Part 3

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.

The common morning-glory will sow itself, and come up every year in the same place; but the seed of the _Ipomea_ must be saved and planted every spring anew. Now, let some sweet girl begin her flower-life with morning-glories—nothing else—the first year, and see if she will ever let a summer go by afterward without flowers!

A bed of _China Aster_, although blossoming for only a few weeks, may be had with so little trouble that one may well undertake it. Send for the best kind, say _Truffant’s Giant Emperor_, or his new _Peony-flowered_. Plant them in rows six inches apart, in a seed-bed. Keep them clean from all weeds. When grown from an inch to two inches high, transplant them to a prepared bed, placing them about fifteen inches apart each way. The ground should be rich, light, and gently hoed, at least once a week, to keep the surface open. If _very_ large flowers are wanted, not more than three blooms should be allowed to one root. We prefer, however, to give the plant a rich soil and let it yield its flowers, large and small, to suit itself. The seed should be saved from the largest blossoms only.

A particular favorite with us is the _Petunia_. If fine seed is secured, a bed of seedlings may be easily grown which will be splendid the whole summer long. The directions for the aster may be followed for _Petunias_, except that the plants should stand _two feet_ apart. Select a place where they will have air and sun all day. They are generous, and will roll out billows of color through the whole summer, and even after the light early frosts have cut down many other things.

There are two other beds on which we depend for color every summer, and could no more afford to miss than we could the sunsets, viz. _Dwarf Convolvulus_ and _Eschscholtzia_. A bed of _Dwarf_ or _Convolvulus Minor_, say six by twelve feet, will be an object of pleasure all summer long. They are to be planted where they are to stand, as they will not bear transplanting good-naturedly. Sow in rows eight inches apart, and when well up thin out, leaving the plants a foot apart. There are five or six varieties, and the mixed seed, from a reputable seedsman, should contain them all. No one will be willing to go without a bed of Dwarf Convolvulus who has once seen how easily they are raised, and how splendid and long-continued is their blossoming.

Manage the _Eschscholtzia_ in almost exactly the same way. There are three shades of color,—pale yellow, bright yellow, and orange. The foliage is extremely delicate. The buds are very shapely, and the full bloom gives brilliancy to the whole region where the bed is planted. No one knows this flower who has not seen its effect in beds, or on long borders. In a similar way the _Poppy_ should be raised. Get seed of the _Carnation_ Poppy and the _Peony-flowered_ Poppy. It will not bear transplanting well.

A bed of _Portulacca_ will be so brilliant that it will almost put your eyes out when the sun shines; and it is so easy to raise, that success is no credit. Prepare a bed, say four by six feet, or larger if you choose, and rake it off smoothly. The seeds are extremely minute. Take a pinch of them as if they were snuff, and then do by them what everybody ought to do by snuff,—sift them evenly all over the ground. Then just touch the ground with the tips of the rake-teeth, stirring it very lightly. Take a spade and _spat_ the surface gently, so as to bring the soil home to the seed. Keep weeds away, and for the rest do nothing but enjoy the labor of your hands. It will come up of itself every year, and become a weed if you wish it to.

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.

III.

FLOWER-FARMING.

_February 29th, 1868._

I acknowledge the merits of flower-_gardening_, but a kind of necessity has compelled me to practice flower-_farming_. I do not live upon my little farm, on the Hudson, except for a few months in midsummer. To keep a professional gardener befits more ample means than mine. Yet I must have flowers; I am as set and determined to have flowers as my farmer, Mr. Turner, is to have vegetables; and there is a friendly quarrel on hand all the season, a kind of border warfare, between flowers and vegetables, which shall have this spot, and which shall secure that nook; whether in this southern slope it shall be onions or gladioluses; whether a row of lettuce shall edge that patch, or of asters. I think, on a calm review, that I have rather gained on Mr. Turner. The fact is, I found that he had me at advantage, being always on the place, and having the whole spring to himself. So I shrewdly tampered with the man himself, and before he knew what he was about, I had infected him with the flower mania (and this is a disorder which I have never known cured); so that I had an ally in the very enemy’s camp. Indeed, I begin to fear that my manager will get ahead of me yet in skill and love of flowers!

I can see many and sufficient reasons for parterres of flowers, for borders of mixed plants, for clumps and ribbons; but I can see no reason for supposing that flowers grow to advantage _only_ in these formal methods.

In a plantation of _tomatoes_, if every alternate plant in the outer row is a _petunia_ you will find a charming effect in the red fruit of the one and the profuse blossoming of the other; and on these outer rows the tomatoes may be left to ripen for seed, as being more exposed to the sun, thus adding the beauty of their rich color.

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.

Now and then, on the outer row of Indian corn, a _convolvulus_, climbing to the very top and full of blossoms, will cheat nothing and enrich the eye a great deal. There is always a spot or two, amidst field crops, where a _Ricinus sanguineus_ (castor bean) will do bravely; and I will affirm that no fancier will be able to get past it without stopping to look at its generous palms.

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 (_Ipomeas_), 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.

_Stumps_ are not deemed ornamental, and yet I have seen them turned to an admirable account. If still standing on their own roots, but decayed at the core, let them be hollowed out, deeply as may be, filled with good soil, and flowers planted in them, nasturtiums or petunias or the _linums_ or dwarf morning-glories. Stumps that have been pulled up by the roots, and rolled into a corner, may be dressed out with ferns, vines, and mosses, and a tasteful hand will array them in such beauty that the farmer will be reluctant another season to give them up to the axe and the stove.

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.

What shall I say of the gladiolus? It is the flower for the million! It is as easy to manage as a potato. It blossoms long, and better if cut and carried into the house than if left out doors. Its varieties of color are endless. It is healthy; multiplies its _corms_ rapidly, can be kept in winter in a common cellar, if dried of a little first; and is calculated to return as much pleasure for a small outlay as any flower in vogue. A few dozen to start with will convince any man of the truth of my words.

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.

IV.

A LETTER FROM THE FARM.

PEEKSKILL, _May 28th, 1868_.

MY DEAR MR. BONNER: You must expect no article from me this week. I am engaged. I was never more busy in my life. Let me relate my occupations. At about half past three in the morning, I wake. The light is just coming. I do not care for that, as I do not propose to get up at such an hour. But the birds _do_ care. They evidently wind up their singing apparatus over night. For, when the first bird breaks the silence, in an instant the rest go off, as if a spring had been touched which moved them all. Was ever such noise! There are robins without count, wood-thrushes, orioles, sparrows, bobolinks, meadow-larks, bluebirds, yellow-birds, wrens, warblers, catbirds (as the Northern mocking-bird is called), martins, twittering swallows. Think of the noise made by mixing all these bird-notes together! Add a rooster, and a solemn old crow to carry the bass. Then consider that of each kind there are scores, and of some kinds hundreds, within ear reach, and you will have some faint conception of the opening chant of the day.

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?

Speaking of potatoes, do you know anything of the _Early Rose_? Let me tell you. One hundred bushels were sold this spring, to one man, for _eighty dollars_ a bushel! Since then, they have been selling by the _pound_, at the increasing prices of one, two, and three dollars a pound. It takes about three potatoes to make a pound.

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!

I have a very nice plat of these potatoes, and should like to sell them to you in advance. As an inducement, I offer mine at _fifty_ dollars a bushel! But this is confidential. I do not wish to be overrun with purchasers, scrambling for a chance!

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?

V.

THE COST OF FLOWERS.

_June 18th, 1868._

The charms of flowers have been sung ever since letters have existed. But in our day the passion for flowers has wonderfully increased, and the cultivation of them, which is a thing very different from the sentiment of admiration, has become so common that it is considered as an evidence of bad taste for one having any ground _not_ to have flowers about the dwelling-house.

But how few who only receive flowers as gifts, or purchase them, know the pains and penalties of flower-raising! It may be imagined that one has only to scratch open the ground, bury the seed, and then patiently wait for nature to do the rest. Listen! First comes the seed-buying. We do not think seedsmen any less honest than other men. Indeed, the conduct of those with whom we have dealt for ten years past leads us to think that they are honorable and honest in intent. But that does not insure good _seeds_.

They buy of other seedsmen, in foreign lands, who may not be honest, or are obliged to trust seed-raisers. And so it comes to pass that seeds, like thousands of other articles in this wicked and adulterous generation, are adulterated. Italian carnation seed come up miserable single pinks, of very poor colors; balsams are not half so choice as is the _price_ at which the seed is sold; not one in ten of this year’s _ipomea seed_ (convolvulus) will stir out of the ground,—and so of stock, sweet-william, etc.

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.

At length we gather up what we can, and transplant the remnant, and patiently wait for the flowers. But we are not the only ones waiting for them. A legion of various insects seem to think that all our flowers were planted for _them_. We have been often asked why were insects created? If it is fair to say that the cause of their existence may be learned from the effects which they produce, we boldly aver that they were made to humble man’s arrogance, and to teach him how much mightier is insect weakness than human power. A grasshopper is contemptible. The farmer can crush him at a step. But let the plague of grasshoppers be let loose, and all his fields be deluged with them; and how easily do myriads of creatures that are individually weak overwhelm him and destroy all his labor!

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 (not including roguish boys).

Among flowers the destruction is equally great. As soon as the rose fairly shakes out its leaves it is attacked: one bug cuts circles out of the leaves, as if busy with a pair of scissors making diagrams; then comes the _thrip_, that can neither be caught, nor wet with soapsuds, nor dusted with lime, nor pinched with the fingers,—a nimble fellow, minute as a speck of flour, but numerous as dust. Close upon its heels comes the _slug_, whose remorseless appetite leaves nothing behind it but the ribs and frame of the leaf. Next come the rose-bugs proper, of a finer appetite, disdaining anything less delicate than rose-petals. Of these the number is surpassing; their devastation pitiable. There stand my bushes stripped of leaves and blighted in flowers.

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!

VI.

HAYING.

_July 2d, 1868._

Alas for the poetry of farming! All the songs of milkmaids must be now listened for in the old English poets. The whetting of the mower’s scythe is almost over—quite over on my farm! Instead of that, one hears the sharp rattle of the mower, and sees the driving-man quite at his ease riding round and round the meadow, for all the world as if he were out airing. Whereas, heretofore, two acres would be counted a large day’s work, ten and twelve are easily accomplished now!

Nor is the contrast less remarkable in all the after-work. When I was a boy, I was placed in line with all the men that could be mustered, to shake out the hay with forks; and after a few hours, all hands were called to go over the ground and turn it. To do this rapidly, and yet so that the bottom side should really come to the top, was no small knack. Now, a _tedder_, with one man riding, will literally do the work of ten men, and do it far better than the most expert can. Have you ever seen a tedder? I have a perfect one. The grass rolls up behind it and foams, I was going to say, like water behind the wheels of a steamer. The grass leaps up and whirls as if it were amazingly tickled with such dealings. The result is, that unless the grass is very heavy, and the weather very bad, you may cut your hay in the morning and get it into your barn before night, in far better condition than it used to be when it required never less than two, and generally a part of three days to cure it.

But I have forgotten the _horse-rake_. Instead of the old-fashioned, long-handled rake, and the five or six men pulling and hauling to get the grass into windrows, that same fellow, with that same horse, rides his luxurious rake, and in a fifth part of the time formerly required puts it into equally good shape. Indeed, haying, if it has lost its poetry, has also lost its drudgery. A man can now manage a hundred acres of grass easier than he formerly could twenty.

The only thing that remains to be made easy is pitching on and off the load. It is true that horse-forks have been invented, but I have never seen any that did their work well; and in my barn, at any rate, the old work of pitching and mowing remains; and if you wish to know what fun is, get on to the mow, under the slate roof of my barn, on a hot day, and let Tim pitch off hay as he will if I give him the wink. You will have to step lively, and even then you will often be seen emerging from heaps of hay thrown over you, like a rat from a bunch of oakum. And then it is so pleasant, when a man is all a-sweat, to have his shirt filled with hay-seed, each particular particle of which makes believe that it is a flea, and wiggles and tickles upon every square inch of his skin, until he is half desperate.