SPRING
I don’t think a winter, in our town, ever passed more quickly or
more pleasantly than this winter. The months flew by like weeks and
the weeks like days. When the first warm melting days came in late
April everyone began to get impatient. It seemed as though the snow
would never leave the ground, and many didn’t wait for this before
plotting out their crops and digging up samples of soil to send to the
agricultural school. Seeds were bought and tested and farming tools
brought out and put in order.
It’s good to be in the country in the spring. It was my first
experience and the change took place like a miracle. I saw trees that
looked as dead as fence posts start to life with the stirring sap; I
saw little green grass blades appear among the brown waste of dead
blades; I saw all manner of living things awake and creep out of their
winter hiding places until the earth looked almost as though the
resurrection trumpet had blown.
Spring means a great deal more to us farmers than it does to city
folk. She comes like a partner returning from a winter vacation, takes
down the shutters, sweeps the store clean and stands at the door ready
for business. She comes with unlimited capital which is furnished
everyone for the asking. If men will have none of it even then she does
not stand idle, but for the sake of the housewives and the children
proceeds on her own hook to make the world as beautiful as possible;
sprinkles the trees with blossoms and perfume, scatters the ground with
flowers, sweetens the air with song. You can’t escape her bounty if you
will. This year, however, she couldn’t complain of lack of coöperation.
Hardly had the frost fairly left the ground when there was an
unprecedented demand in our town for horses and plows. There were
not enough to go around. I let Hadley go in order to take the many
jobs that were offered him, but with every plow and horse in the
neighborhood in use I saw much land that would be late for seed. If
tangible evidence was needed of what the Pioneer Club had already
accomplished it was in this state of affairs. There had been no
difficulty the year before. One Sunday Holt and I scoured the
surrounding towns for men and horses and secured six teams on the
promise of at least a week’s work for each. They were willing enough
to come, even though in doing so they neglected their own work. It was
the old story of their being willing for five dollars a day cash in
hand to jeopardize a future ten. However, that was their own lookout
and I quieted my conscience with the thought that if we made as good as
we hoped to do the influence of this would spread to the neighboring
towns. They were mighty curious as to what was going on.
“What’s got into you people, anyhow?” asked one man.
“We’re getting ready for the planting,” I said.
“Well, something must have happened to make you so all-fired busy down
your way,” one of them answered. Even among neighboring towns our
village had a bad reputation.
I told him about the Pioneer Club and the prizes that were being
offered. The amount made his eyes stick out.
“Gee,” he answered, “guess I’ll have to move down.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Come and bring your family.”
We certainly did look like a busy community. Drive along the roads in
any direction and you’d see acre after acre of upturned land. The smell
of new earth was in the air and it was like tonic even to the passerby.
During this busy preparatory season Holt kept his law office open
evenings and it came to be a sort of club room. I planned to stay down
there every evening until eleven and the two of us tried to straighten
out the difficulties that arose. One of these was seeing to it that
every man who showed himself to be in earnest had a proper supply
of material with which to start his crop. We made arrangements with
Moulton and with Gordon the hardware man to extend reasonable credit to
everyone even in cases where credit had been withdrawn. Our argument
that it was wiser to help a man get on his feet than keep him down was
sound on the face of it.
“These fellows mean business now,” I said to Gordon, “and if we go on
half as well as we’ve begun there won’t be a man in this village who
within a couple of years won’t be able to pay his bills. It’s up to you
to do your part. Their success is your success. Give them credit for
everything but patent medicines and you won’t lose.”
While it was true that in doing this Gordon was choosing the lesser of
two evils I realized that it wasn’t exactly fair either to force him
and a few other merchants to bear the burden of financing these men
without interest. But the small farmer is in a bad position. When the
commercial business house needs money it can go to a bank and upon a
statement of its business and its rating obtain money and credit on
its signature. A small farmer has no business rating and can get money
only upon a mortgage at six per cent., which is almost prohibitive. Of
course the banks can’t be blamed for treating with individuals in this
way but it struck me that something might be done about this if ever
we got the community as a whole firmly bound together. The combined
security of all the land and business in the village ought to mean
something to a bank.
In the meantime I was not neglecting my own land. I realized that there
wasn’t much use in preaching the profits of farming unless I at least
made the attempt to demonstrate it on my own acres. While on the one
hand I was handicapped by lack of practical training, it struck me that
this would make the experiment all the more interesting as showing what
could be done by a man who availed himself of the knowledge of others,
which, through the government bureaus and the State Agricultural
School, was freely offered to everyone.
Before this series of lectures I don’t believe any human being ever
knew less about farming than I did. I hadn’t spent even my vacations
on a farm. I couldn’t tell wheat in the field from oats. I couldn’t
tell a squash from a pumpkin. I didn’t know anything about soils, about
seeds, about fertilizers, about cultivation. My mind was a blank on
the subject, which at least had the advantage of making me free of
prejudices.
I don’t mean to say that even after the superficial course of lectures
to which I listened this winter that I felt myself an authority on
the subject. I didn’t. But on the other hand everything that was said
sounded so much like just plain common sense that I didn’t see why
any fairly intelligent man couldn’t put the theories into practice,
especially when he had the Agricultural School back of him, ready and
eager to give further advice.
Take for example the matter of orchards. I found on my place some
seventy-five apple trees all cluttered up with dead limbs. It didn’t
require a farmer to realize that any tree was handicapped by such a
burden. I took a saw and cut out all this dead wood and a little later,
when the shoots had started, trimmed off all those which obviously were
useless. Then, still following out instructions, I scraped the bark on
the trunks and whitewashed them. This was no more than common sense
grooming, such as one would give live stock. Then, I girdled the trunks
with burlap to prevent insects from crawling up to the young leaves.
After this, I spaded up around the roots so that air and water and
sunshine could get in. Until now the dead sod had matted down into a
covering that was about as impervious to air and moisture as a rubber
blanket.
Hadley watched me with cynical indifference. To him it seemed as
foolish to bestow all this care upon gnarled old apple trees as it
would to give the same attention to a full grown man that a woman
bestows upon an infant. He believed that a tree would grow anyway and
was outside the province of farming.
“Only wastin’ your time,” he said. “Them trees won’t never do nothin’.”
Perhaps not, but I felt more than repaid in seeing the orchard look
shipshape instead of like a neglected cemetery.
Earlier in the season I had taken samples from a five-acre strip of
damp, low-lying land at the foot of the hill which was fairly well
drained, and sent them to the school for analysis. I received a
report advising me to plant potatoes there and a formula for the best
fertilizer to use. Here again it didn’t take a man bred on a farm to
carry out the simple instructions. I had the field plowed as soon
as the frost was out of the ground, applied my fertilizer of acid
phosphate, kainit and nitrate of soda--so many pounds to the acre--and
harrowed it in. It didn’t require even ordinary intelligence to have
this done or to purchase Early Norwood, New Queen and Green Mountain
seed and plant them in rows three feet apart and in sets fifteen inches
apart. Hadley and I did the work--work that any day laborer was capable
of doing. I reserved a small strip for the planting of Early Horn
carrots, Market Model parsnips, Edmand’s beets and Early Milan turnips.
These names didn’t mean anything to me, and I didn’t care if they
didn’t. Before the end of the season, however, I wished I had reserved an
even larger strip for these things. I never ate such vegetables in my
life.
I plowed up about an acre back of the barn for the garden and emptied
upon this the manure from the cow barn, working it in well. Then I
harrowed the ground until it was pulverized almost as fine as dust.
According to the Professor not half time enough is devoted by the
average New England farmer to the preparation of the soil for his seed.
Oftentimes he is content with a shallow plowing and a single harrowing.
I noticed that Dardoni and Tony, however, knew by instinct enough to
work their soil thoroughly. They depended a great deal on hand labor,
because for one reason they could secure help cheap. Newcomers were
glad enough to work for them for the experience, and the chance it gave
them to look around for places of their own. However, the result was
the same and they did their work thoroughly. I planted about one-fourth
of this garden to peas in successive sowings. Here was another
simple and obvious advantage which I found my neighbors until now had
neglected. They sowed perhaps an early and late crop of peas and corn
but it never occurred to them to make three or four plantings and many
of them didn’t even make two. When peas and corn were ripe everyone
had peas and corn but in the intervals no one except Dardoni and his
fellows had them at all. They were therefore either scarce or a drug on
the market. Under advice I used Suttons, with a few Dwarf Champions.
Another quarter of the garden I planted to beans--some string
beans--Plentifuls and Valenties--some wax and Lima beans and a large
patch of white pea beans for winter.
Another quarter of the patch I put into sweet corn, using for the early
varieties Early Cory and Peep o’ Day; for medium earlies Crosby, and
for late corn Country Gentleman. Among these I put in a few squash
seeds, Crooknecks and Hubbards.
The last quarter I used for cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes and small
stuff, such as lettuce, pepper grass, radishes, Swiss chard, and beets.
Now to get all this done within the space of a few weeks required
hard work. I was up at half past four and in the field by half past
five. With an hour out at noon I was in the field steadily until six
o’clock. Then I ate supper and was in bed by eight-thirty so dog-tired
I could hardly get undressed. And yet I woke up at daylight the next
morning completely rested and eager to be at it again. This was the
kind of hard work that leaves no after effects. I continued to employ
Hadley, but without boasting I honestly believe I accomplished each day
four times as much as he did. I didn’t do this by unusual exertion,
but merely by keeping steadily at it and planning the work in a
business-like way. In my thought I kept one step ahead of my hands
while he always kept one step behind and had to wait for his head to
catch up with him.
I never felt more alert in body and mind than I did this spring. I was
used to physical labor, but I found myself responding with even greater
vigor now than when I was younger and digging for the subway as a day
laborer. For one thing I had none of the mental strain with which I was
burdened then. Of course I was in a far better position financially and
everything was going well with my own. Dick was making good and the
kiddies were as rosy and plump as fall apples. Ruth, too, was happier
than I had ever seen her, so that while I took this new work seriously
it was with a light-hearted seriousness that added to the zest of life.
In the meantime we were holding a meeting of the Pioneers every two
weeks in order that interest might not flag, and to discuss any
difficulties that arose. These gatherings were informal, and as time
went on had the effect of binding us together into one big family.
Sometimes I spoke and sometimes Holt spoke, and twice we had a man
down from the school. So far as it was possible we tried to prod up
everyone’s pride. We told them that as descendants of the people who
founded this nation we had a certain responsibility of blood. We were
still the backbone of this nation, but this inheritance didn’t amount
to anything unless we lived up to it. We tried to impress everyone
with the fact that other pioneers were coming in (and they saw this
for themselves) and that if we meant to retain our title and position
it must be by proving ourselves worthy of it. We avoided carefully
anything which might stir up class hatred.
“The race is open to all,” said Holt. “It’s right that it should
be. A man wouldn’t have much of a horse race if he only allowed his
own horses to enter--horses he was sure of. A victory wouldn’t mean
anything. It would be like betting with yourself. It’s only in the
free-for-all that you get a real race and a real victory. We’ve made a
good start and now all we have to do is to sit tight and drive hard.”
Holt had a catchy way of talking and always succeeded in putting the
crowd into good humor and also in throwing a glamour of romance over
everything. We couldn’t have had a better man.
But as I said, the greatest good of these meetings came in the
community idea which was fostered. Associating here week after week
for a common purpose we began to feel friendly and intimate with
one another. Farmers are naturally an independent lot and the worse
farmers they are the more independent they are apt to be. Lack of
success instead of humbling them makes them even cockier, as it does
for that matter with people in any walk of life who have any backbone.
They find plenty of excuse for their failure outside themselves.
Newspapers and muckraking magazine articles and politicians furnish
them with arguments enough to explain how they are being robbed and
abused. These things sink in deep among farmers when they sink in at
all, because they have time to think them over and digest them. But it
sinks into them as individuals and not as a body. The result is that
not only do they become suspicious of the outside world but suspicious
of one another. It makes them even more pronounced separate units.
Up to a certain point this is not only a good thing but the best
possible thing. It has preserved their individuality. Organization
after organization has tried to herd them together and reduce them
to a mere class so as to drive them in one direction for their own
selfish ends, but happily without result. They won’t be driven. Even
the organizations which have had a less sordid interest in the task
have failed to hold them together for any length of time, which in my
opinion has saved them from being swallowed up.
But this independence is carried to extremes in the smaller communities
and it was so in our town. Every man was suspicious of his neighbor.
Though engaged in the same work and with many interests in common every
man felt himself a competitor, not with the outside world, but with
his nearest neighbor. They wouldn’t pull together on anything.
We didn’t overcome this feeling in a minute but we did accomplish a lot
towards it even during this first summer. In a way this prize system
might be expected to increase individual competition, but even to the
end of winning the prizes we forced everyone to work together which
more than made up.
It wasn’t long before we all of us realized that we had opened up a
field even larger than any of us had dreamed. When we saw almost two
hundred acres spring to life as a result of our initial effort; as we
saw front dooryards blossom with flower gardens and back dooryards
become alive with truck gardens; as we saw orchard after orchard, which
until now had been about as sightly as a patch of dead hemlocks, step
forth trim and neat and full, not of dead hopes, but of big promise; as
we noted the absence of village loafers and grocery store hangers-on,
we caught an inkling of what a power we had set in motion. And the
joy of it came in the realization that this was no new and imported
power, but native energy which all the while had been here latent.
These acres, this labor which had been lying idle, was now waking
up. It represented thousands of dollars when aroused and only so
many cents when dormant. A man couldn’t have come in here and bought
this plant--houses, barns, fields, stock, men, for much less than a
million dollars at any time, and yet it hadn’t been worth to those who
possessed it what it was taxed. Quick with life as it was now it was
coming to its own.