheds, one with a motley array of seasoned lumber, well dappled over with such domestic coloring as barn-yard fowls are in the habit of administering ; another, with sleds and sleighs, — looking out of place in June — and submitted to the same domestic garniture. There was the cider mill with its old casks, and press, seamy and mildewed, both having musty taint. A convenient mossy cherry tree was hung over with last year's scythes and bush-hooks, while two or three broken ox chains trailed from the stump of a limb, which had suffered amputation. Nor must I forget the shop, half home-made, half remnant of something better, with an old hat or two thrust into the broken sashes — with its unhelved, gone-by axes, its hoes with half their blade gone, its dozen of infirm rakes, its hospital shelf for broken swivels, heel-wedges and dried balls of putty.

I remember passing a discriminating eye over the tools, bethinking me how I would swing the broadaxe, or put the saws to sharp service ; for in bargain ing for the farm, I had also bargained for the implements of which there might be immediate need.

Directly upon the roadway, before the house, rose a high wall, supporting the little terrace that formed the front yard ; the terrace was a wilderness of roses, lilacs, and undipped box. The entrance way was by a flight of stone steps which led through the middle of the terrace, and of the wall ; while over the steps hung the remnants of an ancient archway, which had once supported a gilded lantern ; and I was told with an air of due reverence, that this gilded spangle of the town life, was a memento of the hospitalities of a certain warm-blooded West Indian, who in gone by years had lighted up the country home with cheery festivities. I would have cherished the lantern if it had not long before disappeared ; and the steps that may have once thronged under it, must be all of them heavy with years now, if they have not rested from their weary beat altogether. Both wall and terrace are now gone, and a gentle swell of green turf is in their place, skirted by a hedge and low rustic paling, and crowned by a gaunt pine tree, and a bowering elm.

The same hospitable occupant, to whom I have referred, had made additions to the home itself, so as to divest it of the usual, stereotyped farm-house look, by a certain quaintness of outline. This he had done by extending the area of the lower story some ten feet, in both front and rear, while the roof of this annex was concealed by a heavy balustrade, perched upon the eaves ; thus giving the effect of one large cube, surmounted by a lesser one ; the uppermost was topped with a roof of sharp pitch, through whose ridge protruded two enormous chimney stacks. But this alteration was of so old a date as not to detract from the venerable air of the house. Even the jaunty porch which jutted in front of all, showed gaping seams, and stains of ancient leakage, that forbade any suspicion of newness.

Within, the rooms had that low-browed look which belongs to country farm-houses ; and I will not disguise the matter by pretending that they are any higher now. I have occasional visitors whom I find it necessary to caution as they pass under the doorways ; and the stray wasps that will float into the open casements of so old a country house, in the first warm days of Spring, are not out of reach of my boy, (just turned of five,) as he mounts a chair, and makes a cut at them with his dog-whip, upon the ceiling.

I must confess that I do not dislike this old humility of house-building ; if windows, open chimney places, and situation give good air, what matters it, that your quarters by night are three or four feet nearer to your quarters by day ? In summer, if some simple trellised pattern of paper cover the ceiling, you enjoy the illusion of a low branching bower ; and of a winter evening, the play of the fire-light on the hearth flashes over it, with a kindly nearness.

I know the outgoing parties found no pleasant task in the leave-taking. I am sure the old lady who was its mistress felt a pang that was but poorly concealed ; I have a recollection that on one of my furtive visits of observation, I unwittingly came upon her — at a stand-still over some bit of furniture that was to be prepared for the cart, — with her handkerchief fast to her eyes. It cannot be otherwise at parting with even the lowliest homes, where we have known of deaths, and births, and pleasures, and little storms that have had their sweep and lull ; and where slow-pacing age has declared itself in gray hair, and the bent figure. It is tearing leaf on leaf out of the thin book where our lives are written.

Even the farmer's dog slipped around the angles of the house, as the change was going forward, with a fitful, frequent, uneasy trot, as if he were disposed to make the most of the last privileges of his home. The cat alone, of all the living occupants, took matters composedly, and paced eagerly about from one to another of her disturbed haunts in buttery and kitchen, with a philosophic indifference. I should not wonder indeed if she indulged in a little riotous exultation at finding access to nooks which had been hitherto cumbered with assemblages of firkins and casks. I have no faith in cats : they are a cold-blooded race ; they are the politicians among domestic animals ; they care little who is master, or what are the over-turnings, so their pickings are secure ; and what are their midnight caucuses but primary meetings ?

My Bees.

A SHELF, on which rested five bee-hives with their buzzing swarms, stood beside a clump of lilacs, not far from one of the side doors of the farm house. These the outgoing occupant was indisposed to sell ; it was " unlucky," he said, to give up ownership of an old-established colony. The idea was new to me, and I was doubly anxious to buy, that I might give his whimsey a fair test. So I overruled his scruples at length, moved the bees only a distance of a few yards, gave them a warm shelter of thatch, and strange to say, they all died within a year.

I restocked the thatched house several times afterward ; and there was plenty of marjoram and sweet clover to delight them ; whether it was that the misfortunes of the first colony haunted the place, I know not, but they did not thrive. Sometimes, I was told, it was the moth that found its way into their hives ; sometimes it was an invasion of piratical ants ; and every summer I observe that a few gallant king birds take up their station near by, and pounce upon the flying scouts, as they go back with their golden booty.

I have not the heart to shoot the king birds ; nor do I enter very actively into the battle of the bees against the moths, or the ants ; least of all, do I interfere in the wars of the bees among themselves, which I have found, after some observation, to be more destructive and ruinous, than any war with foreign foes.* I give them fair play, good lodging, limitless flowers, willows bending (as Virgil advises) into the quiet water of a near pool ; I have even read up the stories of poor blind Huber, who so loved the bees, and the poem of Giovanni Rucellai, for their benefit : if they cannot hold their sceptre against the tender-winged moths, who have no cruel stings, or against the ants, or the wasps, or give over their satanic quarrels with their kindred, let them abide the consequences. I will not say, however, but that

* The Rev. Charles Butler, in his " Feminine Monarchie " (London, 1609), after speaking in Chapter VII of "Deir Enemies," continues: "But not any one of des e , nor all des e togeder, doo half so muc harm to de Bees, as de Bees. Apis api, ut homo homini, Lupus. Dey mak de greatest spoil bot of bees and of hoonie. Dis robbing is practised all dc yeer."

the recollection of the sharp screams of a little " curl pate " that have once or twice pierced my ears, as she ventured into too close companionship, has indisposed me to any strong advocacy of the bees.

My experience enables me to say that hives should not be placed too near each other ; the bees have a very human propensity to quarrel, and their quarrels are ruinous. They blunder into each other's homes, if near together, with a most wanton affectation of forgetfulness ; and they steal honey that has been carefully stored away in the cells of sister swarms, with a vicious energy that they rarely bestow upon a flower. In their field forays, I believe they are respectful of each other's rights ; but at home, if only the order is once disturbed, and a neighbor swarm shows signs of weakness, they are the most malignant pirates it is possible to conceive of.

Again, let no one hope for success in their treatment, unless he is disposed to cultivate familiarity ; a successful bee-keeper loves his bees, and has a way of fondling them, and pushing his intimacy about the swarming time, which I would not counsel an inapt or a nervous person to imitate.

I have a neighbor, a quiet old gentleman, who is possessed of this passion ; his swarms multiply indefinitely; I see him holding frequent conversations with them through the backs of their hives ; all the stores of my little colony would be absorbed in a day, if they were brought into contact with his lusty swarms.

Many of the old writers tell pleasant stories of the amiable submission of their favorites to gentle handling ; but I have never had the curiosity to put this submission to the test. I remember that Yan Amburgh tells tender stories of the tigers.

I have observed, however, that little people listen with an amused interest to those tales of the bees, and I have sometimes availed myself of a curious bit of old narrative, to staunch the pain of a sting.

"Who will listen," I say, "to a story of M. Lombard's, about a little girl, on whose hand a whole swarm of bees once alighted ? "

And all say " I " — save the sobbing one, who looks consent.

M. Lombard was a French lawyer, who was for a long time imprisoned in the dungeons of Robespierre ; and when that tyrant reformer was beheaded, this prisoner gained his liberty, and went into the country, where he became a farmer, and wrote three or four books about the bees : among other things he says :

" A young girl of my acquaintance was greatly afraid of bees, but was completely cured of her fear by the following incident. A swarm having left a hive, I observed the queen alight by herself, at a little distance from the apiary. I immediately called my little friend, that I might show her this important personage ; she was anxious to have a nearer view of her majesty, and therefore, having first caused her to draw on her gloves, I gave the queen into her hand. Scarcely had I done so, when we were surrounded by the whole bees of the swarm. In this emergency, I encouraged the trembling girl to be steady, and to fear nothing, remaining myself close by her, and covering her head and shoulders with a thin handkerchief. I then made her stretch out the hand that held the queen, and the bees instantly alighted on it, and hung from her fingers as from the branch of a tree. The little girl, experiencing no injury, was delighted above measure at the novel sight, and so entirely freed from all fear, that she bade me uncover her face. The spectators were charmed at the interesting spectacle. I at length brought a hive, and shaking the swarm from the child's hand, it was lodged in safety without inflicting a single sting."

As I begin the story, there is a tear in the eye of the sobbing one, but as I read on, the tear is gone, and the eye dilates ; and when I have done, the sting is forgotten.

I have written thus at length, at the suggestion of my thatch of a bee house, because I shall have nothing to say of my bees again, as co-partners with me in the flowers, and in the farm. I have to charge to their account a snug sum for purchase money, and for their straw housing — a good many hours of bad humor, and the recollection of those little screams to which I have already alluded. Thus far, I can only credit them with one or two moderately sized jars of honey, and a pleasant concerted buzzing with which they welcome the first warm weather of the Spring. Even as I write, I observe that a few of my winged workers are alight upon the mossy stones that lie half covered in the basin of the fountain, and are sedulously exploring the water.

Clearing Up.

^F course one of the first aims, in taking possession of such a homestead as I have partially described, was to make a clearance of debris, of unnecessary palings, of luxuriant corner crops of nettles and burdocks, of mouldering masses of decayed vegetable matter, of old conchologic deposits, and ferruginous wreck ; all this clearance being not so much agricultural employment, as hygienic. There seems to have been a mania with the old New England householders, in the country, for multiplying enclosures, — front yards, back yards, south and north yards, — all with their palings and gates, which grow shaky with years, and give cover to rank and worthless vegetation in corners, that no cultivation can reach. Of this multitude of palings I made short work : good taste, economy, and all rules of good tillage, unite in favor of the fewest possible enclosures, and confirm the wisdom of making the palings for such as are necessary, as simple as their office of defence will allow.

So it happened under my ruling that the little terrace yard of the front lost its identity, and was merged in the yard to the north, — with the little bewildered garden to the south, — with the straggling peach orchard in the rear ; and all these merged again, by the removal of a tottling wall, with the valley pasture that lay southward; where now clumps of evergreen, and azalias, and lilacs crown the little swells, and hide the obtrusive angles of barriers beyond ; so that the children may race, from the door, over firm, clean, green sward, for a gunshot away. This change has not been only to the credit of the eye, but in every particular economic. The cost of establishing and repairing the division palings has been done away with ; the inaccessible angles of enclosures which fed monstrous wild growth, are submitted to even culture and cropping ; an under drain through the bottom of the valley lawn, has absorbed the scattered stones and the tottling wall of the pasture, and given a rank growth of red-top and white clover, where before, through three months of the year, was almost a quagmire. This drain, fed by lesser branches laid on from time to time through the springy ground of the peach orchard, and by the waste way of the fountain at the door, now discharges into a little pool (once a mud hole) at the extremity of the lawn, where a willow or two timidly dip their branches, and the frogs welcome every opening April with a riotous uproar of voices. Even the scattered clumps of trees stand upon declivities where cultivation would have been difficult, or they hide out-cropping rocks which were too heavy for the walls, or the drains. So it has come about that the old flimsy pasture, with its blotches of mulleins, thistles, wax myrtles, and the ill shapen yard, straggling peach orchard (long since gone by), have made my best grass field, which needs only an occasional top dressing of ashes or compost, and a biennial scratching with a fine-toothed harrow, to yield me two tons to the acre of sweet-scented hay.

MAKING REINS IN HAND. 57

I may remark here, in way of warning to those who undertake the renovation of slatternly country places, with exuberant spirits, that it is a task which often seems easier than it proves. More especially is this the case where there is an accumulation of old walls, and of unsightly, clumsy-shaped rocks to be dealt with. They may indeed be transferred to new walls ; but this involves an expenditure, oftentimes, which no legitimate estimate of a farm revenue will warrant ; and I propose to illustrate in this book no theories of improvement, whether as regards ornamentation or increased productiveness, which a soimd economy will not authorize. Agricultural successes which are the result of simple, lavish expenditure, without reference to agricultural returns, are but empty triumphs ; no success in any method of culture is thoroughly sound and praiseworthy, except it be imitable, to the extent of his means, by the smallest farmer. The crop that is grown at twice its market value to the bushel, may possibly suggest a hint to the scientific theorist ; but it will never be emulated by the man whose livelihood depends upon the product of his farm. Those who transfer the accumulated fortunes of the city to the country, for the encouragement of agriculture, should bear in mind, first of all, that their endeavors will have healthy influence, only so far as they are imitable ;

and they will be imitable only so far as they are subordinated to the trade laws of profit and loss. Farming is not a fanciful pursuit ; its aim is not to produce the largest possible crop at whatever cost ; but its aim is, or should be, taking a series of years together, to produce the largest crops at the least possible cost.

If my neighbor, by an expenditure of three or four hundred dollars to the acre in the removal of rocks and other impedimenta, renders his field equal to an adjoining smooth one, which will pay a fair farm rental on a valuation of only two hundred dollars per acre, he may be congratulated upon having extended his available agricultural area, but he cannot surely be congratulated on having made a profitable transaction.

The weazen faced old gentlemen who drive by in their shirt sleeves, and call attention to the matter with a gracious wave of their hickory whipstocks, allow that — " it's fine ; but don't pay." Such observers — and they make up the bulk of those who have the country in their keeping — must be addressed through their notions of economy, or they will not be reached at all.

In the case supposed, I have, of course, assumed that only ordinary farm culture was to be bestowed : although there may be conditions of high tillage, extraordinary nicety of culture, and nearness to a large market, which would warrant the expenditure of even a thousand dollars per acre with profitable results.

But rocky farms, even away from markets, are not without their profits, and a certain wild, yet subdued order of their own. I have never seen sweeter or warmer pasture ground, than upon certain hillsides strown thick with great granite boulders, spangled with mica, and green-gray mosses ; nor was the view unthrifty, with its fat, ruffle-necked merino ewes grazing in company ; nor yet unattractive to other than farm-eyes — with its brook bursting from under some ledge that is overhung with gnarled birches, and illuminated with nodding, crimson columbines — then yawing away between its green banks, with a new song for every stone that tripped its flow.

One of the daintiest and most productive fruit gardens it was ever my pleasure to see, was in the midst of other gray rocks ; the grape vines so trained as to receive the full reflection of the sun from the surface of the boulders, and the intervals occupied with rank growing gooseberries and plums, all faithfully subject to spade culture. The expense of the removal of the rocks would have been enormous ; and I doubt very seriously if the productive capacity would have been increased. Again, I have seen a

GO MY FARM.

ridge of cliff with its outlying slaty debris, in the very centre of a garden, which many a booby leveller would have been disposed to blast away, and transmute into walls, — yet under the hand of taste, so tressed over with delicate trailing plants, and so kindled up with flaming spikes of salvia, and masses of scarlet geranium, as to make it the crowning attraction of the place. All clearance is not judicious clearance.

But I have not yet cleared the way to my own back door ; though at a distance of only a few rods from the highway, I could reach it, on taking occupancy, only by skirting a dangerous looking shed, and passing through two dropsical gates that were heavy with a mass of mouldy lumber.

These gates opened upon a straggling cattle yard, whose surface was so high and dense, as to distribute a powerful flow of yellow streamlets in very awkward directions after every shower. One angle of this yard it was necessary to traverse before reaching my door. My clearance here was decisive and prompt. The threatening shed came down upon the run ; the mouldering gates and fences were splintered into kindling wood ; the convexity of the cattle yard was scooped into a dish, with provision for possible overflow in safe directions. A snug compact fence blinded it all, and confined it within reasonable limits. A broad, free, gravelly yard, with occasional obtrusive stones, now lay open, through which I ordered a loaded team to be driven by the easiest track from the highway to the door, and thence to make an easy and natural turn, and pass on to the stable-court. This line of transit marked out my road : what was easiest for the cattle once, would be easiest always. There is no better rule for laying down an approach over rolling groimd — none so simple ; none which, in one instance out of six, will show more grace of outline. The obtrusive stones were removed ; the elliptical spaces described by the inner line of track, which were untouched, and which would need never to be touched by any passage of teams, were dug over and stocked with evergreens, lilacs, and azalias.

These are now well established clumps, in which wild vines have intruded, and under which the brood of summer chickens find shelter from the sun, and the children a pretty cover for their hoydenish " hide and go seek."

Thus far I have anticipated those changes and improvements which immediately concerned the comfort and the order of the home. With these provided, and the paperers and painters all fairly turned adrift, and the newly planted flowers abloom, the question occurs — what shall be done with the Farm ?

What to Do with the Farm.

THERE are not a few entertaining people of the cities, who imagine that a farm of one or two hundred acres has a way of managing itself ; and that it works out crops and cattle from time to time, very much as small beer works into a foamy ripeness, by a law of its own necessity.

I wish with all my heart that it were true ; but it is not. For successful farming, there must be a well digested plan of operations, and the faithful execution of that plan. It is possible, indeed, to secure the services of an intelligent manager, upon whom shall devolve all the details of the business, and who shall shape all the agricultural operations, by the rules of his own experience ; but however extended this experience may have been, the result will be, in nine cases out of ten, most unsatisfactory to one who wishes to have a clear and intimate knowledge of the capabilities of his land ; and very disagreeably unsatisfactory to one who has entertained the pleasing illusion that farm lands should not only be capable of paying their own way, but of making respectable return upon the capital invested. Your accomplished farm manager — usually of British birth and schooling, but of a later American finish, — is apt to entertain the conviction that an employer who gives over farm land to his control, regards such farm land only as a pleasant parade ground for fine cattle and luxuriant crops, which are to be placed on show without much regard to cost. And if he can establish the owner in a conspicuous position on the prize lists of the County or State Societies, and excite the gaping wonderment of old-fashioned neighbors by the luxuriance of his crops, he is led to believe that he has achieved the desired success.