WORK ON THE HOME FORTY
April and May made amends for the rudeness of March, and the ploughs
were early afield. Thompson, Zeb, Johnson, and sometimes Anderson,
followed the furrows, first in 10 and 11, and lastly in 13. Number 9 had
a fair clover sod, and was not disturbed. We ploughed in all about 114
acres, but we did not subsoil. We spent twenty days ploughing and as
many more in fitting the ground for seed. The weather was unusually warm
for the season, and there was plenty of rain. By the middle of May, oats
were showing green in Nos. 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13,--sixty-two acres. The
corn was well planted in 15 and the west three-quarters of
14,--eighty-two acres. The other ten acres in the young orchard was
planted to fodder corn, sown in drills so that it could be cultivated in
one direction.
The ten-acre orchard on the south side of the home lot was used for
potatoes, sugar beets, cabbages, turnips, etc., to furnish a winter
supply of vegetables for the stock.
The outlook for alfalfa was not bright. In the early spring we
fertilized it again, using five hundred pounds to the acre, though it
seemed like a conspicuous waste. The warm rains and days of April and
May brought a fine crop of weeds; and about the middle of May I turned
Anderson loose in the fields with a scythe, and he mowed down everything
in sight.
After that things soon began to look better in the alfalfa fields. As
the season was favorable, we were able to cut a crop of over a ton to
the acre early in July, and nearly as much in the latter part of August.
We cut forty tons from these twenty acres within a year from seeding,
but I suspect that was unusual luck. I had used thirteen hundred pounds
of commercial fertilizer to the acre, and the season was very favorable
for the growth of the plant. I have since cut these fields three times
each year, with an average yield of five tons to the acre for the whole
crop.
I like alfalfa, both as green and as dry forage. When we use it green,
we let it lie in swath for twenty-four hours, that it may wilt
thoroughly before feeding. It is then fit food for hens, hogs, and, in
limited quantities, for cows, and is much relished. When used dry, it is
always cut fine and mixed with ground grains. In this shape it is fed
liberally to hens and hogs, and also to milch cows; for the latter it
forms half of the cut-food ration.
While the crops are growing, we will find time to note the changes on
the home lot. Nearly in front of the farm-house, and fifty yards
distant, was a space well fitted for the kitchen garden. We marked off a
plat two hundred feet by three hundred, about one and a half acres,
carted a lot of manure on it, and ploughed it as deep as the subsoiler
would reach. This was done as soon as the frost permitted. We expected
this garden to supply vegetables and small fruits for the whole colony
at Four Oaks. An acre and a half can be made exceedingly productive if
properly managed.
Along the sides of this garden we planted two rows of currant and
gooseberry bushes, six feet between rows, and the plants four feet apart
in the rows. The ends of the plat were left open for convenience in
horse cultivation. Ten feet outside these rows of bush fruit was planted
a line of quince trees, thirty on each side, and twenty feet beyond
these a row of cherry trees, twenty in each row.
Near the west boundary of the home lot, and north of the lane that
enters it, I planted two acres of dwarf pear trees--Bartlett and
Duchess,--three hundred trees to the acre. I also planted six hundred
plum trees--Abundance, Wickson, and Gold--in the chicken runs on lot 4.
After May 1, when he was relieved from his farm duties, Johnson had
charge of the planting and also of the gardening, and he took up his
special work with energy and pleasure.
The drives on the home lot were slightly rounded with ploughs and
scraper, and then covered with gravel. The open slope intended for the
lawn was now to be treated. It comprised about ten acres, irregular in
form and surface, and would require a good deal of work to whip it into
shape. A lawn need not be perfectly graded,--in fact, natural
inequalities with dips and rises are much more attractive; but we had to
take out the asperities. We ploughed it thoroughly, removed all stumps
and stones, levelled and sloped it as much as pleased Polly, harrowed it
twice a week until late August, sowed it heavily to grass seed, rolled
it, and left it.
Polly had the house in her mind's eye. She held repeated conversations
with Nelson, and was as full of plans and secrets as she could hold. By
agreement, she was to have a free hand to the extent of $15,000 for the
house and the carriage barn. I never really examined the plans, though I
saw the blue prints of what appeared to be a large house with a driving
entrance on the east and a great wide porch along the whole south side.
I did not know until it was nearly finished how large, convenient, and
comfortable it was to be. A hall, a great living-room, the dining room,
a small reception room, and an office, bedroom, and bath for me, were
all on the ground floor, besides a huge wing for the kitchen and other
useful offices.
Above stairs there was room for the family and a goodly number of
friends. We had agreed that the house should be simple in all ways, with
no hard wood except floors, and no ornamentation except paint and paper.
It must be larger than our needs, for we looked forward to delightful
visits from many friends. We were to have more leisure than ever before
for social life, and we desired to make the most of our opportunities.
A country house is by all odds the finest place to entertain friends and
to be entertained by them. They come on invitation, not as a matter of
form, and they stay long enough to put by questions of weather, clothes,
and servant-girls, and to get right down to good old-fashioned visiting.
Real heart-to-heart talks are everyday occurrences in country visits,
while they are exceptional in city calls. We meant to make much of our
friends at Four Oaks, and to have them make much of us. We have
discovered new values even in old friends, since we began to live with
them, weeks at a time, under the same roof. Their interests are ours,
and our plans are warmly taken up by them. There is nothing like it
among the turmoils and interruptions of town life, and the older we grow
the more we need this sort of rest among our friends. The guest book at
the farm will show very few weeks, in the past six years, when friends
haven't been with us, and Polly and I feel that the pleasure we have
received from this source ought to be placed on the credit side of the
farm ledger.
Another reason for a company house was that Jack and Jane would shortly
be out of school. It was not at all in accord with our plan that they
should miss any pleasure by our change. Indeed, we hoped that the change
would be to their liking and to their advantage.