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Summer in a Garden, and Calvin, A Study Of Character, a non-fiction book by Charles Dudley Warner |
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Twelfth Week |
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_ Mr. Horace Greeley, the introduction of whose name confers an honor upon this page (although I ought to say that it is used entirely without his consent), is my sole authority in agriculture. In politics I do not dare to follow him; but in agriculture he is irresistible. When, therefore, I find him advising Western farmers not to hill up their corn, I think that his advice must be political. You must hill up your corn. People always have hilled up their corn. It would take a constitutional amendment to change the practice, that has pertained ever since maize was raised. "It will stand the drought better," says Mr. Greeley, "if the ground is left level." I have corn in my garden, ten and twelve feet high, strong and lusty, standing the drought like a grenadier; and it is hilled. In advising this radical change, Mr. Greeley evidently has a political purpose. He might just as well say that you should not hill beans, when everybody knows that a "hill of beans" is one of the most expressive symbols of disparagement. When I become too lazy to hill my corn, I, too, shall go into politics. I am satisfied that it is useless to try to cultivate "pusley." I set a little of it one side, and gave it some extra care. It did not thrive as well as that which I was fighting. The fact is, there is a spirit of moral perversity in the plant, which makes it grow the more, the more it is interfered with. I am satisfied of that. I doubt if any one has raised more "pusley" this year than I have; and my warfare with it has been continual. Neither of us has slept much. If you combat it, it will grow, to use an expression that will be understood by many, like the devil. I have a neighbor, a good Christian man, benevolent, and a person of good judgment. He planted next to me an acre of turnips recently. A few days after, he went to look at his crop; and he found the entire ground covered with a thick and luxurious carpet of "pusley," with a turnip-top worked in here and there as an ornament. I have seldom seen so thrifty a field. I advised my neighbor next time to sow "pusley" and then he might get a few turnips. I wish there was more demand in our city markets for "pusley" as a salad. I can recommend it. It does not take a great man to soon discover that, in raising anything, the greater part of the plants goes into stalk and leaf, and the fruit is a most inconsiderable portion. I plant and hoe a hill of corn: it grows green and stout, and waves its broad leaves high in the air, and is months in perfecting itself, and then yields us not enough for a dinner. It grows because it delights to do so,--to take the juices out of my ground, to absorb my fertilizers, to wax luxuriant, and disport itself in the summer air, and with very little thought of making any return to me. I might go all through my garden and fruit trees with a similar result. I have heard of places where there was very little land to the acre. It is universally true that there is a great deal of vegetable show and fuss for the result produced. I do not complain of this. One cannot expect vegetables to be better than men: and they make a great deal of ostentatious splurge; and many of them come to no result at last. Usually, the more show of leaf and wood, the less fruit. This melancholy reflection is thrown in here in order to make dog-days seem cheerful in comparison. One of the minor pleasures of life is that of controlling vegetable activity and aggressions with the pruning-knife. Vigorous and rapid growth is, however, a necessity to the sport. To prune feeble plants and shrubs is like acting the part of dry-nurse to a sickly orphan. You must feel the blood of Nature bound under your hand, and get the thrill of its life in your nerves. To control and culture a strong, thrifty plant in this way is like steering a ship under full headway, or driving a locomotive with your hand on the lever, or pulling the reins over a fast horse when his blood and tail are up. I do not understand, by the way, the pleasure of the jockey in setting up the tail of the horse artificially. If I had a horse with a tail not able to sit up, I should feed the horse, and curry him into good spirits, and let him set up his own tail. When I see a poor, spiritless horse going by with an artificially set-up tail, it is only a signal of distress. I desire to be surrounded only by healthy, vigorous plants and trees, which require constant cutting-in and management. Merely to cut away dead branches is like perpetual attendance at a funeral, and puts one in low spirits. I want to have a garden and orchard rise up and meet me every morning, with the request to "lay on, Macduff." I respect old age; but an old currant-bush, hoary with mossy bark, is a melancholy spectacle. I suppose the time has come when I am expected to say something about fertilizers: all agriculturists do. When you plant, you think you cannot fertilize too much: when you get the bills for the manure, you think you cannot fertilize too little. Of course you do not expect to get the value of the manure back in fruits and vegetables; but something is due to science,--to chemistry in particular. You must have a knowledge of soils, must have your soil analyzed, and then go into a course of experiments to find what it needs. It needs analyzing,--that, I am clear about: everything needs that. You had better have the soil analyzed before you buy: if there is "pusley" in it, let it alone. See if it is a soil that requires much hoeing, and how fine it will get if there is no rain for two months. But when you come to fertilizing, if I understand the agricultural authorities, you open a pit that will ultimately swallow you up,--farm and all. It is the great subject of modern times, how to fertilize without ruinous expense; how, in short, not to starve the earth to death while we get our living out of it. Practically, the business is hardly to the taste of a person of a poetic turn of mind. The details of fertilizing are not agreeable. Michael Angelo, who tried every art, and nearly every trade, never gave his mind to fertilizing. It is much pleasanter and easier to fertilize with a pen, as the agricultural writers do, than with a fork. And this leads me to say, that, in carrying on a garden yourself, you must have a "consulting" gardener; that is, a man to do the heavy and unpleasant work. To such a man, I say, in language used by Demosthenes to the Athenians, and which is my advice to all gardeners, "Fertilize, fertilize, fertilize!" _ |
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