“Half the plot,” I said.
“Why, Mr. Durham, that’s a big plantin’ for pertaters.”
“Well, I’ve a plan, and would like your opinion. If I put Early Rose potatoes right in, when can I harvest them?”
“Say the last of July or early August, accordin’ to the season.”
“If we keep the ground clean and well worked the sod will then be decayed, won’t it?”
“Yes, nigh enough. Ye want to grow turnips or fodder corn, I s’pose?”
“No, I want to set out strawberries. I’ve read more about this fruit than any other, and, if the books are right, I can set strong plants on enriched ground early in August and get a good crop next June. Won’t this pay better than planting next spring and waiting over two years from this time for a crop?”
“Of course it will, if you’re right. I ain’t up on strawberries.”
“Well,” I continued, “it looks reasonable. I shall have my young plants growing right here in my own garden. Merton and I can take them up in the cool of the evening and in wet weather, and they won’t know they’ve been moved. I propose to get these early potatoes out of the ground as soon as possible, even if I have to sell part of them before they are fully ripe; then have the ground plowed deep and marked out for strawberries, put all the fertilizers I can scrape together in the rows and set the plants as fast as possible. I’ve read again and again that many growers regard this method as one of the best.”
“Well, you’re comin’ on for a beginner. I’m kind o’ shy of book plans, though. But try it. I’ll come over, as I used to when old man Jamison was here, and sit on the fence and make remarks.”
Planting an acre of potatoes was no light task for us, even after the ground was plowed and harrowed, and the furrows for the rows were marked out. I also had to make a half day’s journey to the city of Newtown to buy more seed, since the children’s appetites had greatly reduced the stock in the root cellar. For a few days we worked like beavers. Even Winnie helped Merton to drop the seed; and in the evening we had regular potato-cutting “bees,” Junior coming over to aid us, and my wife and Mousie helping also. Songs and stories enlivened these evening hours of labor. Indeed, my wife and Mousie performed, during the day, a large part of this task, and they soon learned to cut the tubers skilfully. I have since known this work to be done so carelessly that some pieces were cut without a single eye upon them. Of course, in such cases there is nothing to grow.
One Saturday night, the last of April, we exulted over the fact that our acre was planted and the seed well covered.
Many of the trees about the house, meantime, had clothed themselves with fragrant promises of fruit. All, especially Mousie, had been observant of the beautiful changes, and, busy as we had been, she, Winnie and Bobsey had been given time to keep our table well supplied with wildflowers. Now that they had come in abundance, they seemed as essential as our daily food. To a limited extent I permitted blooming sprays to be taken from the fruit trees, thinking, with Mousie, that “cherry blossoms are almost as nice as cherries.” Thus Nature graced our frugal board, and suggested that, as she accompanied her useful work with beauty and fragrance, so we also could lift our toilsome lives above the coarse and sordid phase too common in country homes.
XXVIII
Corn, Color, and Music
In early May the grass was growing lush and strong, and Brindle was driven down the lane to the meadow, full of thickets, which bordered on the creek. Here she could supply herself with food and water until the late autumn.
With the first days of the month we planted, on a part of the garden slope, where the soil was dry and warm, very early, dwarf sweet corn, a second early variety, Burr’s Mammoth, and Stowell’s Evergreen.
“These several kinds,” I said, “will give us a succession of boiling ears for weeks together. When this planting is up a few inches high, we will make another, for, by so doing, my garden book says we may have this delicious vegetable till frost comes.”
After reading and some inquiry during the winter I had decided to buy only McLean’s Gem peas for seed. This low-growing kind required no brush and, therefore, far less labor. By putting in a row every ten days till the last of June, we should enjoy green peas of the sweet, wrinkled sort till tired, if that were possible. We also planted early dwarf wax beans, covering the seed, as directed, only two inches deep. It was my ambition to raise a large crop of lima beans, having read that few vegetables yield more food to a small area than they. So, armed with an axe and a hatchet, Merton and I went into some young growth on the edge of our wood lot and cut thirty poles, lopping off the branches so as to leave little crotches on which the vines could rest for support. Having sharpened these poles we set them firmly in the garden, four feet apart each way, then dug in some very fine and decayed manure around each pole, and left the soil for a day or two to grow warm and light. My book said that, if the earth was cold, wet, or heavy the beans would decay instead of coming up. The 10th of the month being fine and promising, I pressed the eye or germ side of the beans into the soil and covered them only
