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PLEASANT TALK ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING.

BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.

_NEW EDITION_, WITH ADDITIONAL MATTER FROM RECENT WRITINGS, PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED.

NEW YORK: J. B. FORD AND COMPANY. 1874.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, BY J. B. FORD AND COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO., CAMBRIDGE.

PREFATORY.

The Preface to the first edition of this volume, which follows these few words, will give some idea of the book’s origin. Much of the material is of only passing importance, and is retained now rather from retrospective interest. A considerable addition has been made, however, consisting of articles contributed to Mr. Bonner’s _New York Ledger_, bearing upon rural affairs, and also an unpublished address upon _The Apple_. This was delivered at Iona Island, on a fair summer day, when ladies and gentlemen, several score,—editors, pomologists, singers, preachers, poets, and inventors,—gathered under Dr. C. W. Grant’s hospitable trees,—for the house was too small to hold them,—to eat apples and pears, to discuss grapes solid and liquid, and to listen to the venerable poet, Mr. Bryant, to Horace Greeley, to Charles Downing, and to notable songsters, whose warbles put the birds to envious silence,—at any rate, so the compliments ran at the time.

The address had better luck at Iona than its great subject did in Paradise; though it will never give rise to such a literature of results.

H. W. BEECHER.

BROOKLYN, February, 1874.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

No one of our readers will be half so curious to know what this book contains as the author himself. For it is more than twelve years since these pieces were begun, and it is more than ten years since we have looked at them. The publishers have taken the trouble to dig them out from what we supposed to be their lasting burial-place, in the columns of the _Western Farmer and Gardener_, and they have gone through the press without our own revision.

It is now twenty years since we settled at Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana, a place then of _four_, and now of _twenty-five_ thousand inhabitants. At that time, and for years afterward, there was not, within our knowledge, any other than political newspapers in the State—no educational journals, no agricultural or family papers. The _Indiana Journal_ at length proposed to introduce an agricultural department, the matter of which should every month be printed, in magazine form, under the title, _Indiana Farmer and Gardener_, which was afterward changed to the more comprehensive title, _Western Farmer and Gardener_.

It may be of some service to the young, as showing how valuable the fragments of time may become, if mention is made of the way in which we became prepared to edit this journal.

The continued taxation of daily preaching, extending through months, and once through eighteen consecutive months, without the exception of a single day, began to wear upon the nerves, and made it necessary for us to seek some relaxation. Accordingly we used, after each weeknight’s preaching, to drive the sermon out of our heads by some alterative reading.

In the State Library were Loudon’s works—his encyclopedias of Horticulture, of Agriculture, and of Architecture. We fell upon them, and, for years, almost monopolized them.

In our little one-story cottage, after the day’s work was done, we pored over these monuments of an almost incredible industry, and read, we suppose, not only every line, but much of it many times over; until, at length, we had a topographical knowledge of many of the fine English estates quite as intimate, we dare say, as was possessed by many of their truant owners. There was something exceedingly pleasant, and is yet, in the studying over mere catalogues of flowers, trees, fruits, etc.

A seedsman’s list, a nurseryman’s catalogue, are more fascinating to us than any story. In this way, through several years, we gradually accumulated materials and became familiar with facts and principles, which paved the way for our editorial labors. Lindley’s Horticulture and Gray’s Structural Botany came in as constant companions. And when, at length, through a friend’s liberality, we became the recipients of the _London Gardener’s Chronicle_, edited by Prof. Lindley, our treasures were inestimable. Many hundred times have we lain awake for hours, unable to throw off the excitement of preaching, and beguiling the time with imaginary visits to the Chiswick Garden, to the more than oriental magnificence of the Duke of Devonshire’s grounds at Chatsworth. We have had long discussions, in that little bedroom at Indianapolis, with Van Mons about pears, with Vibert about roses, with Thompson and Knight of fruits and theories of vegetable life, and with Loudon about everything under the heavens in the horticultural world.

This employment of waste hours not only answered a purpose of soothing excited nerves then, but brought us into such relations to the material world, that, we speak with entire moderation, when we say that all the estates of the richest duke in England could not have given us half the pleasure which we have derived from pastures, waysides, and unoccupied prairies.

If, when the readers of this book shall have finished it, they shall say, that these papers, well enough for the circumstances in which they originally appeared, have no such merit as to justify their republication in a book form, we beg leave to tell them that their judgment is not original. It is just what we thought ourselves! But Publishers are willful and must be obeyed!

BROOKLYN, June 1, 1859.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

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.

I.

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE APPLE.

[In the Hudson River, nearly opposite Peekskill, and in the very jaws of the “Race” (as the narrow passage through the Highlands is called), there is a small, rocky island, by the name of IONA. The name was borrowed from across the water, by Dr. C. W. Grant’s father-in-law, who owned this gem,—for gem it was and is for those who love rocks, glades, fine old trees, and absolute seclusion.

But who ever would have thought of such a place for vineyards? Yet, Iona became the very Jerusalem of grape-vines. Dr. C. W. Grant, formerly of Newburgh, purchased the island, and, adopting the then new grape,—the Delaware,—commenced propagating it for commercial purposes. It may be fairly said that no man in America ever gave to grape culture a greater impulse than Dr. Grant. Abundant sales at length brought in abundant revenues. But his ideas expanded with his means, and outran them.

The island was to become another Paradise. Here the magnolia was to be propagated in such numbers that every man in America could have it in his yard, holding white cups filled with perfume to his windows. The rhododendron was to be sent forth to every farm. New grapes were originated. Every year developed its own marvel. But whether it was pear, Downing’s mulberry, grape, or ornamental tree, the good democratic heart of Dr. Grant intended no narrower field than the continent. Men were to be raised to a higher level by familiarity with better and better grapes. The taste was to be refined. Every creature under the western heavens was to sit under his own grape-vine, and not under one alone, but a whole vineyard of them.

Health failed. Business got tangled. The kind doctor sold out. He is gone from his vineyards. The island remains. One of these days, in the hands of some one who unites taste and thrift with abundant means, it will become a marvel of beauty.

But it will hardly have a pleasanter day than when, in 1864, were gathered there two score or more of ladies and gentlemen,—not a few of them famous in art, in literature, in music, in pomology, and in sanguine plans of fruit culture,—for a good time. Among the contributions to the general amusement, I was appointed Orator to discourse upon _The Apple_, and the address was to have been published, together with minutes of the proceedings, other speeches, and various interesting matter. But years passed on without progress toward publication. What has become of other things I know not, but this apple-talk has been fished up and saved. I fear it will never again be as fresh or as powerful as in its first estate. For there now hangs upon my cellar wall a huge pan, lacking but a few inches of three feet in diameter, upon which the ladies who had heard the address established and perfected an apple-pie,—sent to me for New Year’s Day of 1865,—of so rare a spirit that every one of the hundreds who tasted it declared it to be as good as it was large. Alas! the pan remains, and the poetry which came singing its merits; but the pie,—where is it? So, too, the island of the Hudson stands secure; but where are the joyous people that thronged it on that autumn day?]

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.

While the character of the ladies and gentlemen present makes it proper for me to hide, with due modesty, my knowledge of the apple in the department of culture, there is what may be called the _Political Economy of the Apple_, by which I mean the apple in its relation to domestic comfort and commerce; and on that subject I think I can speak, if not to edification, at least without fear of being tracked and cornered.

The apple is, beyond all question, _the_ American fruit. It stands absolutely alone and unapproachable, grapes notwithstanding. Originating in another hemisphere, neither in its own country, nor in any other to which it has been introduced, has it flourished as in America. It is conceded in Europe that, for size, soundness, flavor, and brilliancy of coloring, the American apple stands first,—a long way first.

But it is American in another sense. This is a land in which diffusion is the great law. This arises from our institutions, and from the character which they have imprinted upon our people. In Europe, certain classes, having by their intelligence and wealth and influence the power to attract all things to themselves, set the current from the center toward the surface. In America, the simple doctrines that the common people are the true source of political power, that the government is directly responsible to them, and therefore that moral culture, intelligence, and training in politics are indispensable to the common people, on whom every state is to rest safely, have wrought out such results that in all departments of justice and truth, as much as in politics, there is a tendency toward the popularizing of everything, and learning, or art, or any department of culture, is made to feel the need of popularity; a word which is very much despised by classicists, but which may be used in a sense so large as to make it respectable again. Things that reach after the universal, that include in them all men in their better and nobler nature, are in a proper sense _popular_; and in this country, amusement and refinement and wealth itself, first or last, are obliged to do homage to the common people, and so to be _popular_. Nor is it otherwise in respect to horticulture. Of fruits, I think this, above all others, may be called the true democratic fruit. There is some democracy that I think must have sprung from the first apple. Of all fruits, no other can pretend to vie with the apple as the fruit of the common people. This arises from the nature of the tree and from the nature of the fruit.

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.