CHAPTER IX
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.