A SOUTHERN STRAWBERRY FARM, AND METHODS OF CULTURE IN THE SOUTH
Having treated of the planting of strawberries, their cultivation, and
kindred topics, in that great northern belt, of which a line drawn
through New York city may be regarded as the centre, I shall now
suggest characteristics in the culture of this fruit in southern
latitudes. We need not refer to the oldest inhabitant, since the
middle-aged remember when even the large cities of the North were
supplied from the fields in the suburbs, and the strawberry season in
town was identical with that of the surrounding country. But a
marvellous change has taken place, and berries from southern climes
appear in our markets soon after midwinter. This early supply is
becoming one of the chief industries of the South Atlantic coast, and
every year increases its magnitude. At one time, southern New Jersey
furnished the first berries, but Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia soon
began to compete. Norfolk early took the lead in this trade, and even
before the war was building up a fine business. That event cut off our
Southern supply, and for a few years June and strawberries again came
together. But after the welcome peace, many Southern fields grew red
once more, but not with blood, and thronged, but chiefly by women and
children. Soil, climate, and superb water communications speedily
restored to Norfolk the vantage which she will probably maintain; but
fleet steamers are giving more southern ports a chance. Charleston,
South Carolina, is second only in importance. In the spring of '79,
every week four steamers were loaded for New York, and strawberries
formed no insignificant proportion of the freight. Indeed, the supply
from Charleston was so large that the price in April scarcely repaid
the cost of some shipments. The proprietor of a commission house,
largely engaged in the Southern fruit trade, told me he thought that
about one third as many strawberries came from Charleston as from
Norfolk. From careful inquiries made on the ground, I am led to
believe--if it has not already attained this position--that Norfolk is
rapidly becoming the largest strawberry centre in the world, though
Charleston is unquestionably destined to become its chief rival in the
South. The latter city, however, has not been able to monopolize the
far Southern trade, and never have I seen a finer field of strawberries
than was shown me in the suburbs of Savannah. It consisted of a square
of four acres, set with Neunan's Prolific, the celebrated Charleston
berry.
And now Florida, with its unrivalled oranges, is beginning to furnish
tons of strawberries, that begin ripening in our midwinter; and, with
its quick, sandy soil and sunny skies, threatens to render the growing
of this fruit under glass unprofitable. I saw last winter, at Mandarin,
quite an extensive strawberry farm, under the care of Messrs. Bowen
Brothers, and was shown their skilful appliances for shipping the
fruit. At Jacksonville, also, Captain William James is succeeding
finely in the culture of some of our Northern varieties, the Seth
Boyden taking the lead.
I think I can better present the characteristics of strawberry culture
in the South by aiming to give a graphic picture of the scenes and life
on a single farm than is possible by general statements of what I have
witnessed here and there. I have therefore selected for description a
plantation at Norfolk, since this city is the centre of the largest
trade, and nearly midway in the Atlantic strawberry belt, I am also led
to make this choice because here is to be found, I believe, the largest
strawberry farm in the world, and its varied labors illustrate most of
the Southern aspects of the question.
The reader may imagine himself joining our little party on a lovely
afternoon about the middle of May. We took one of the fine, stanch
steamers of the Old Dominion line at three P.M., and soon were
enjoying, with a pleasure that never palls, the sail from the city to
the sea. Our artistic leader, whose eye and taste were to illumine and
cast a glamour over my otherwise matter-of-fact text, was all aglow
with the varied beauties of the scene, and he faced the prospect beyond
the "Hook" with no more misgivings than if it were a "painted ocean."
But there are occasions when the most heroic courage is of no avail.
Only in the peace and beauty that crowned the closing hours of the day
as we steamed past Fortress Monroe and up the Elizabeth river, did the
prosaic fade out of the hours just past, and now before us was the
"sunny South" and strawberries and cream.
In the night there was a steady downfall of rain, but sunshine came
with the morning, and we found that the spring we had left at the North
was summer here, and saw that the season was moving forward with
quickened and elastic tread. Before the day grew warm we started from
our hotel at Norfolk for the strawberry plantation, rattling and
bouncing past comfortable and substantial homes, over a pavement that
surpassed even the ups and downs of fortune. Here and there, surrounded
by a high brick wall, would be seen a fine old mansion, embowered in a
wealth of shrubbery and foliage that gave, even in the midst of the
city, a suburban seclusion. The honeysuckle and roses are at home in
Norfolk, and their exquisite perfume floated to us across the high
garden fences. Thank Heaven! some of the best things in the world
cannot be walled in. St. Paul's Church and quaint old burying-ground,
shadowed by trees, festooned with vines, and gemmed with flowers,
seemed so beautiful, as we passed, that we thought its influence on the
secular material life of the people must be almost as good through the
busy week as on the Sabbath.
The houses soon grew scattering, and the wide, level, open country
stretched away before us, its monotony broken here and there by groves
of pine. The shell road ceased and our wheels now passed through many
deep puddles, which in Virginia seem sacred, since they are preserved
year after year in exactly the same places. A more varied class of
vehicles than we met from time to time would scarcely be seen on any
other road in the country. There were stylish city carriages and
buggies, grocer and express wagons, great lumbering market trucks laden
with barrels of early cabbages, spring wagons, drawn by mules, piled up
with crates from many a strawberry field in the interior, and so, on
the descending scale, till we reach the two-wheeled, primitive carts
drawn by cows--all converging toward some Northern steamer, whose
capacious maw was ready to receive the produce of the country. We had
not proceeded very far before we saw in the distance a pretty cottage,
sheltered by a group of tall, primeval pines, and on the right of it a
large barn-like building, with a dwelling, office, smithy, sheds, etc.,
grouped about it. A previous visit enabled me to point out the cottage
as the home of the proprietor, and to explain that the seeming barn was
a strawberry crate manufactory. As was the case on large plantations in
the olden time, almost everything required in the business is made on
the place, and nearly every mechanical trade has a representative in
Mr. Young's employ.
As we drove up under the pines, the proprietor of the farm welcomed us
with a cordial hospitality, which he may have acquired in part from his
residence in the South. On the porch stood a slender lady, whose
girlish grace and delicate beauty at once captivated the artists of our
party.
There was the farm we had come to see, stretching away before us in
hundreds of green, level acres. As we drove to a distant field in which
the pickers were then engaged, we could see the ripening berries with
one side blushing toward the sun. Passing a screen of pines, we came
out into a field containing thirteen acres of Wilson strawberries, and
then more fully began to realize the magnitude of the business.
Scattered over the wide area, in what seemed inextricable confusion to
our uninitiated eyes, were hundreds of men, women, and children of all
ages and shades of color, and from the field at large came a softened
din of voices, above the monotony of which arose here and there
snatches of song, laughter mellowed by distance, and occasionally the
loud, sharp orders of the overseers, who stalked hither and thither,
wherever their "little brief authority" was most in requisition.
We soon noted that the confusion was more apparent than real, and that
each picker was given a row over which he--or, more often, she--bent
with busy fingers until it was finished. At central points crates were
piled up, and men known as "buyers" received the round quart baskets
from the trays of the pickers, while wide platform carts, drawn by
mules, were bringing empty crates and carrying away those that had been
filled.
Along the road that skirted the field, and against a pretty background
of half-grown pines, motley forms and groups were moving to and fro,
some seeking the "buyers" with full trays, others returning to their
stations in the field with a new supply of empty baskets. Some of the
pickers were drifting away to other fields, a few seeking work late in
the day; more, bargaining with the itinerant venders of pies, made to
last all summer if not sold, gingerbread, "pones," and other
nondescript edibles, at which an ostrich would hesitate in
well-grounded fear of indigestion, but for which sable and semi-sable
pickers exchange their berry tickets and pennies as eagerly as we buy
Vienna rolls. Two or three barouches and buggies that had brought
visitors were mingled with the mule-carts; and grouped together for a
moment might be seen elegantly attired ladies from New York, slender
mulatto girls, clad in a single tattered, gown which scantily covered
their bare ankles and feet, and stout, shiny negro women, their waists
tied with a string to prevent their flowing drapery from impeding their
work. Flitting to and fro were numberless colored children,
bare-headed, bare-legged, and often, with not a little of their sleek
bodies gleaming through the innumerable rents of their garments, their
eyes glittering like black beads, and their white teeth showing on the
slightest provocation to mirth. Indeed, the majority of the young men
and women were chattering and laughing much of the time, and only those
well in the shadow of age worked on in a stolid, plodding manner.
Mingled indiscriminately with the colored people were not a few white
women and children, and occasionally a white man. As a rule, these were
better dressed, the white girls wearing sun-bonnets of portentous size,
whose cavernous depths would make a search for beauty on the part of
our artist a rather close and embarrassing scrutiny. The colored women
as often wore a man's hat as any other, and occasionally enlivened the
field with a red bandana. Over all the stooping, moving, oddly
apparelled forms, a June-like sun was shining with summer warmth.
Beyond the field a branch of Tanner's Creek shimmered in the light,
tall pines sighed in the breeze on the right, and from the copse-wood
at their feet quails were calling, their mellow whistle blending with
the notes of a wild Methodist air. In the distance rose the spires of
Norfolk, completing a picture whose interest and charm I have but
faintly suggested.
Several of the overseers are negroes, and we were hardly on the ground
before one of these men, in the performance of his duty, shouted in a
stentorian voice:
"Heah, you! Git up dar, you long man, off'n yer knees. What yo' mashin'
down a half-acre o' berries fer?"
Mr. Sheppard was quick to see a good subject, and almost in a flash he
had the man posed and motionless in his attitude of authority, and
under his rapid strokes Jackson won fame and eminence, going to his
work a little later the hero of the field. The overseer's task is a
difficult one, for the pickers least given to prayer are oftenest on
their knees, crushing the strawberries, and whether they are "long" or
short, much fruit is destroyed. North and South, the effort to keep
those we employ off the berries must be constant, especially as a long,
hot day is waning. Indeed, one can scarcely blame them for "lopping
down," for it would be inquisitorial torture to most of us to stoop
upon our feet through a summer day. Picking strawberries, as a steady
business, is wofully prosaic.
While the sun had been shining so brightly there had been an occasional
heavy jar and rumble of thunder, and now the western sky was black.
Gradually the pickers had disappeared from the Wilson field, and we at
last followed them, warned by an occasional drop of rain to seek the
vicinity of the house. Having reached the grassy slope beneath the
pines in the rear of the dwelling, we turned to note the pretty scene.
A branch of Tanner's Creek came up almost to our feet, and on either
side of it stretched away long rows of strawberries as far as the eye
could reach. Toward these the throng of pickers now drifted, "seeking
fresh fields and pastures new." The motley crowd was streaming down on
either side of the creek, while across a little causeway came a counter
current, the majority of them having trays full of berries. The buyers,
like the traders with the nomad Indians, open traffic anywhere, and at
the shortest notice. A mule-cart was stopped, a few empty crates taken
off and placed under the pines at our feet, and soon the grass was
covered with full quart baskets, for which the pickers received tickets
and then passed on, or, as was often the case, threw themselves down in
the shade. The itinerant venders came flocking in like so many
buzzards. There was at once chaffering and chaffing, eating and
drinking. All were merry. Looking on the groups before us, one would
imagine that the sky was serene. And yet, frowning upon this scene of
careless security, this improvident disregard of a swiftly coming
emergency, was one of the blackest of clouds. Every moment the thunder
was jarring and rolling nearer, and yet this jolly people, who "take no
thought," heeded not the warning. Even the buyers and packers seemed
infected with a like spirit, and were leisurely packing in crates the
baskets of berries scattered on the grass, when suddenly Mr. Young,
with his fleet, black horse, came flying down upon us. Standing up in
his buggy, he gave a dozen rapid orders, like an officer on the field
in a critical moment. The women, who had been lounging with their hands
on their hips, shuffled off with their trays; half-burned pipes are
hastily emptied; gingerbread and like delicacies are stuffed into
capacious mouths, since hands must be employed at once. Packers, mules,
everybody, everything, are put upon the double-quick to prepare for the
shower. It is too late, however, for down come the huge drops as they
can fall only in the South. The landscape grows obscure, the forms of
the pickers in the distance become dim and misty, and when at last it
lightens up a little, they have disappeared from the fields. There they
go, streaming and dripping toward the barns and sheds, looking as
bedraggled as a flock of black Spanish fowls. Such of the mule-drivers
as have been caught, now that they are in for it, drive leisurely by
with the heavy crates that they should have gathered up more promptly.
The cloud did not prove a passing one, and the rain fell so long and
copiously that further picking for the day was abandoned. Some jogged
off to the city, at a pace that nothing but a fiery storm could have
quickened. A hundred or two remained under the sheds, singing and
laughing. Men and women, and many bright young negro girls, too,
lighted their pipes and waited till they could gather at the "paying
booth," near the entrance of the farm, after the rain was over. This
booth was a small shop, extemporized of rough boards by an enterprising
grocer of the city. One side was open, like the counter of a
restaurant, and within, upon the grass, as yet untrodden, were barrels
and boxes containing the edible enormities which seem indigenous to the
semi-grocery and eating-house. In most respects the place resembled the
sutler's stand of our army days. There was a small window on one end of
the booth, and at this sat the grocer, metamorphosed into a paymaster,
with a huge bag of coin, which he rapidly exchanged for the strawberry
tickets. Our last glimpse of the pickers, who had streamed out of the
city in the gray dawn, left them in a long line, close as herrings in a
box, pressing toward the window, from which came faintly the chink of
silver.
As night at last closed about us, we realized the difference between a
strawberry farm and a strawberry bed, or "patch," as country people
say. Here was a large and well-developed business, which proved the
presence of no small degree of brain power and energy; and our thoughts
naturally turned to the proprietor and the methods by which he achieved
success.
J. E. Young, Jr., is a veteran in strawberry culture, although but
twenty-nine years of age. Mr. Young, Sr., was a Presbyterian clergyman
who always had a leaning toward man's primal calling. When his son was
a little boy, he was preaching at Plattsburgh, New York, and to his
labors in the spiritual vineyard joined the care of a garden that was
the pride of the town. Mr. Young, Jr., admits that he hated weeding and
working among strawberries as much as any other boy, until he was given
a share in the crop, and permitted to send a few crates to Montreal. He
had seen but nine years when he shipped his first berries to market,
and every summer since, from several widely separated localities and
with many and varied experiences, he has sent to Northern cities
increasing quantities of his favorite fruit. When but fifteen years of
age he had the entire charge, during the long season, of three hundred
"hands," and the large majority of them were Irish women and children.
After considerable experience in strawberry farming in northern and
southern New York and in New Jersey, his father induced him to settle
at Norfolk, Virginia, and hither he came about ten years ago. Now he
has under his control a farm of 440 acres, 150 of which are to-day
covered with bearing strawberry plants. In addition, he has set out
this spring over two million more plants, which will occupy another
hundred acres, so that in 1880 he will have 250 acres that must be
picked over almost daily.
Mr. Young prefers spring planting in operations upon a large scale.
Such a choice is very natural in this latitude, for they can begin
setting the first of February and continue until the middle of April.
Therefore, nine-tenths of the plants grown in this region are set out
in spring. But at Charleston and further south, they reverse this
practice, and, with few exceptions, plant in the summer and fall,
beginning as early as July on some places, and continuing well into
December.
I must also state that the finest new plantation that I saw on Mr.
Young's place was a field of Seth Boydens set out in September.
This fact proves that he could follow the system of autumn planting
successfully, and I am inclined to think that he will regard this
method with constantly increasing favor. As an instance proving the
adaptation to this latitude of the fall system of planting, I may state
that 96,000 plants were sent to a gentleman at Richmond, in October,
1877, and when I visited his place, the following spring, there was
scarcely a break in the long rows, and nearly fruit enough, I think, to
pay for the plants. From his Seth Boydens, set out last September, Mr.
Young will certainly pick enough berries to pay expenses thus far; and
at the same time, the plants are already four times the size of any set
out this spring. As the country about Norfolk is level, with spots
where the water would stand in very wet weather, Mr. Young has it
thrown up into slightly raised beds two and a half feet wide. This is
done by plows, after the ground has been thoroughly prepared and
levelled by a heavy, fine-toothed harrow. These ridges are but four or
five inches high, and are smoothed off by an implement made for the
purpose. Upon these beds, quite near the edges, the plants are set in
rows twenty inches apart, while the depressed space between the beds is
twenty-seven inches wide. This space is also designed for the paths.
The rows and the proper distances for the plants are designated by a
"marker," an implement consisting of several wheels fastened to a frame
and drawn by hand. On the rim of these wheels are two knobs shaped like
an acorn. Each wheel marks a continuous line on the soft earth, and
with each revolution the knobs make two slight but distinct depressions
twelve inches apart; or, if the variety to be planted is a vigorous
grower, he uses another set of wheels that indent the ground every
fifteen inches. A plant is dropped at each indentation, and a gang of
colored women follow with trowels, and by two or three quick, dexterous
movements, imbed the roots firmly in the soil. Some become so quick and
skilful as to be able to set out six or seven thousand a day, while
four or five thousand is the average. With his trained band of twenty
women, Mr. Young calls the setting of a hundred thousand plants a good
day's work.
In April commences the long campaign against the weeds, which advance
like successive armies. No sooner is one growth slain than a different
and perhaps more pestiferous class rises in its place--the worst of the
Philistines being nut-grass, quack-grass, and--direst foe of
all--wire-grass.
This labor is reduced to its minimum by mule cultivation, and Mr. Young
has on his farm a style of cultivator that is peculiarly adapted to the
work. As this is his own invention, I will not describe it, but merely
state that it enables him to work very close to the rows, and to stir
the soil deeply without moving it or covering the plants. These
cultivators are followed by women, with light, sharp hoes, who cut away
the few weeds left between the plants. They handle these tools so
deftly that scarcely any weeding is left to be done by hand; for, by a
rapid encircling stroke, they cut within a half-inch of the plant. For
several years past, I have urged upon Mr. Young the advantage of the
narrow row system, and his own experience has led him to adopt it. He
is now able to keep his immense farm free of weeds chiefly by mule
labor, whereas, in his old system of matted row culture it was
impossible to keep down the grass, or prevent the ground from becoming
hard and dry. He now restricts his plants to hills or "stools," from
twelve to fifteen inches apart. The runners are cut from time to time
with shoe-knives, the left hand gathering them up by a single rapid
movement, and the right hand severing them by a stroke. One woman will,
by this method, clip the runners from several acres during the growing
season. To keep his farm in order, Mr. Young must employ seventy-five
hands through the summer. The average wages for women is fifty cents,
and for men seventy-five to ninety cents. In the item of cheap labor
the South has the advantage of the North.
With the advent of autumn, the onslaught of weeds gradually ceases, and
there is some respite in the labors of a Virginia strawberry farm.
At Charleston and further south, this respite is brief, for the winters
there are so mild that certain kinds of weeds will grow all the time,
and early in February they must begin to cultivate the ground and mulch
the plants for bearing.
Bordering on Mr. Young's farm, and further up the creek, there are
hundreds of acres of salt meadows. From these he has cut, in the autumn
and early winter, two hundred tons of hay, and with his lighter floats
it down to his wharf. In December, acre after acre is covered until all
the plants are quite hidden from view. In the spring, this winter mulch
is left upon the ground as the summer mulch, the new growth in most
instances pushing its way through it readily. When it is too thick to
permit this, it is pushed aside from the crowns of the plants.
Thus far he has given the bearing fields no spring culture, adopting
the common theory that the ground around the plants must not be
disturbed at this season. I advocate the opposite view, and believe in
_early_ spring culture, as I have already explained; and I think his
experience this year will lead him to give my method a trial in 1880.
The latter part of April and early May was very dry at Norfolk, and the
ground between the bearing plants became parched, hard, and in many
instances full of weeds that had been developing through the long, mild
spring of this region. Now I am satisfied that if he, and all others in
this region who adopt the narrow row system, would loosen the ground
deeply with a subsoil plow _early_ in the season, before the plants had
made any growth, and then stir and pulverize all the surface between
the plants in the rows, they would increase the size and quantity of
the berries at least one-third, and in many instances double the crop.
It would require a very severe drought, indeed, to injure plants thus
treated, and it is well known, also, that a porous, mellow soil will
best endure too frequent rains. I have sometimes thought that light and
air are as indispensable to the roots of plants as to the foliage.
The winter mulch need not prevent this spring culture. Let the men
begin on one side of a field, and rake inward until half a dozen rows
are uncovered. Down through these the subsoil plow and the cultivator
can pass. Then the hay can be raked back again as the summer mulch, and
a new space cleared, until the whole field is cultivated and the mulch
left as it was before.
Now, however, it is not a surface like hard-pan that is covered, but a
mellow soil in which the roots can luxuriate.
Mr. Young uses fertilizers, especially those containing ammonia, only
to a limited extent, believing that while they undoubtedly increase the
size of the fruit, they also render it soft and unfit for long
carriage, and promote an undue growth of vine. This theory is true, to
a certain extent, but I think the compensating benefits of fertilizers
of almost any kind far outweigh the disadvantages. At his distance from
the market, firmness in the berry is essential, but I think he will
find this quality is dependent more upon the weather and the variety
than upon the fertilizer. Of course, over-stimulation by hot manures
will always produce an unwholesome, perishable growth, but a good coat
of well-rotted compost scattered down the rows, just before they
receive their fall or spring culture, would be exceedingly beneficial
in nine cases out of ten. I most heartily agree with him, however, that
all fertilizers containing potash are peculiarly adapted to the
strawberry.
Having considered his methods of planting and culture, we now return
again to the culminating period in which the hopes and labors of the
year are rewarded or disappointed. When we awoke the morning following
our arrival, we found the landscape obscured by a dense fog. Through
this, in dim, uncertain outline, throngs of pickers were streaming out
from the city to Mr. Young's place and the strawberry farms beyond. The
broad fields seemed all the more vast from the obscurity, and the
stooping forms of the fruit-gatherers took on odd and fantastic shapes
in the silvery mist.
But while we drank our coffee the sun sipped these morning vapors, and
when we stepped out under the pines, the day was hourly growing
brighter and warmer. The balmy, fragrant air, the meadow larks singing
in the distance, the cheery voices of the pickers in an adjacent field,
would tempt gloom itself to forget its care and stroll away through the
sunlight. The pickers were beginning to take possession of a field
containing thirty acres of Triomphe de Gands, and we followed them, and
there lighted on one of the oddest characters on the plantation--"Sam
Jubilee," the "row-man," black as night, short, stout, and profane. It
is Sam's business to give each picker a row of berries, and he carries
a brass-headed cane as the baton of authority. As we came up, he was
whirling a glazed hat of portentous size in one hand and gesticulating
so wildly with his cane that one might think he was in convulsions of
rage, but we soon learned that this was "his way."
"Heah, you, dah!" he vociferated, to the slouching, leisurely pickers
that were drifting after him, "what's de matter wid yer j'ints? Step
along lively, or by--" and then came a volley of the most outlandish
oaths ever uttered by a human tongue.
"Don't swear so, Sam," said Mr. Young.
"Can't help it, sah. Dey makes me swar. Feels as if I could bust inter
ten thousand emptins, dey's so agerwatin. Heah, my sister, take dat
row. You, gemlin" (to a white man), "take dat. Heah, chile, step in dar
an' pick right smart, or I'll warm yer!"
Sam "brothers and sisters" the motley crowd he domineers like a colored
preacher, but I fear he is not "in good and regular standing" in any
church in Norfolk.
"He can give out rows more rapidly and systematically than any man I
ever had," said Mr. Young; and we soon observed that wherever Jubilee
led, with his stentorian voice and emphatic gestures, there was life
and movement. Thus we learned that although there might be 1,500 people
in the fields, there was no haphazard picking. Each one would be
assigned a row, which could not be left until all the ripe berries on
it were gathered.
Passing to and fro across the fields are the two chief overseers of the
farm, Harrison and Peters, both apparently full-blooded negroes, but in
the vernacular of the South, "right smart men." They have been with Mr.
Young eight or ten years, and were promoted and maintain their position
solely on the ground of ability and faithfulness. They go rapidly from
one to another, noting whether they are picking the rows clean. They
also take from each tray a basket at random, and empty it into another,
thus discovering who are gathering green or imperfect berries. If the
fruit falls much below the accepted standard, the baskets are
confiscated and no tickets given for them, and if the picker continues
careless he is sent out of the field.
Mr. Young says that he has never found any white overseers who could
equal these men; and through the long year they drive on the work with
tireless energy.
Indeed, Peters often has much ado to keep his energy under control. A
powerful engine cannot always be safe, and Peters slipped his bands one
day to his cost. A woman would not obey him, and he threatened her with
a pistol. Instead of obeying, she started to run. He fired and wounded
her twice, and then tried to get off on the lame excuse that he did not
know the pistol was loaded. The trouble was that he was overloaded. But
his offence resulted more from these characteristics than from innate
ugliness of temper. To make the business of the huge farm go has become
his controlling passion; and he chafes at an obstacle like an
obstructed torrent.
Harrison, his associate overseer, unites more discretion with his
force, and he gave us an example of this fact. As we were strolling
about, we found, seated at the end of the strawberry rows, a group
consisting of two young women and two children, with a colored man
standing near. They had been picking in partnership, we were informed
by one of the young women, who was smoking a pipe, and who replied to
our questions, scarcely taking the trouble to look up. She was about
half white, and her face was singularly expressive of sensuousness and
indolent recklessness.
"This man is your husband?" I suggested.
"No, he's only my brudder. My ole man is pickin' on anoder farm," she
drawled out, between the whiffs of her pipe.
"I should think you and your husband would work together," I ventured.
"We doesn't. He goes about his business and I goes about mine," she
remarked, with languid complacency.
Here is a character, I thought, as we passed on--the very embodiment of
a certain kind of wilfulness. She would not resist or chafe at
authority, but, with an easy, good-natured, don't-care expression,
would do as she pleased, "though the heavens fell." A little later
there was a heavy rumble of thunder in the west, and we met again the
young woman whose marital relations resembled those of many of her
fashionable sisters at the North. She was leading her small band from
the field. The prospective shower was her excuse for going, but
laziness the undoubted cause. Harrison, like a vigilant watch-dog,
spied them and blustered up, never for a moment doubting that she would
yield to his authority.
But he had met his match. She merely looked at him with her slow,
quiet, indolent smile, in which there was not the faintest trace of
irresolution or fear, and he knew that the moment he stepped out of the
way, she would pass on. His loud expostulations and threats soon
ceased. What could he do with that laughing woman, who no doubt had
been a slave, but was now emancipated a trifle too completely? He might
as well try to stop a sluggish tide with his hands. It would ooze away
from him inevitably. The instincts of this people are quick. Harrison
knew he was defeated, and his only anxiety now was to retreat in a way
that would save appearances.
"I'se a-gwine home, M's'r Harrison," she said quietly. "You don't catch
us gittin' wet ag'in."
"Oh, well, if you is 'fraid ob gittin' wet, s'pose I'll habe to let you
off jus' dis once," he began, pompously; and here, fortunately, he saw
a man leaving the field in the distance. There was a subject with which
he could deal, and a line of retreat open at the same time; and away he
went, therefore, vociferating all the more loudly that he might cover
his discomfiture. The woman smiled a little more complacently and went
on, with her old easy, don't-care swing, as she undoubtedly will,
whithersoever her inclinations lead, to the end of her life. To
crystallize such wayward, human atoms into proper forms, and make them
useful, is a problem that would puzzle wiser heads than that of the
overseer.
I think, however, that not only Harrison and Peters, but all who have
charge of working people, rely too much on driving, and too little on
encouraging and coaxing. An incident which occurred may illustrate this
truth. My companion, Mr. Drake, soon mastered one of the labors of a
strawberry farm--the gathering of the fruit--and out of the plenitude
of his benevolence essayed to teach a little sable how he could pick to
better advantage.
"Put your basket down, sonny," he said. "Now you have two hands to work
with instead of one--so, don't you see?"
"Dat's mighty good in you, Mas'r," said a woman near. "Lor bress you!
de people 'ud jess jump over derselves tryin' to do the work if dey got
sich good words, but de oberseer's so cross dat we gits 'umptuous and
don't keer."
Still, to the majority, the strawberry season brings the halcyon days
of the year. They look forward to it and enjoy it as a prolonged
picnic, in which business and pleasure are equally combined. They are
essentially gregarious, and this industry brings many together during
the long bright days. The light work leaves their tongues free, and
families and neighbors pick together with a ceaseless chatter, a
running fire of rude, broad pleasantry, intermingled occasionally with
a windy war of words in a jargon that becomes all the more uncouth from
anger, but which rarely ends in blows.
We were continually impressed by their courage, buoyancy, animal
spirits, or whatever it is that enables them to face their uncertain
future so unconcernedly. Multitudes live like the birds, not knowing
where their next year's nest will be, or how to-morrow's food will
come. It _has_ come, thus far, and this fact seems enough. In many
instances, however, their humble fortunes are built on the very best
foundations.
"What can you do after the berry season is over?" we asked a woman who
had but one arm.
"I kin do what any other woman kin do," she said, straightening herself
up. "I kin bake, cook, wash, iron, scrub--"
"That will do," I cried. "You are better off than most of us, for the
world will always need and pay for your accomplishments."
The story of her life was a simple one. She did not remember when she
lost her arm, but only knew that it had been burned off. When scarcely
more than an infant, she had been left alone in the little cabin by the
slave mother, who probably was toiling in the tobacco field. There was
a fire on the hearth--the rest can be imagined only too vividly. She is
fighting out the battle of life, however, more successfully with her
one hand than are multitudes of men with two. She is stout and cheery,
and can "take keer of herself and children," she said.
Scattered here and there over the fields might be seen two heads that
would keep in rather close juxtaposition up and down the long rows.
"Dey's pairin' off," was the explanation.
"You keep de tickets," said a buxom young woman to her mate, as he was
about to take her tray, as well as his own, to the buyers.
"You are in partnership," I remarked.
"Yes, we is," she replied, with a conscious laugh.
"You are related, I suppose?"
"Well, not 'zackly--dat is--we's partners."
"How about this partnership business--does it not last sometimes after
the strawberry season is over?"
"Oh, Lor' yes! Heaps on 'em gits fallen in love; den dey gits
a-marryin' arter de pickin' time is done gone by."
"Now I see what your partnership means."
"Yah, yah, yah! You sees a heap more dan I's told you!" But her partner
grinned most approvingly. We were afterward informed that there was no
end to the love-making among the strawberry rows.
There are from fifty to one hundred and fifty pickers in a squad, and
these are in charge of subordinate overseers, who are continually
moving around among them, on the watch for delinquencies of all kinds.
Some of these minor potentates are white and some black. As a rule, Mr.
Young gives the blacks the preference and on strictly business
principles, too. "The colored men have more snap, and can get more work
out of their own people," he says. By means of these sub-overseers,
large numbers can be transferred from one part of the farm to another
without confusion.
Fortunes are never made in gathering strawberries, and yet there seems
no dearth of pickers. The multitude of men, women, and children that
streams out into the country every morning is surprisingly large. Five
or six thousand bushels a day are often gathered in the vicinity of
Norfolk, and the pickers rarely average over a bushel each. "Right
smart hands," who have the good hap to be given full rows, will
occasionally pick two bushels; but about thirty quarts per day is the
usual amount, while not a few of the lazy and feeble bring in only
eight or ten.
As has been already suggested, the pickers are followed by the buyers
and packers, and to these men, at central points in the fields, the
mule-carts bring empty crates. The pickers carry little trays
containing six baskets, each holding a quart. As fast as they fill
these, they flock in to the buyers. If a trayful, or six good quarts,
are offered, the buyer gives the picker a yellow ticket, worth twelve
cents. When less than six baskets are brought, each basket is paid for
with a green ticket, worth two cents. These two tickets are eventually
exchanged for a white fifty-cent ticket, which is cashed at the
paying-booth after the day's work is over. The pickers, therefore,
receive two cents for every quart of good, salable berries. If green,
muddy, or decayed berries are brought in, they are thrown away or
confiscated, and incorrigibly careless pickers are driven off the
place. Every morning the buyers take out as many tickets of these three
values as they think they can use, and are charged with the same by the
book-keeper. Their voucher for all they pay out is another ticket, on
which is printed "forty-five quarts," or just a crateful. Only Mr.
Young and one other person have a right to give out the last-named
tickets, and by night each buyer must have enough of them to balance
the other tickets with which he was charged in the morning. Thus
thousands of dollars change hands through the medium of four kinds of
tickets not over an inch, square, and by means of them the financial
part of gathering the crop is managed.
In previous years these tickets were received the same as money by any
of the shops in the city, and on one occasion were counterfeited. Mr.
Young now has his own printing-office, and gets them up in a way not
easily imitated, nor does he issue them until just as the fruit begins
to ripen. He has, moreover, given authority to one man only to cash
these tickets. Thus there is little chance for rascality.
He also requires that no ticket shall be cashed until the fields have
all been picked over. Were it not for this regulation, the lazy and the
"bummers" would earn enough merely to buy a few drinks, then slink off.
Now they must remain until all are through before they can get a cent.
Peters and Harrison see to it that none are lying around in the shade,
and thus, through the compulsion of system, many, no doubt, are
surprised to find themselves at work for the greater part of the day.
And yet neither system nor Peters, with even his sanguinary reputation,
is able alone to control the hordes employed. Of course the very dregs
of the population are largely represented. Many go out on a "lark," not
a few to steal, and some with the basest purposes. Walking continually
back and forth through the fields, therefore, are two duly authorized
constables and their presence only prevents a great deal of crime.
Moreover, according to Virginian law, every landholder has the right to
arrest thieves and trespassers. Up to the time of our visit, five
persons had been arrested, and the fact that they were all white does
not speak very well for our color. The law of the state requires that
they shall be punished by so many lashes, according to the gravity of
the offence, and by imprisonment. The whipping-post is one of the
institutions, and man or woman, white or black, against whom the crime
of stealing is proved, is stripped to the waist and lashed upon the
bare back. Such ignominious punishment may prevent theft, but it must
tend to destroy every vestige of self-respect and pride in criminals,
and render them hopelessly reckless. Therefore, it should cease at once.
It must be admitted, however, that very little lawlessness was
apparent. In no instance have I received a rude word while travelling
in the South, while, on the other hand, the courtesy and kindness were
almost unstinted.
The negroes about Norfolk certainly do not wear an intimidated or
"bull-dozed" air.
"Git off my row, dar, or I'll bust yo' head open," shouted a tall,
strapping colored girl to a white man, and he got off her row with
alacrity.
Mr. Young says that the negro laborers are easily managed, and will
endure a great deal of severity if you deal "squarely" with them; but
if you wrong them out of even five cents, they will never forget it.
What's more, every citizen of "Blackville" will be informed of the
fact, for what one knows they all seem to know very soon.
We were not long in learning to regard the strawberry farm as a little
world within itself. It would be difficult to make the reader
understand its life and "go" at certain hours of the day. Scores are
coming and going; hundreds dot the fields; carts piled up with crates
are moving hither and thither. At the same time the regular toil of
cultivation is maintained. Back and forth between the young plants
mules are drawing cultivators, and following these come a score or two
women with light, sharp hoes. From the great crate manufactory is heard
the whir of machinery and the click of hammers; at intervals the smithy
sends forth its metallic voice, while from one centre of toil and
interest to another the proprietor whisks in his open buggy at a speed
that often seems perilous.
After all, Mr. Young's most efficient aid in his business was his
father (recently deceased). It gave me pleasure to note the frequency
and deference with which the senior's judgment wa& consulted, and I
also observed that wherever the old gentleman's umbrella was seen in
the field, all went well.
At four or five in the afternoon, the whole area would be picked over.
The fields would be left to meadow-larks and quails, whose liquid notes
well replaced the songs and cries of the pickers. Here and there a
mule-cart would come straggling in. By night, all signs of life were
concentrated around the barns and paying booth; but even from these one
after another would drift away to the city, till at last scarcely a
vestige of the hurry and business of the day would be left. The deep
hush and quiet that settled down on the scene was all the more
delightful from contrast. To listen to the evening wind among the
pines, to watch the sun drop below the spires of Norfolk, and see the
long shadows creep toward us; to let our thoughts flit whither they
would, like the birds about us, was all the occupation we craved at
this hour. Were we younger and more romantic, we might select this
witching time for a visit to an ancient grave in one of the strawberry
fields.
A mossy, horizontal slab marks the spot, and beneath it reposes the
dust of a young English officer. One bright June day--so the legend is
told--one hundred and sixteen years ago, this man, in the early summer
of his life, was killed in a duel.
Lingering here, through the twilight, until the landscape grows as
obscure as this rash youth's history, what fancies some might weave. As
the cause of the tragedy, one would scarcely fail to see among the
shadows the dim form and features of some old-time belle, whose smiles
had kindled the fierce passion that was here quenched, more than a
century since. Did she marry the rival, of surer aim and cooler head
and heart, or did she haunt this place with regretful tears? Did she
become a stout, prosaic woman, and end her days in whist and all the
ancient proprieties, or fade into a remorseful wraith that still haunts
her unfortunate lover's grave? One shivers, and grows superstitious.
The light twinkling from the windows of the cottage under the pines
becomes very attractive. As we fall asleep after such a visit, we like
to think of the meadow-larks singing on the mossy tombstone in the
morning.
Daring a rainy day, when driven from the field, we found plenty to
interest us in the printing-office, smithy, and especially in the huge
crate manufactory. Here were piled up coils of baskets that suggested
strawberries for a million supper-tables. Hour after hour the
mule-power engine drove saws, with teeth sharper than those of time,
through the pine boards that soon became crates for the round quart
baskets. These crates were painted green, marked with Mr. Young's name,
and piled to the lofty, cobwebbed ceiling.
But Saturday is the culminating period of the week. The huge plantation
has been gone over closely and carefully, for the morrow is Sunday, on
which day the birds are the only pickers. Around the office, crate
manufactory, and paying booth were gathered over a thousand people--a
motley and variegated crowd, that the South only can produce. The odd
and often coarse jargon, the infinite variety in appearance and
character, suggested again that humanity is a very tangled problem. The
shrewdness and accuracy, however, with which the most ignorant count
their tickets and reckon their dues on their fingers, is a trait
characteristic of all, and, having received the few shillings, which
mean a luxurious Sunday, they trudge off to town, chattering volubly,
whether any one listens or not.
But many can not resist the rollicking music back of the paying booth.
Three sable musicians form the orchestra, and from a bass viol, fiddle
and fife they extract melody that, with all its short-coming, would
make a deacon wish to dance. Any one, white or black, can purchase the
privilege of keeping step to the music for two cents, or one strawberry
ticket. Business was superb, and every shade of color and character was
represented. In the vernacular of the farm, the mulatto girls are
called "strawberry blondes," and one that would have attracted
attention anywhere was led out by a droll, full-blooded negro, who
would have made the fortune of a minstrel troupe. She was tall and
willowy. A profusion of dark hair curled about an oval face, not too
dark to prevent a faint color of the strawberry from glowing in her
cheeks. She wore neither hat nor shoes, but was as unembarrassed,
apparently, in her one close-fitting garment, as could be any ballroom
belle dressed in the latest mode. Another blonde, who sported torn
slippers and white stockings, was in danger of being spoiled by much
attention. As a rule, however, bare feet were nothing against a "lady"
in the estimation of the young men. At any rate, all who could spare a
berry ticket speedily found a partner, and, as we rode away from the
farm, the last sounds were those of music and merriment, and our last
glimpse was of the throng of dancers on the green.
The confused uproar and rush of business around the Old Dominion
steamship made a marked contrast. To the ample wharves every species of
vehicle had been coming all day, while all kinds of craft, from a skiff
to a large two-masted schooner, waiting their turn to discharge their
freight of berry crates and garden produce, reached half across the
Elizabeth river. The rumble of the trucks was almost like the roar of
thunder, as scores of negroes hustled crates, barrels and boxes aboard.
Most of the time they were on a good round trot, and one had to pick
his way with care; for, apparently, the truck was as thoughtful as the
trundler.
As the long twilight fades utterly into night, the last crate is
aboard. The dusky forms of the stevedores are seen in an old
pontoon-shaped boat on their way to Portsmouth, but their outlines, and
the melody of their rude song, are soon lost in the distance. The ship,
that has become like a huge section of Washington Market, casts off her
lines, and away we steam, diffusing on the night air the fragrance of a
thousand acres, more or less, of strawberries.
It was late in the night that followed the next day before we reached
New York, but on the great covered wharf, to which was given a noonday
glare by electric light, there was no suggestion of the darkness and
rain without. Various numbers, prominent on the sides of the building,
indicated the lines of transit and the commission houses to which the
immense, indiscriminate cargo was assigned. With a heavy jar and rumble
that would not cease till the ship was empty, a throng of white
laborers wheel each package to its proper place. Mr. Young's crates
soon grew into what seemed, in the distance, a good-sized mound. The
number above them stood for Eldridge & Carpenter, West Washington
Market. Thither we followed them the next morning, but found that the
most of them had already been scattered throughout the city, and
realized that the berries we had seen a few hours before on the
strawberry farm were even then on uptown breakfast-tables.