Read Ebook: Pleasant Talk About Fruits Flowers and Farming by Beecher Henry Ward

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Political Economy of the Apple 1 A few Flowers easily raised 16 Flower-Farming 21 A Letter from the Farm 25 The Cost of Flowers 28 Haying 31 The Value of Robins 34 Sounds of Trees 39 Unveiled Nonsense 43 Natural Order of Flowers 46 Roses 49 Chestnuts 51 Green Peas 55 Hens 58 Farming 60 Gardening under Difficulties 63 Corn 66 Dandelions 69 How to beautify Homes 72 Birch and Aspen 75 Autumn 78 Plant Trees! 81 Farewell to "Summer Rest" 84 Preliminary 87 Our Creed 88 Almanac for the Year 89 Educated Farmers 98 An Acre of Words about Aker 101 Farmer's Library 105 Nine Mistakes 107 Agricultural Societies 108 Shiftless Tricks 111 Electro Culture 114 Single-Crop Farming 117 Improved Breeds of Hogs and Cattle 119 Absorbent Qualities of Flour 122 Portrait of an Anti-Book Farmer 124 Good Breeds of Cows 128 Cutting and curing Grass 131 Country and City 133 Lime upon Wheat 134 Culture of Hops 136 White Clover 138 Plowing Corn 139 Clean out your Cellars 142 When is Haying over? 144 Laying down Land to Grass 145 Theory of Manure 149 Fodder for Cattle 151 The Science of Bad Butter 153 Cincinnati, the Queen City 157 Care of Animals in Winter 161, 243 Winter Nights for Reading 163 Feathers 163 Nail up your Bugs 165 Ashes and their Use 168 Hard Times 170 Gypsum 171 Acclimating a Plow 171 Scour your Plows bright 173 Plow till it is Dry and plow till it is Wet 174 Stirring the Soil 175 Subsoil Plowing 176 Fire-Blight and Winter Killing 177 Winter Talk 179 "Shut your Mouth" 181 Spring Work on the Farm 182 Spring Work in the Garden 185, 292 Fall Work in the Garden 190 Guarding Cherry-trees from Cold 191 Shade Trees 192, 252 A Plea for Health and Floriculture 195 Keeping Young Pigs in Winter 198 Sweet Potatoes 199 Management of Bottom Lands 199 Cultivation of Wheat 202 Pleasures of Horticulture 214 Practical Use of Leaves 215 Spring Work for Public-spirited Men 218 Farmers and Farm Scenes in the West 220 Ornamental Shrubs 224 Gooseberries 227 Pulling off Potato Blossoms 229 Blading and topping Corn 230 Maple-Sugar 231 Lettuce 237 Geological Definitions 238 Draining Wet Lands 240 O dear! shall we ever be done Lying? 242 Deep Planting 245 Corn and Millet for Fodder 245 Seed Saving 246 Rhubarb 248, 286 Peas 250 Hot-beds 253 Original Recipes 254 Cooking Vegetables 256 Farmers, take a Hint 260 Mixing Paint and laying it on 262 Garden Weeds 267 Lucerne 269 Family Government 270 List of Flowers, Seeds, and Fruits 271 Garden Seeds 274 Farmers' Gardens 277 Early Days of Spring 279 Parlor Flowers 280 A Salt Recipe 281 Culture of Celery 282 Sun-flower Seed 290 Rich and Poor Land 294 Getting ready for Winter 295 Esculent Vegetables 297 Field Root Crops 303 Cultivation of Fruit-trees 304 A List of Choice Fruits 316 The Nursery Business 319 The Breeding of Fruits 322 Pruning Orchards 327 Slitting the Bark of Trees 330 Downing's Fruits of America 332 Letter from A. J. Downing 339 Attention to Orchards 344 Wine and Horticulture 346 Do Varieties of Fruit run out? 349 Strawberries 353, 359, 364 Raspberries, Gooseberries, Currants 364 Spring Work in the Orchard 367 Grapes and Grape Vines 372, 373 Autumnal Management of Fruit-trees 374 Pears grafted upon the Apple Stock 376 Seedlings from Budded Peaches 378 Care of Peach-trees 381 Renovating Peach-trees 382 An Apologue or Apple-logue 384 Select List of Apples 385 Origin of some Varieties of Fruit 401 The Quince 403 Cutting and keeping Grafts 404 Frost Blight 405 Seedling Fruits 407 Time for Pruning 410 Plums and their Enemies 413 Root Grafting 417 Blight and Insects 419 Apples for Hogs 424 The Flower Garden 425 Preparation of Seed for Sowing 429 Sowing Flower Seeds--Transplanting 431 Parlor Plants and Flowers in Winter 432 Protecting Plants in Winter 439 To preserve Dahlia Roots 440 Hedges 441 Watering Trees, etc. 443 Labels for Trees 444 Transplanting Evergreens 445 Flowers, Ladies, and Angels 446 Horticultural Curiosities 447 The Corn Crop 451 Potato Crop 460 Potting Garden Plants for Winter Use 468 Mary Howitt's Use of Flowers 469 What are Flowers good for? 470 The Blight in the Pear-tree 471 Progress of Horticulture in Indiana 489 Browne's Poultry Yard 495 Close of the Year 497

LATE PAPERS.

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE APPLE.

THE ADDRESS.

I am to discourse of the apple to an audience, many of whom know much more about it than I do, and all of them full as much. It does not, on that account, follow that I should not speak. What a terrible blow would fall upon all professions if a teacher should be forbidden to speak upon things of which he knew nothing, and to an audience who knew more about them than he! One large part of the duty of a teacher is to remind his hearers of how much they know, and tempt them to a better use of their knowledge. Instruction is one thing, and important in its place; but the inspiration of men to a good use of the things that they already know is far more needed.

First, as to the tree. It is so easy of propagation, that any man who is capable of learning how to raise a crop of corn can learn how to plant, graft or bud, transplant, and prune an apple-tree,--and then eat the apples. It is a thoroughly healthy and hardy tree; and that under more conditions and under greater varieties of stress than perhaps any other tree. It is neither dainty nor dyspeptic. It can bear high feeding and put up with low feeding. It is not subject to gout and scrofula, as plums are; to eruptions and ruptures, as the cherry is; or to apoplexy, as the pear is. The apple-tree may be pampered, and may be rendered effeminate in a degree; but this is by artificial perversion. It is naturally tough as an Indian, patient as an ox, and fruitful as the Jewish Rachel. The apple-tree is among trees what the cow is among domestic animals in northern zones, or what the camel of the Bedouin is.

I have said, with some digressions, that the apple-tree is homely; but it is also hardy, and not only in respect to climate. It is almost indifferent to soil and exposure. We should as soon think of coddling an oak-tree or a chestnut; we should as soon think of shielding from the winter white pine or hemlock, as an apple-tree. If there is a lot too steep for the plow or two rocky for tools, the farmer dedicates it to an apple orchard. Nor do the trees betray his trust. Yet, the apple loves the meadows. It will thrive in sandy loams, and adapt itself to the toughest clay. It will bear as much dryness as a mullein stalk, and as much wet, almost, as a willow. In short, it is a genuine democrat. It can be poor, while it loves to be rich; it can be plain, although it prefers to be ornate; it can be neglected, notwithstanding it welcomes attention. But, whether neglected, abused, or abandoned, it is able to take care of itself, and to be fruitful of excellences. That is what I call being democratic.

The apple-tree is the common people's tree, moreover, because it is the child of every latitude and every longitude on this continent. It will grow in Canada and Maine. It will thrive in Florida and Mexico. It does well on the Atlantic slope; and on the Pacific the apple is portentous. Newton sat in an orchard, and an apple, plumping down on his head, started a train of thought which opened the heavens to us. Had it been in California, the size of the apples there would have saved him the trouble of much thinking thereafter, perhaps, opening the heavens to him, and not to us. Wherever Indian corn will grow, the apple will thrive; and wherever timothy-grass will ripen its seed, the apple will exist fruitfully.

Nor is the tree unworthy of special mention on account of health and longevity. It is subject to fewer diseases than almost any tree of our country. The worms that infest it are more easily destroyed than those upon the currant or the rose. The leaf is subject to blight in so small a degree, that not one farmer in a hundred ever thinks of it. The trunk is seldom winter-killed. It never cracks. It has no trouble, as the cherry does, in unbuckling the old bark and getting rid of it. The borer is the only important enemy; and even this is a trifle, if you compare the labor required to destroy it with the pains which men willingly take to secure a crop of potatoes. Acre for acre, an apple orchard will, on an average of years, produce more than half as many bushels of fruit as a potato-field,--will it not? And yet, in plowing and planting and after-plowing and hoeing and digging, the potato requires at least five times the annual labor which is needed by the apple. An acre of apple-trees can be kept clean of all enemies and diseases with half the labor of once hoeing a crop of potatoes. And if you have borers it is your own fault, and you ought to be bored!

I ought not to omit the good properties of the apple-tree for fuel and cabinet-work. I have for five autumns kept up the bright fire required by the weather in an old-fashioned Franklin fireplace, using apple-wood, procured from old trees pruned or cut up wholly; and, when it is seasoned, I esteem it nearly as good as hickory, fully as good as maple, and far better than seasoned beech. I have also for my best bureau one of apple-wood. It might be mistaken for cherry. It is fine-grained, very hard, solid as mahogany, and grows richer with every year of age.

In Europe, the streets and roads are often shaded by fruit trees, the mulberry and the cherry being preferred. In some parts, the public are allowed to help themselves freely. When the fruit of any tree is to be reserved, a wisp of straw is placed around it, which suffices. Upright-growing apple-trees might be employed, with pears and cherries, in our streets and roads, and by their very number, and their abundance of fruit, might be taken away one motive of pilfering from juvenile hands. He must be a preordained thief who will go miles to steal that which he can get in broad daylight, without reproach, by his door. One way to stop stealing is to give folks enough without it.

The apple comes nearer to universal uses than any other fruit of the world. Is there another that has such a range of season? It begins in July, and a good cellar brings the apple round into July again, yet unshrunk, and in good flavor. It belts the year. What other fruit, except in the tropics, where there is no winter, and where there are successive growths, can do that?

"As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons,"--undoubtedly of cider!--"comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love."

If this is the cure of love, we may the better understand why the popular instinct should have resorted to the apple-tree as a cure for ambition, singing,

"We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree."

There is, in this toothsomeness of the apple, together with its utter harmlessness, a provision for nurses and mothers. There is a growing period when children are voracious. They must be filled; and it is a matter of great account to know what to fill them with. If you give them but bread, that seems meager. Pies, cakes, and sweetmeats are mischievous; and yet more so are candies and confections. Apples just hit the mark. They are more than a necessary of life, and less than a luxury. They stand just half-way between bread and cake, as wholesome as one and as good as the other.

But now I enter upon the realm of uses, culinary and domestic, where, were I an ancient poet, I should stop and invoke all the gods to my aid. But the gods are all gone; and next to them is that blessing of the world, the housewife. Her I invoke, and chiefly one who taught me, by her kitchen magic, to believe that the germ of civilization is in the art and science of the kitchen. Is there, among fruits, one other that has so wide a range, or a range so important, so exquisite, so wonderful, as the range of the apple in the kitchen?

First, consider it as a fruit-vegetable. It might with great advantage take its place upon the table as regularly as the potato or the onion. Far more odorous is the onion, but, I think, far more blessed is the apple. It is an admirable accompaniment of meat, which always craves a piquant acid for relish. And when meat is wanting, a scrap of pork in the frying-pan, with sliced apples, will serve the economic table almost as well as if it had been carved from a beef or cut from a sheep.

We do not use the apple enough in our cooking. As a fruit upon the table it may be used for breakfast, for supper, for dessert. Roasted apples! Baked apples! What visions come before my mind! Not the baked apples of the modern stove, which has humbled their glory. They are still worth eating, but they have lost the stature, the comeliness, and the romance of the old roasted apples, that were placed in due order between the huge andirons, and turned duly by the careful servant, drinking in heat on one side and oxygen on the other, and coming to a degree of luxurious nicety that will never be attained till we go back again to the old fireplace. It was a real pleasure to be sick,--I mean on the hither border of sickness; so that we might not go to school, and so that, while we took a little magnesia, we might feast on delicious roasted apples. And as for baked apples and milk, how can I adequately speak of that most excellent dish!

Then, again, the apple may be regarded as a confection, serving in the form of tarts, pies,--blessed be the unknown person who invented the apple-pie! Did I know where the grave of that person was, methinks I would make a devout pilgrimage thither, and rear a monument over it that should mark the spot to the latest generations. Of all pies, of every name, the apple-pie is easily the first and chief. And what shall I say of jellies, dumplings, puddings, and various preserves, that are made from the apple?

Next, we naturally consider the use of apples as food for stock,--for swine, for horses, and for cattle. This use of them is known; but it seems to me that they are not thus employed near so much as their benefits would justify.

But woe to him who takes another step in that direction! Cider-brandy is a national disgrace. How great is the calamity that impends over a community that makes cider-brandy may be known by the recent history of the Shenandoah valley; it being declared by several of the Richmond papers that the defeat of Early was owing to the abundance of apple-jack there.

It only remains that I should say a single word on the subject of the apple as an article of commerce. Whether fresh or dried, it is still, in that relation, a matter of no small importance. The home market is enlarging every year; and as soon as the apple shall become so cheap that all men may have it no matter how poor they may be, the market must of necessity have become very much augmented. Many men suppose that as orchards increase and fruit multiplies the profits diminish. Such is not the fact. As the commoner kinds multiply, and the common people learn to use them as daily food, the finer kinds will bear proportionally higher prices; and cheapness is one of the steps to profit in all things that are consumed in the community. And I should be glad to see the day when, for a few pence, every drayman, every common laborer in every city, should be able to bring as much fruit to his house every day as his family could consume in that day. I should be glad to see in our cities, what is to be seen to some extent in the cities of Europe, the time when a penny or two will enable a man to bring home enough flowers to decorate his table of food twice a day.

We have not merely in view the profits of raising fruit when we exhort you to bestow your attention on the apple more and more as an article of commerce; we have also in view the social influence which it may be made to exert. I hold that when in any respect you lift the common people up, whether by giving them a better dwelling, by placing within their reach better furniture, or by enabling them to furnish their table better, you are raising them toward self-respect; you are raising them toward the higher positions in society. For, although all men should start with the democracy, all men have a right to stop with the aristocracy. Let all put their feet on the same level; and then let them shoot as high as they please. Blessed is the man that knows how to overtop his neighbors by a fair development of skill and strength. And every single step of advance in general cultivation, even though it is brought about by so humble an instrumentality as the multiplication of fruit, or anything else that augments the range of healthful enjoyment among the common people, not only stimulates their moral growth, but, through that growth, gives the classes above them a better chance to grow. One of the most efficient ways of elevating the whole community is to multiply the means of livelihood among the poorest and commonest.

I will not finish my remarks with those elaborate statistics or with those admirable and eloquent periods with which I should be pleased to entertain you, for two reasons: first, because I would not consume your time at so late an hour; and, secondly, because I have none of these things at hand!

A FEW FLOWERS EASILY RAISED.

Those that are rich can command the services of expert gardeners, and need no advice from me. But there are thousands who have ground enough around their dwellings, and yet have little knowledge in the selection of plants and flowers, and little skill in the cultivation of them, to whom I may be of some service if I give such hints as have been derived chiefly from my own experience.

I will suppose a young lady, who never has cultivated flowers, but who can afford to hire a man's services for one or two days in the spring. She is to perform all the rest of the work herself. What shall she plant?

Plant the seeds as soon as the frost is finally out of the ground. Let there be pales, or strings, or trellis, arranged for them to climb upon, and you will have all summer long, and till the frost kills them, a magnificent show of exquisite blossoms every morning; Sundays as well as week-days, for flowers wear their Sunday clothes all through the week. We have derived as much pleasure from these morning-glories as from any one thing in our garden. They are healthy and hearty growers, not infested with insects, profuse in bloom, surpassing all blossoms in exquisite form and delicacy, and, what is of prime importance, holding forth through the whole summer, whether hot or cold, wet or dry.

There, we have mentioned enough flowers for a beginning. They are all hardy, profuse bloomers, and, with the exception of the aster, last all summer, and form masses of color which will charm the eye every time you look out of your window. A girl can do all that is to be done, except working the ground, and even that ought not to be so hard as it would be to go without flowers.

FLOWER-FARMING.

I do not know why a square plat of beets or onions may not be edged with asters, or with balsams. Sometimes I plant a few alternate rows of flowers with my root crops, and find that carrots and stocks, alternated, are admirable friends. When the main crops are in, there are always some outlying edges, some places about the walls, which would be surely filled in with cabbages, if I did not jump at the chance. I have great luck with tropealums, nasturtiums, and particularly with labias, which are as easy of culture, on a farm, as a bean. And I have a fancy that when one comes upon a heap of stones in a corner, covered over with all varieties of tropealum, he takes more pleasure in them than if found just where one would look for them, in a flower-bed.

If I should lay down a rule, it would be that, in arable land, or in shrubbery and forest, no man should have to walk more than twenty paces to find a flower. If a lady should meet you on any acre on your farm, you ought to be able then and there to make up for her an acceptable bouquet.

In an unexpected way, I am like to have my rule kept for me. For, in autumn, the stems and haulms of flowers go to the barn-yard and join all other stuff fit for compost; and when, in the spring, it is hauled out, I find, on every part of the farm, that stray seeds have shaken out, and sown themselves, and produced volunteer flowers. Indeed, the primrose family are getting too familiar; larkspurs are everywhere; coreopsis glitters all over the fields; poppies have turned vagrants; and the portulacca has fairly become a weed. Farms should be carried on for profit and pleasure; and, as I fail in the former, I am determined to make up in the latter element.

Where stone-walls prevail, what can be less expensive and what more beautiful than to cover them with the Chinese honeysuckles, with, now and then, the new and hardy golden-veined honeysuckle, with other hardy sorts, easily propagated? There is also our own wild clematis, and to this may be joined, at little expense, several of the new varieties in this charming family, which may be obtained of nurserymen.

If one has young evergreen trees,--say the Norway spruce,--a few of the finer kinds of morning-glory , planted near and suffered to run up among the branches and peep out of the green openings, will have a beautiful effect all summer long, and the tree will suffer no harm, as it sometimes does when the bitter-sweet, the ampelopsis, and other woody vines, take possession of them.

Flowers peeping out of unlikely spots give a surprise of pleasure. Therefore stick in a flower just where it would not be expected. No matter if it "was never done before," or if "farmers don't do so in these parts," or if "flowers are a trouble, and don't bring any money." They bring what money often fails to bring,--refinement and pleasure. There is no use, my old friend under a rough coat, in making believe that you don't like flowers. I know that you do. Somewhere in you is a spot, if the rubbish can be cleared away, which a flower always touches. There is no reason why rich gentlemen should own all the flowers. Hard-working farmers and mechanics have as much right to them as if they lived without working.

Let me dissuade you, my dear readers, from too great an addiction to mere profit. Don't wait for a regular garden of flowers, but stick them in, in nooks and corners, all about the homestead.

A LETTER FROM THE FARM.

You may not believe that I wake so early. But I do. You may be still less inclined to believe that, after listening for ten minutes to this mixture, I again go to sleep. But I solemnly do. Nor do I think of getting up before six o'clock. Whether I should emerge even then, if it were not for the savory odor that begins to steal through my cottage, I cannot tell. After breakfast, there are so many things to be done first that I neglect them all. The morning is so fine, the young leaves are so beautiful, the bloom on the orchards is so gorgeous, the sounds and sights are so many and so winning, that I am apt to sit down on the veranda, for just a moment, and for just another, and for a series of them, until an hour goes by. Do not blame me! Do not laugh at such farming and such a farmer. The soil overhead bears larger and better crops, for a sensible man, than does the soil under feet. There are blossoms in the clouds. There is fruit upon invisible trees, to those who know how to pluck it.

But then sky-gazing and this dallying with the landscape will not do. What crowds of things require the eye and hand! Flowers must be transplanted. Flower-seeds must be sown; shrubs and trees pruned; vines looked after; a walk taken over the hill to see after some evergreens, with many pauses to gaze upon the landscape, and many birds watched as they are confidentially exhibiting their domestic traits before you. The kittens, too, at the barn, must be visited, the calf, the new cow. Then every gardener knows how much time is consumed in noticing the new plants; for instance, I have some eight new strawberries that need watching, each one purporting to be a world's wonder. I am quite anxious about eight or ten new kinds of clematis; two new species of honeysuckle; eight or ten new and rare evergreens; and ever so many other things,--shrubs and flowers. What shall I say of the new peas, new beans, rare cucumbers, early melons, extraordinary potatoes?

Now for a story--true, for I had it from Timothy Titcomb's lips. A friend sent him this potato, with injunctions to give it the utmost care. He planted it in his garden, and when it ripened, last summer, not informed of its exceeding preciousness, he proceeded to eat. In a reasonable time he consumed three barrels, which at the lowest price were worth about seven hundred dollars!

Do you not see that it is impossible for me, amid such incessant and weighty cares, to compose an article? The air is white with apple-blossoms; the trees are all singing; the steaming ground beseeches me to grant it a portion of flower-seeds; by night the whippoorwills, and by day the wood-thrush and mocking-bird, fill my imagination with all sorts of fancies, and how can I write?

THE COST OF FLOWERS.

But, that past, and our seed well planted, there often comes a deluge, and washes the seed-beds to pieces, or a long wet spell rots the seed in the ground.

We have a realizing sense of the unequal war which is waged between man and insects. It seems in late years as if horticulture might as well be abandoned. Cherries and plums go down before the curculio; apples before the canker-worm, the tent-worm, and the apple-worm; currants before a worm peculiar to itself; melons before half a dozen kinds of enemies .

Of course there are remedies enough. One rose-bush may be treated with hand-picking, or pinching, or washes, but one or two hundred rose-bushes would require formidable engineering.

Year by year the number of insects increases. New flowers come into the blighted circle. Aphides, grubs, worms, moles, flies--at the root, or on the top--resist your labor at every step. They never tire. They seem never to be full. They get up before you do, and eat on all night, after you are asleep.

Well, we are born into a world which pays few premiums to lazy men. Whatever is worth having is worth working for. At any rate, Providence seems to design that no man shall gather who does not sow and tend. Of every lazy man it may well be said, What does he in this world? This is a place for workers. "He that will not work shall not eat," is an inspired command. It is as true of the garden as of the field, of flowers as of fruit and grain. God sends millions of insects over all our gardens and flower-beds, saying, "We are sent to make you work." Every insect is some malignant enchanter, and every fair-faced flower, like a maiden lost in the wilderness, beseeches us to deliver it from its enemies!

HAYING.

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