A GREAT RUNNER.
In describing the unfortunate termination of my efforts to winter our
stock, I have advanced a little beyond the regular order of events.
There was much other work to be done in the garden, even without
referring to the masses of bedding plants and the quantities of new
seeds that I had purchased. As the third season opened, a renewed energy
took possession of me, and I went at digging and planting like a giant
refreshed. There was no longer a sense of desolation around my place.
The florists and nurserymen, under my careful instruction, had set out
trees, and planted flowers, and got hedges in order, until Nature in my
five acres was bursting from a smile into a grin. It is true that the
cows of the neighborhood, which were invariably allowed to roam
whithersoever they listed, had fed rather profusely on the evergreens,
breaking down the tops and nipping off the ends of the branches; that
here and there the hedges had died out, and left yawning gaps; but, on
the whole, there was a remarkable change. It was at this point that I
bethought me of an omission from my flower garden which was as
surprising as it was inexcusable; hitherto I had neglected doing justice
to the gourd tribe.
I am great on gourds; they are my specialty. I will undertake to grow
them against the world, and will meet Jonah in a fair field, and no
miracles, any time; in fact, I am a perfect Jonah on gourds. In early
youth, when my gardening was confined to a city yard, my gourds were the
first, and fattest, and yellowest to be seen; and, from that remote
period to the time of which I speak, I had always felt an affection for
the beautiful fruit, and wondered why Nature did not put more in it. Of
course there must be gourds in my garden, in spite of their being a
useless production and very hollow--Weeville made a joke about their
beating other fruit all hollow--and, except to make fragile
water-dippers (which, by the way, no one ever makes of them), quite
worthless; so I not only planted the seeds in the open garden, but
forced some in the hot-beds.
My special favorites were three seeds of an almost unknown variety,
called Hercules’ Club, upon the past history and future prospects of
which I could get little information. I planted these little germs of
promise in a prominent place in the front beds, and watched with tender
care till they came up. A pale, delicate, juicy little spear, guarded by
its two seed-lobes, pushed its way above ground, where it seemed ill
suited to battle with the breeze and brave the sun, that threatened to
break or consume it. My solicitude became greater when the feeble stem
put forth a feebler leaf, not larger than one’s finger-nail, and so thin
that the tracing of the veins was like gossamer. My horror, therefore,
can be imagined when I found, on the ensuing morning, that a squash-bug
had fallen upon my tender nursling and eaten the leaf all up.
I killed that bug. He endeavored to slip into the earth, but I slew him
without remorse. He was not an ugly bug in outward appearance;
entomologists might even have called him handsome; his colors were a
mixture of gilt and black, but his beauty was no protection. The next
day another delicate leaf rewarded my protection, but the following
morning another squash-bug devoured it; he met the fate of his
predecessor; but, when a third leaf was disposed of in the same way, the
result began to be doubtful; the question was arising, which would give
out first, the squash-bugs or the leaves? Having heard that wood-ashes
was good to drive away bugs, I was about applying a dose, when Patrick
assured me that they would “scorch such a little mite of a thing all
up;” and, as I had already discovered that no reliance could be placed
on tobacco, I was nearly at what ladies call their “wits’
end”--whichever end that may be, when Weeville again came to the rescue.
“Squash-bugs!” he said; “there is no need of ever being troubled by
them. Nature always has a remedy for all Nature’s ills, if we only look
for it. Onions, my boy, are the thing. Does a squash-bug ever eat an
onion? No, sir. Then make him eat it, and see how it agrees with him. I
used to be bothered with them among my cucumber-vines till I put a few
onions in each hill. No more bugs now. I never lose a leaf--not a single
leaf. When you plant gourds next time, put in a few onion-seeds at the
same time, and you will have no trouble. The smell does it.”
This was very fine for the future, but I wanted to save my Hercules’
Club for the present; so I thought to myself that if onions would answer
when grown in the vicinity, why would they not answer if removed to the
place, and kept renewed from time to time? There was no scarcity of
onions, and if we did not use them in this way, it was doubtful whether
they would be used at all, so I immediately gathered a quantity, and
built a breastwork of bulbs and stalks round my little pets. At this
time the sprouts were bare, having been stripped by our remorseless
enemies; but next morning still another leaf put forward its claim to
recognition--somewhat weaker, perhaps, than the earlier ones, but still
a leaf. By sundown it was fully developed, and my anxiety can be
imagined to learn its fate next day. I was up and dressed by sunrise,
and, to my great delight, found the leaf there and no squash-bug.
The victory was won. The fatal _chevaux-de-frise_ was renewed daily, and
proved itself an effectual barrier to the foe. One leaf followed
another; they increased in size; the stalk mounted a few inches, and was
secured to a stake. This appeared to be the turning-point of the plant’s
existence. It suddenly began to grow, and, having exhibited its
feebleness in infancy, now commenced to show its strength. In one night
it grew a foot, and up it rushed, in a few days, to the top of the
stake. There were three plants in all, not far apart, and they had soon
climbed as high as they could on their supports. Huge broad leaves, as
large as a straw hat, made their appearance. Fresh stakes had to be
inserted, and then, when these were covered, which happened in a few
days, still larger ones were substituted. My skill had been tested in
inducing the wonderful plant to grow, and I was not to be outdone now.
Hoops were arranged from post to post like a single section of an arbor;
cross-pieces were added, and still the plant outran them. I was becoming
weak, and, having beaten Jonah, was trying a match with Jack of the
famous “Beanstalk,” with heavy odds in my own opinion that I should win.
It was still early summer, and where my gourds would end ere the season
was over seemed doubtful.
Unfortunately, at this stage of the contest there came up a storm of
wind and rain. This was a contingency that had not entered my mind. My
supports were frail, my lashings insecure; in an instant the whole
structure was leveled to the ground. Without waiting to tear my
garments, as I should have done if I had been Jonah, I rushed bareheaded
into the storm, fearing that an hour’s delay would give the gourd a
start never to be overcome, and again raised my frame-work and secured
it more firmly. Still the gourd grew. I led strings in all directions,
but, not satisfied with these, it spread over the ground, covered my
small plants, crawled up the neighboring bushes and trees, crept out
into the paths, and threatened to occupy the entire garden. I was still
bravely contending against the inevitable, when destruction in the
shape of another storm came upon me in the night, and the following
morning found my labors again stretched upon the ground.
This proved too much for me, and, giving in at once, I called Patrick to
do what he could under the circumstances. He straightway sunk two stout
posts and braced them with guys in every direction, and then we let the
Clubs--of which these certainly seemed to be the kings--follow their own
fancy and grow till they should be tired. Being in a conspicuous part of
the garden--in fact, pretty thoroughly hiding the smaller flowers--our
friends had been deeply interested, and, never having seen the vine
before, wondered what kind of fruit it bore. It had produced abundance
of white flowers, in shape somewhat like the yellow blossoms of the
squash, but they fell off, “leaving not a wrack behind,” nor any fruit.
I could not find that Jonah’s gourd, or the beanstalk of my friend Jack,
had produced fruit or left seed, and began to think that mine was an
exceptional production of a similar character, that could only be raised
by those who were great on gourds, or, as the Vulgate hath it, “some
pumpkins.” If Jack’s stalk had produced beans, we should have known
those beans; if Jonah’s gourd had borne seed, we should have found them
at the seed-stores to this day.
My anxiety was greatly relieved, therefore, when at last something that
was evidently intended for fruit made its appearance. It was almost of
the size and shape of a small lead-pencil, and closely resembled a long
green worm. This remarkable fruit--only odder, if any thing, than the
parent that bore it--after the same hesitancy and dilatoriness,
commenced to grow in the same mad way. It was soon as thick as your
finger, then as your wrist, then as your arm, and considerably longer
than the latter; and, ere it gave up, became as large round and longer
than a small man’s leg. Hercules, even, would have been bothered to
manage such a club.
It bore seeds, but I destroyed them. My squashes were ahead of all in
Flushing. My pumpkins ran for hundreds of feet, climbed the bean-poles,
and bore a large fruit on top, one specimen being huge enough to have
furnished Peter Piper’s wife with a comfortable apartment. My ordinary
round gourds attained the size of a child’s head; and if I produced such
a result as I have described from my first year’s attempt with the
Hercules’ Club, I was not prepared to take the consequences of a second
or third effort.
It was better to allow such a plant to disappear; the discovery of new
species of flowers and vegetables is creditable so long as they are
either handsome or useful, but to get the reputation of being the man
who originated a wonderful gourd, to go down to posterity celebrated for
this alone, to be spoken of in horticultural works as the gourd-man, was
too terrible a fate. Moreover, there was some danger in renewing such an
experiment; on the second trial the wonderful plant might have spread
all over the neighborhood, climbed upon crops, strangled trees,
surmounted houses, and invaded the village in such a way as to make me
liable for damages for trespass. There are some things which a man does
too well to do often; growing gourds was evidently one of those with me,
and I determined never to be led into such an undertaking again.
To counterbalance this wonderful success, it is necessary to record a
remarkable failure. “Variety is the spice of life.” It is this variety
which gives agricultural pursuits their principal zest; no two attempts
in planting bring about the same results. There may be the same
circumstances of time, place, and weather, but the conclusion will be
altogether dissimilar. All honest farmers must confess--and farmers are,
like lawyers, without exception, upright and truthful--that the return
from no two years has been alike. One year the potatoes fail, another
leaves us without corn, a third is too much for the wheat; then the
fruit rots, or the turnips will not grow, or the sweet potatoes run
entirely to vine, or the oats to straw. Something never comes out right,
or does what was expected of it, and often behaves in a shabby manner.
Of coarse, my horticulture could be no exception, but the eccentricities
of Flushing soil are rather extravagant, although the editor of the
_Agriculturist_ lives in the neighborhood, and does all he can to keep
it in order. I have mentioned some peculiarities of my hot-house
experience. I will give certain facts, quite as strange, relative to
out-of-door gardening.
There were some hardy perennials which I had raised with great care, and
among them a fine specimen of crimson flax, or what I had satisfied
myself was crimson flax. My seeds had fallen into a little confusion in
consequence of the names getting washed off the labels by the rains;
but, as the plant bore a crimson flower, and did not resemble any thing
else in particular, I had made up my mind it was crimson flax; if it
were not, there must have been a defect in Thorburn’s seeds, which is
not to be presumed, for nothing else of that description came up.
Perennials are not generally satisfactory during their first season;
they make a poor growth of it, showing a feebleness that is extremely
painful to a fond and devoted gardener. They are not easily
distinguished from weeds at best, and, as they grow far slower than the
latter, are often lost entirely among them. For this reason I was
especially proud of my crimson flax. It grew thriftily, spread into a
good-sized bush, and covered itself with delicate flowers.
This had occurred during the previous season, and when fall came I was
careful to mark the spot where it was with several large stakes, in
order to warn Patrick against digging it up. Patrick was rather an
enthusiast with a spade, and somewhat zealous in weeding; he was fond of
digging up the garden to “meliorate” it, as he expressed the idea, and
to prepare it for spring planting; and if he had not the flowers very
distinctly and plainly marked, he would, in the excitement of the
operation, dig them up ruthlessly. So also, in weeding, he had to be
warned and watched, for more than once was my blood frozen with horror
at beholding Patrick weeding up a valuable plant, and twice he weeded
all the young sprouts off a flowering shrub so effectually that the
shrub never recovered from the shock. With this fear before my eyes, and
a question about the perfect reliability of my own memory, I marked the
spot where my crimson flax was located with great care, surrounding it
on all sides with stakes plainly lettered. Thus fortified, I waited
confidently till the winter should be over, having put my own weaknesses
and Patrick’s at defiance.
True to my confident expectations, with the first few warm suns my
crimson flax reappeared amid its palisade of stakes. It grew far more
strongly than before, spreading rapidly into a large bush, and requiring
the assistance of supports and strings to keep it in shape. There was an
odd singularity about it, however, which struck me as remarkable. The
leaf seemed different from what it had been before--it was longer and
narrower; but this probably was one of those changes which perennials
undergo ere they get firmly established, and, among the many curious
things I had experienced, did not surprise me particularly. The plant
was on the exact place where it had been the year previous; it was
growing luxuriantly, and bid fair to be a magnificent ornament to the
garden, for it had a prominent situation. I did not boast of it,
however. Boasting is not natural to me. I did not even call Weeville’s
attention to it. He had disappointed me so often that I resolved he
should be disappointed himself. I was determined to say nothing until it
should be covered with its crimson gems.
It grew remarkably. If it had done well the previous year, it bid fair
to surpass itself this season. As its time for flowering approached I
became quite nervous and excited. Slowly the buds formed, being almost
innumerable, and covering each spray; they filled and distended, and
finally burst. But what was my astonishment when I discovered that they
had changed their color. Instead of the rich crimson flowers that were
expected, I found the bush one morning covered with strange-looking
blossoms of a dull yellow. The most remarkable transformation ever known
had taken place--crimson flax had lost its natural hue under careful
cultivation, and assumed the appearance of a cross between an orange
blossom and a dandelion; if any thing, it was rather more like the
dandelion. It was no longer crimson--had, in fact, no shade of crimson.
It was a pure yellow, and not altogether a handsome one. To describe the
disgust that this unexpected change wrought in my usually placid temper
is impossible. I began to hate that plant. The more it blossomed the
more furious I felt, until finally, when it had covered itself with
these wretched straw-colored abortions, my feelings overcame me, and I
pulled it up by the roots.
This burst of passion has caused me much regret. By a moment’s
indulgence of anger I destroyed the chance of raising a new species of
plant, a changeable crimson flax--crimson one year and yellow the next.
Weeville, when subsequently informed of my indiscretion, attempted to
console me by endeavoring to make out that it was a weed which had
smothered the original flower. He even doubted whether there ever had
been any crimson flax in my garden, and pretended dissatisfaction with
my description of that plant. He said he was not aware that crimson flax
was a perennial, and thought that the designation in the catalogue was
an error, ridiculous as such a supposition was to my mind. He undertook
to show me numerous weeds by the road-side--for weeds are quite abundant
in Flushing--which bore yellow blossoms, and which he felt confident
were the same as the one I had raised. They did resemble it in many
points; but, as I had marked my plant carefully, had seen it blossom the
year previous, and knew whereof I spoke, I utterly disdained his
explanation. I must still feel that the loss of my new flax was serious,
and must regret the outburst that led to it. Even a flower convertible
into a weed, or changing biennially from one to the other, would be rare
and curious.
Moreover, although we did raise several garden weeds, this was like
none of them. They were most deceptive things, and imitated the
appearance of plants wonderfully. One grew quite tall, and seemed to be
on the point of flowering all the while, but never did so. Another
spread into quite a large tuft, something between a daisy and a violet,
and imposed upon Patrick, even, so thoroughly that he never dug it up in
a single instance, notwithstanding his readiness to extirpate whatever
was of doubtful authenticity. It spread rapidly, until it was quite a
labor to pull it up. Another of these troublesome members of the
vegetable kingdom attained almost the dimensions of a shrub, and had a
thick, solid stalk, and actually flowered; but the blossoms were the
minutest things possible, and bore a ludicrous disproportion with the
size of the bush; while the snap-dragon obtained a hold in the beds
which it is probable I never shall eradicate, by an error of
appreciation continued through a few months. In fact, the weeds
performed such strange antics, and behaved in so unexpected a way, that
the question arose in my mind as to what was a weed. The author of “Ten
Acres Enough” says that it is a flower out of place. The latter half of
his explanation may be well enough; but as to its being a flower, most
of those that came up in my garden had no flowers whatever. Without
entering too far upon a religious disquisition, it may do merely to
suggest that it struck me that weeds were original sin, springing up to
trouble us every where, and calling for that sweat of the brow which is
ordained as the lot of the human kind for the first great crime of
Mother Eve.
The nature of weeds is exceedingly perverse. They seem to have been sent
to torment man, sprouting up continually without apparently ever
becoming exhausted, causing an immense deal of unnecessary annoyance. As
an evidence of their innate perversity, it is only necessary to refer to
the manner in which they behaved toward my _portulaca splendens_. This
showy plant had been thriving admirably, and as its seeds, when allowed
to sow themselves, naturally reappear in augmented splendor the
following year, I had founded great expectations upon the anticipated
result. It is true that the portulaca did sow itself, and did come up
finely the present spring; but, unfortunately, weeds come up without any
sowing. They originate or “come of themselves,” as my brother farmers
lucidly express it, and they appeared with the portulaca, and grew twice
as rapidly.
The end of it was, that, although the flower was there, and even
matured, it was hidden so effectually that there was no way of getting
a sight at a blossom except by pulling up a yard square of weeds. My
conclusion from this--and valuable it is to the cause of
agriculture--was that our scientific men had not paid sufficient
attention to weeds; that they had taught us how to make things grow, but
had not told us how to prevent their growing; that an anti-fertilizer
was more important than a fertilizer. There is twice as much labor
expended in rooting weeds out as in putting vegetables in. We have our
phosphates and superphosphates, our guano, marl, bone-dust, lime, and a
dozen other species of manures, but not a single invention to prevent
undesirable growth. The present necessity is a drug or acid, or some
sort of medicament, that will kill all the weeds and the germs of weeds
in the ground, but which will soon lose its power, so that the ground
will perform its proper functions when seed is planted. Until this
discovery is made, farming will be laborious, and I hope our learned men
will devote their attention to it promptly. I shall only claim the honor
of originating the idea, and leave the entire profits to the inventor.