The Better Days Books · The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide to Dry Farming: A Complete System for Achieving Bountiful Harvests Where Rain is Scarce, and Without Irrigation, by

The Better Days Books

Complete Origiganic Grower

Grow More and Better Food Naturally

Using "Origiganic" Old World Methods

Five Classic Growing Guides Complete In One Volume:

__________

The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide to Improving Your Soil, by Alva Agee

Home Vegetable Gardening: A Complete and Practical Guide to the Planting and Care of All Vegetables, Fruits and Berries Worth Growing For

Home Use, by F. F. Rockwell

The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide to Dry Farming: A Complete System for Achieving Bountiful Harvests Where Rain is Scarce, and Without Irrigation, by John A. Widtsoe

The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide to Growing Cabbages And Cauliflowers, by James J. H. Gregory

The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide to Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation, Harvesting, Curing and Uses, by M. G. Kains

The Better Days Books Complete Origiganic Grower is

Copyright © 2010 by Better Days Books.

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Better Days Books (Editor)

The Better Days Books Complete Origiganic Grower/by Better

Days Books (Editor)

–Better Days Books EPub Format Universal eBook Reader

Edition

1. Gardening. 2. Organic Gardening. 3. Organic Farming 4. Soil

Improvement. 5. Vegetable Gardening 6. Irrigation. 7. Drought

8. Herb Gardening.9. Title

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE:

WHAT IS "ORIGIGANIC" GARDENING?

Organic foods have become all the rage in supermarkets

across America, as health conscious and environmentally-

concerned consumers compete to pay top dollar for produce that

has been grown without the use of toxic pesticides or dangerous

chemical fertilizers.Savvy backyard gardeners, who seek to

grow their own healthy produce, study modern organic growing

methods and wind up spending huge sums of money on a

plethora of commercially available "garden-safe" products that,

all too often, fail to fulfill their expensive promises.Others

invest great quantities of time and labor "reinventing the wheel"

of organic agriculture, trying "a bit of this" and "a bit of that"

gleaned from books and magazine articles on the subject, taking

a pioneering, but not necessarily productive piecemeal or

experimental approach that can end in frustration and

disappointing yields. Those who succeed against the odds in

producing a bumper crop of fresh, organic produce find, when

their surplus reaches the marketplace through the vehicle of

specialty restaurants, local grocers or good, old fashioned

tailgate farmer's markets,that a tangle of Bureaucratic regulation

forbids them from actually labeling their product "organic," for

lack of official government inspections and licensing of their

land (the word "organic" has a very specific legaldefinition

under Federal Department of Agriculture rules, and growers can

be punished for using the term without official

sanction).Shoppers flock to purchase the larger, shinier "poison-

packed" produce in the next stall over, and there's nothing the

grower can say or do about it…

Until now, that is."Origiganic" is a new word we have coined

here at Better Days Books to describe time-tested and reliable

"original" methods of growing food naturally in our backyards,

gardens and even on full scale farms.While chemically-

processed ammonia-synthesis fertilizers have been applied to

fields in America since at least the 1920s, it has been only since

the 1960s that dangerous petroleum-based fertilizers and

pesticides have been in widespread use.So any serious

gardening or farming "how to" treatise published prior to 1960

will, quite "naturally," exclude their use.The old-fashioned,

"original" method, it turns out (as is so often the case), is simply

a better, healthier, safer, and even generally less expensive way

to produce bounties of fabulous, poison-free food – for our

families, and for the marketplace.At Better Days Books, we call

food grown according to these original, Old World methods

"Origiganic." It's a fun word to say, it looks a lot like "Organic,"

and you can paint it on your signs and print it on food labels

without interference from the government.

The volume you now hold in your hands is one in a series of

Origiganic Gardening books published by Better Days Books,

aimed at preserving and spreading knowledge of pre-1960s

gardening methods.Each title is filled with valuable information

that will transform the way you look at the process of growing

food, regardless of the scale of your operation. Do please note,

however, that not all Old World gardening methods are 100%

safe or environmentally sound (one example being the use of a

"kerosene emulsion" to control pests, which was common

practice in the 1800s, and which appears in many classic

gardening books of the era). We ask that you use good common

sense and wise discernment in your choice of origiganic

growing techniques to resurrect for application to your own

rows, plots or fields, and which to leave safely at rest in the

historical record.

You can view the complete Better Days Books catalog of these

and other quality vintage reprint titles at BetterDaysBooks.com.

BOOK ONE:

The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide to

Improving Your Soil

By Alva Agee

Originally Published in 1912 Under the Title Crops and Methods

for Soil Improvement By The Macmillan Company, New York.

CONTENTS

Chapter I :Introduction

In lieu of preface - Natural strength of land - Plant constituents -

Organic matter – Drainage – Lime -Crop-rotation – Fertilizers –

Tillage - Control of soil moisture

Chapter II: The Need of Lime

The unproductive farm - Soil acidity - The rational use of lime -

Where clover is not wanted - Determining lime requirement –

The litmus-paper test - A practical test - Duration of effect

Chapter III: Applying Lime

Forms of lime – Definitions - The kind to apply - The fineness

of limestone - Hydrated lime - Stone-lime – Ashes – Marl -

Magnesian lime - Amount per acre - Time of application

Chapter IV: Organic Matter

Office of organic matter - The legumes - Storing nitrogen -The

right bacteria - Soil inoculation - Method of inoculation

Chapter V: The Clovers

Red clover - Clover and acid soils - Methods of seeding -

Fertility value - Taking the crops off the land - Physical benefit

of the roots - Used as a green manure - When to turn down -

Mammoth clover - Alsike clover - Crimson clover

Chapter VI: Alfalfa

Adaptation to eastern needs - Fertility and feeding value -

Climate and soil - Free use of lime – Inoculation – Fertilization

- A clean seed-bed – Varieties -Clean seed - The seeding -

Seeding in August - Subsequent treatment

Chapter VII: Grass Sods

Value of sods - Prejudice against timothy - Object of sods -

Seeding with small grain - Seeding in rye - Good soil conditions

Chapter VIII: Grass Sods (Continued)

Seeding in late summer -Crops that may precede – Preparation -

The weed seed - Summer grasses - Sowing the seed - Deep

covering - Seed-mixtures

Chapter IX: Sods for Pastures

Permanent pastures - Seed-mixtures - Blue-grass – Timothy -

Red-top - Orchard grass - Other seeds - Yields and composition

of grasses - Suggested mixtures for pastures - Renewal of

permanent pastures - Destroying bushes - Close grazing

Chapter X: The Cowpea

A southern legume – Characteristics – Varieties - Fertilizing

value - Affecting physical condition – Planting – Inoculation –

Fertilizers - Harvesting with livestock - The cowpea for hay -

As a catch crop

Chapter XI: Other Legumes and Cereal Catch Crops

The soybean - Fertility value - Feeding value – Varieties - The

planting – Harvesting - The Canada pea – Vetch - Sweet clover

- Rye as a cover crop - When to plow down – Buckwheat – Oats

Chapter XII: Stable Manure

Livestock farming - The place for cattle - Sales off the farm -

The value of manure - The content of manure - Relative values -

Amount of manure - Analysis of manure

Chapter XIII: Care of Stable Manure

Common source of losses - Caring for liquid manure - Use of

preservatives - Spreading as made - The covered yard -

Harmless fermentation - Rotted manure – Composts - Poultry

manure

Chapter XIV: The Use of Stable Manure

Controlling factors - Direct use for corn - Effect upon moisture -

Manure on grass - Manure on potatoes - When to plow down -

Heavy applications - Reinforcement with minerals - Durability

of manure

Chapter XV: Crop-rotations

The farm scheme - Value of rotation - Selection of crops - An

old succession of crops - Corn two years - The oat crop - Two

crops of wheat - The clover and timothy - Two legumes in the

rotation - Potatoes after corn - A three-years' rotation - Grain

and clover - Potatoes and crimson clover

Chapter XVI: The Need of Commercial Fertilizers

Loss of plant-food - Prejudice against commercial fertilizers -

Are fertilizers stimulants? - Soil analysis - Physical analysis -

The use of nitrogen - Phosphoric-acid requirements - The need

of potash - Fertilizer tests - Variation in soil

Chapter XVII: Commercial Sources of Plant-food

Acquaintance with terms - Nitrate of soda - Sulphate of

ammonia - Dried blood – Tankage – Fish - Animal bone - Raw

bone - Steamed bone - Rock-phosphate - Acid phosphate -

Basic slag - Muriate of potash - Sulphate of potash – Kainit -

Wood-ashes - Other fertilizers – Salt - Coal-ashes – Muck –

Sawdust

Chapter XVIII: Purchasing Plant-food

Necessity of purchase - Fertilizer control - Brand names -

Statement of analysis - Valuation of fertilizers - A bit of

arithmetic - High-grade fertilizers

Chapter XIX: Home-mixing of Fertilizers - 125

The practice of home-mixing - Effectiveness of home-mixing -

Criticisms of home-mixing - The filler - Ingredients in the

mixture - Materials that should not be combined - Making a

good mixture - Buying unmixed materials

Chapter XX: Mixtures for Crops

Composition of plant not a guide - The multiplication of

formulas - A few combinations are safest - Amount of

application - Similarity of requirements - Maintaining fertility -

Fertilizer for grass - All the nitrogen from clover - Method of

applying fertilizers - An excess of nitrogen

Chapter XXI: Tillage

Desirable Physical Condition Of The Soil - The Breaking-Plow

- Types Of Plows – Subsoiling - Time Of Plowing - Method Of

Plowing - The Disk Harrow - Cultivation Of Plants -

Controlling Root-Growth - Elimination Of Competition -

Length Of Cultivation

Chapter XXII: Control of Soil Moisture

Value of water in the soil - The soil a reservoir - The land-roller

- The plank-drag - The mulch - Mulches of foreign material -

Plowing straw down - The summer-fallow - The modern fallow

Chapter XXIII: Drainage

Underdrainage - Counting the cost - Where returns are largest -

Material for the drains - The outlet - Locating main and

branches - The laterals - Size of tile - Kind of tile - The grade -

Establishing a grade - Cutting the trenches - Depth of trenches –

Connections - Permanency desired

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

In Lieu of Preface.—This book is not a technical treatise and

is designed only to point out the plain, every-day facts in the

natural scheme of making and keeping soils productive. It is

concerned with the crops, methods, and fertilizers that favor the

soil. The viewpoint, all the time, is that of the practical man

who wants cash compensation for the intelligent care he gives to

his land. The farming that leads into debt, and not in the

opposite direction, is poor farming, no matter how well the soil

may prosper under such treatment. The maintenance and

increase of soil fertility go hand in hand with permanent income

for the owner when the science that relates to farming is rightly

used. Experiment stations and practical farmers have developed

a dependable science within recent years, and there is no jarring

of observed facts when we get hold of the simple philosophy of

it all.

Natural Strength of Land.—Nearly all profitable farming in

this country is based upon the fundamental fact that our lands

are storehouses of fertility, and that this reserve of power is

essential to a successful agriculture. Most soils, no matter how

unproductive their condition today, have natural strength that

we take into account, either consciously or unconsciously. Some

good farm methods came into use thousands of years ago.

Experience led to their acceptance. They were adequate only

because there was natural strength in the land. Nature stored

plant-food in more or less inert form and, as availability has

been gained, plants have grown. Our dependence continues.

Plant Constituents.—There are a few technical terms whose

use cannot be evaded in the few chapters on the use of lime and

fertilizers. A plant will not come to maturity unless it can obtain

for its use combinations of ten chemical elements. Agricultural

land and the air provide all these elements. If they were in

abundance in available forms, there would be no serious soil

fertility problem. Some of their names may not interest us. Six

or seven of these elements are in such abundance that we do not

consider them. A farmer may say that when a dairy cow has

luxuriant blue-grass in June, and an abundance of pure water,

her wants are fully met. He omits mention of the air because it

is never lacking in the field. In the same way the land-owner

may forget the necessity of any kind of plant-food in the soil

except nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, and lime. Probably the

lime is very rarely deficient as a food for plants, and will be

considered later only as a means of making soils friendly to

plant life.

Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash are the three

substances that may not be in available form in sufficient

amount for a growing crop. The lack may be in all three, or in

any two, or in any one, of these plant constituents. The natural

strength of the soil includes the small percentage of these

materials that may be available, and the relatively large stores

that nature has placed in the land in inert form as a provision

against waste.

The thin covering of the earth that is known as the soil is

disintegrated rock, combined with organic matter. The original

rock "weathered," undergoing physical and chemical change. A

long period of time was required for this work, and for the

mixing and shifting from place to place that have occurred.

Organic matter has been a factor in the making of soils, and is in

high degree a controlling one in their production of food.

Organic Matter. Nature is resourceful and is constantly alert

to repair the wastes and mistakes of man. We may gain

fundamental truth about soil fertility through observance of her

methods in restoring land to a fertile condition. Our best success

comes only when we work with her. When a soil has been

robbed by man, and has been abandoned on account of inability

to produce a profitable crop, the first thing nature does is to

produce a growth of weeds, bushes, briers, or aught else of

which the soil chances to have the seeds. It is nature's effort to

restore some organic matter—some humus-making material—to

the nearly helpless land. Vegetable matter, rotting on and in the

soil, is the life-giving principle. It unlocks a bit of the great store

of inert mineral plant-food during its growth and its decay. It is

a solvent. The mulch it provides favors the holding of moisture

in the soil, and it promotes friendly bacterial action. The

productive power of most farming land is proportionate to the

amount of organic matter in it. The casual observer, passing by

farms, notes the presence or absence of humus-making material

by the color and structure of the soil, and safely infers

corresponding fertility or poverty. Organic matter is the life of

the soil.

A good crop for a poor soil.

A great percentage of the food consumed by Europe and the

Americas continues to come out of nature's own stores in the

soil, organic and inorganic, without any assistance by man

except in respect to selection of seeds, planting, and tillage. The

percentage grows less as the store of original supplies grows

less and population increases. Our science has broadened as the

need has grown greater. We have relatively few acres remaining

in the United States that do not require intelligent treatment to

insure an adequate supply of available plant-food. The total area

that has fallen below the line of profitable productiveness is

large. Other areas that never were highly productive must

supplement the lands originally fertile in order that human needs

may be met.

When soils have been robbed through the greed of man,

nature is handicapped in her effort to restore fertility by the

absence of the best seeds. Man's intelligent assistance is a

necessity. Successful farming involves such assistance of nature

that the percentage of vegetable matter in the soil shall be made

high and kept high. There must be such selection of plants for

this purpose that the organic matter will be rich in fertility, and

at the same time their growth must fit into a scheme of crop

production that can yield profit to the farmer. Soils produce

plants primarily for their own needs. It is a provision of nature

to maintain and increase their productive power. The land's

share of its products is that part which is necessary to this

purpose. Skill in farming provides for this demand of the soil

while permitting the removal of a large amount of animal food

within the crop-rotation. Lack of skill is responsible for the

depleted condition of soils on a majority of our farms. The

land's share of the vegetation it has produced has been taken

from it in large measure, and no other organic matter has been

given it in return. Its mineral store is left inert, and the moisture

supply is left uncontrolled. Helplessness results.

Drainage.—Productive soils are in a condition to admit air

freely. The presence of air in the soil is as necessary to the

changes producing availability of plant-food as it is to the

changes essential to life in the human body. A water-logged soil

is a worthless one in respect to the production of most valuable

plants. The well-being of soil and plants requires that the level

of dead water be a considerable distance below the surface.

When a soil has recently grown trees, the rotting stump roots

leave cavities in the subsoil that permit the removal of some

surplus water, and the rotted wood and leaves that give

distinctive character to new land are absorbents of such water.

As land becomes older, losing natural means of drainage and the

excellent physical condition due to vegetable matter in it, the

need of drainage grows greater. The tramping of horses in the

bottoms of furrows made by breaking-plows often makes

matters worse. The prompt removal of excessive moisture by

drains, and preferably by underdrains, is essential to profitable

farming in the case of most wet lands. The only exception is the

land on which may be grown the grasses that thrive fairly well

under moist conditions.

Lime.—The stores of lime in the soil are not stable. The

tendency of lime in most of the states between the Missouri

River and the Atlantic seaboard is to get out of the soil. There is

no evidence that lime is not in sufficient quantity in most soils

to feed crops adequately, but within recent years we have

learned that vast areas do not contain enough lime in available

form to keep the soil from becoming acid. Some soils never

were rich in lime, and these are the first to show evidence of

acidity. In our limestone areas, however, acid soil conditions are

developing year by year, limiting the growth of clover and

affecting the yields of other crops.

The situation is a serious one just in so far as men refuse to

recognize the facts as they exist, and permit the limiting of crop

yields, and consequently of incomes, through the presence of

harmful acids. The natural corrective is lime, which combines

with the acid and leaves the soil friendly to all plant life and

especially to the clovers and other legumes that are necessary to

profitable farming. Nature is largely dependent upon man's

assistance in the correction of soil acidity.

Crop-rotation.—A good crop-rotation favors high

productiveness. One kind of crop paves the way nicely for some

other one. The land can be occupied by living plants without

any long intermissions. Organic matter can be supplied without

the use of an undue portion of the time. The stores of plant-food

throughout all the soil are more surely reached by a variety of

plants, differing in their habits of root-growth. The injury from

disease and insects is kept down to a minimum. There is better

distribution of the labor required by the farm, and neglect of

crops at critical times is escaped. The maintenance of fertility is

dependent much upon the use of a legume that will furnish

nitrogen from the air. A permanently successful agriculture in

our country must be based upon the use of legumes, and crop-

rotations would be demanded for this reason alone if none other

existed.

Fertilizers.—When a crop is fed to livestock, and all the

manure is returned to the land that produced the crop without

loss by leaching or fermentation, there is a return to the land of

four fifths of the fertility, and a good form of organic matter is

supplied. A portion of the crops cannot be fed upon the farm, or

otherwise the human race would have only animal products for

food. The welfare of the people demands that a vast amount of

the soil's crops be sold from the farms producing them. This

brings about a dependence upon the natural stores of plant-food

in the soil, which become available slowly, and upon

commercial fertilizers.

There has been a disposition on the part of many farmers to

regard fertilizers only as stimulants, due to the irrational use of

certain materials, but a good commercial fertilizer is a carrier of

some or all of the necessary elements that we find in stable

manures. They may carry nitrogen, phosphoric acid, or

potash,—any one or two or the three,—and the three are the

constituents that usually are lacking in available forms in our

soils. Examples of the best modern skill in farming may be

found in the rational selection and use of commercial fertilizers.

Tillage.—Man's ability to assist nature in the work of

production finds a notable illustration in the matter of tillage. Its

purpose is to provide right physical condition of the soil for the

particular class of plants that should be produced, while

destroying the competition of other plants that are for the time

only weeds. Most soils become too compact when left unstirred.

The air cannot enter freely, plant-roots cannot extend in every

direction for food, the water from rains cannot enter easily, there

is escape of the moisture in the ground, and weathering of the

soil proceeds too slowly. The methods used in plowing,

harrowing, and later cultivations fix the productive power of a

soil for the season in large measure.

Control of Soil Moisture.—The water in the soil is a

consideration that has priority over plant-food in the case of

agricultural land. The natural strength of the soil is sufficient to

give some return to the farmer in crops if the moisture content is

right throughout the season. The plant cannot feed unless water

is present; the process of growth ceases in the absence of

moisture. One purpose of plowing is to separate the particles of

soil to a good depth so that water-holding capacity may be

increased. When the soil is compact, it will absorb and hold

only a very limited amount of moisture. We harrow deeply to

complete the work of the plow, and the roller is used to destroy

all cavities of undue size that would admit air too freely and

thus rob the land of its water. Later cultivations may be given to

continue the effect of the plow in preventing the soil from

becoming too compact, but usually should be required only to

make a loose mulch that will hold moisture in the ground, and

to destroy the weeds that would compete with the planted crop

for water, food, and sunshine.

CHAPTER II: THE NEED OF LIME

The Unproductive Farm.—When a soil expert visits an

unproductive farm to determine its needs, he gives his chief

attention to four possible factors in his problem: lack of

drainage, of lime, of organic matter, and of available plant-food.

His first concern regards drainage. If the water from rains is

held in the surface by an impervious stratum beneath, it is idle

to spend money in other amendments until the difficulty

respecting drainage has been overcome. A water-logged soil is

helpless. It cannot provide available plant-food, air, and warmth

to plants. Under-drainage is urgently demanded when the level

of dead water in the soil is near the surface. The area needing

drainage is larger than most land-owners believe, and it

increases as soils become older. On the other hand, the

requirements of lime, organic matter, and available plant-food

are so nearly universal, in the case of unproductive land in the

eastern half of the United States, that they are here given prior

consideration, and drainage is discussed in another place when

methods of controlling soil moisture are described. The

production of organic matter is so important to depleted soils,

and is so dependent upon the absence of soil acidity, that the

right use of lime on land claims our first interest.

Soil Acidity.—Lime performs various offices in the soil, but

farmers should be concerned chiefly about only one, and that is

the destruction of acids and poisons that make the soil

unfriendly to most forms of plant life, including the clovers,

alfalfa, and other legumes. Lime was put into all soils by nature.

Large areas were originally very rich in lime, while other areas

of the eastern half of the United States never were well

supplied. Within the last ten years it has been definitely

determined that a large part of this vast territory has an actual

lime deficiency, as measured by its inability to remain alkaline

or "sweet." Many of the noted limestone valleys show marked

soil acidity. There has been exhaustion of the lime that was in a

state available for union with the acids that constantly form in

various ways. The area of soil thus deficient grows greater year

by year, and it can be only a matter of time when nearly all of

the eastern half of this country will have production limited by

this deficiency unless applications of lime in some form are

made. When owners of soil that remains rich in lime do not

accept this statement, no harm results, as their land does not

need lime. On the other hand are tens of thousands of land-

owners who do not recognize the need of lime that now exists in

their soils, and suffer a loss of income which they would

attribute to other causes.

Irrational Use of Lime.—Some refusal to accept the facts

respecting soil acidity and its means of correction is due to a

prejudice that was created by an unwise use of lime in the past.

Owners of stiff limestone soils learned in an early day that a

heavy application of caustic lime would increase crop

production. It caused such flocculation of the fine particles in

their stiff soils that physical condition was improved, and it

made the organic matter in the soil quickly available as plant-

food. The immediate result was greater crop-producing power in

the soil, and dependence upon lime as a fertilizer resulted. The

vegetable matter was used up, some of the more available

mineral plant-food was changed into soluble forms, and in the

course of years partial soil exhaustion resulted. The heavy

applications of lime, unattended by additions of organic matter

in the form of clover sods and stable manure, produced a natural

result, but one that was not anticipated by the farmers. The

prejudice against the use of lime on land was based on the

effects of this irrational practice.

There are land-owners who are not concerned with present-

day knowledge regarding soil acidity because they cannot

believe that it has any bearing upon the state of their soils. They

know that clover sods were easily produced on their land within

their remembrance, and that their soils are of limestone origin.

As the clovers demand lime, these two facts appear to them

final. The failures of the clovers in the last ten or twenty years

they incline to attribute to adverse seasons, poor seed, or the

prevalence of weed pests. They do not realize that much land

passes out of the alkaline class into the acid one every year. The

loss of lime is continuous. Exhaustion of the supply capable of

combining with the harmful acids finally results, and with the

accumulation of acid comes partial clover failure, a deficiency

in rich organic matter, a limiting of all crop yields, and an

inability to remain in a state of profitable production.

Lime deficiency and its resulting ills would not exist as

generally as is now the case if the application of lime to land

were not expensive and disagreeable. These are deterrent

features of wide influence. There continues hope that the clover

will grow successfully, as occasionally occurs in a favorable

season, despite the presence of some acid. The limitation of

yields of other staple crops is not attributed to the lack of lime,

and the proper soil amendment is not given to the land.

Where Clover is not Wanted.—The ability to grow heavy red

clover is a practical assurance that the soil's content of lime is

sufficiently high. When clover fails on account of a lime

deficiency, the work of applying lime may not be escaped by a

shift in the farm scheme that permits the elimination of clover.

The clover failure is an index of a condition that limits the

yields of all staple crops. The lack of lime checks the activity of

bacteria whose office it is to prepare plant-food for use. The

stable manure or sods decompose less readily and give smaller

results. Soil poisons accumulate. Mineral plant-food in the soils

becomes available more slowly. Physical condition grows

worse.

The limitations of the value of manure and commercial

fertilizers applied to land that has a lime deficiency have

illustration in an experiment reported by the Cornell station:

The soil was once a fertile loam that had become very poor.

A part was given an application of lime, and similar land at its

side was left unlimed. The land without lime and fertilizer of

any kind made a yield of 1824 pounds of clover hay per acre. A

complete fertilizer on the unlimed land made the yield 2235

pounds, and 15 tons of manure on the unlimed land made the

yield 2091 pounds.

Where lime had been applied, the unfertilized land yielded

3852 pounds per acre, the fertilized, 4085 pounds, and the

manured, 4976 pounds. The manure and fertilizer were nearly

inactive in the acid soil. The lime enabled the plants to obtain

benefit from the plant-food.

Determining Lime Requirement.—It is wasteful to apply

lime on land that does not need it. As has been said, the man

who can grow heavy clover sods has assurance that the lime

content of his soil is satisfactory. This is a test that has as much

practical value as the analysis of a skillful chemist. The owner

of such land may dismiss the matter of liming from his attention

so far as acidity is concerned, though it is a reasonable

expectation that a deficiency will appear at some time in the

future. Experience is the basis of such a forecast. Just as coal

was stored for the benefit of human beings, so was lime placed

in store as a supply for soils when their unstable content would

be gone.

The only ones that need be concerned with the question of

lime for soils are those who cannot secure good growths of the

clovers and other legumes. Putting aside past experience, they

should learn whether their soils are now acid. Practical farmers

may judge by the character of the vegetation and not fail to be

right nine times out of ten. Where land has drainage, and a fairly

good amount of available fertility, as evidenced by growths of

grass, a failure of red clover leads immediately to a strong

suspicion that lime is lacking. If alsike clover grows more

readily than the red clover, the probability of acidity grows

stronger because the alsike can thrive under more acid soil

conditions than can the red. Acid soils favor red-top grass rather

than timothy. Sorrel is a weed that thrives in both alkaline and

acid soils, and its presence would not be an index if it could

stand competition with clover in an alkaline soil. The clover can

crowd it out if the ground is not too badly infested with seed,

and even then the sorrel must finally give way. Where sorrel and

plantain cover the ground that has been seeded to clover and

grass, the evidence is strong that the soil conditions are

unfriendly to the better plants on account of a lime deficiency.

The experienced farmer who notes the inclination of his soil to

favor alsike clover, red-top, sorrel, and plantain should infer that

lime is lacking. If doubt continues, he should make a test.

The Litmus-paper Test.—A test of fair reliability may be

made with litmus paper. A package of blue litmus paper can be

bought for a few cents at any drug store. This paper will turn

pink when brought into contact with an acid, and will return to a

blue if placed in lime-water. A drop of vinegar on a sheet of the

paper will bring an immediate change to pink. If the pink sheet

be placed in lime-water, the effect of the lime in correcting the

acidity will be evidenced by the return in color to blue.

To test the soil, a sample of it may be put into a basin and

moistened with rain-water. Several sheets of the blue litmus

paper should be buried in the mud, care being used that the

hands are clean and dry. When one sheet is removed within a

few seconds and rinsed with rain-water, if any pink shows, there

is free acid present. Another sheet should be taken out in five

minutes. The rapidity with which the color changes, and the

intensity of the color, are indicative of the degree of acidity, and

aid the judgment in determining how much lime should be used.

If a sheet of the paper retains its blue color in the soil for twenty

minutes, there probably is no lime deficiency. The test should be

made with samples of soil from various parts of the field, and

they should be taken beneath the surface. One just criticism of

this test is that while no acidity may be shown, the lime content

may be too low for safety.

Red clover on limed and unlimed land.

A Practical Test.—The importance of alkalinity in soils is so

great, and the prevalence of acidity has such wide-spread

influence today, limiting the value of the clovers on a majority

of our farms, that a simple and more convincing test is

suggested here. Every owner of land that is not satisfactorily

productive may learn the state of his soil respecting lime

requirement at small expense. When a field is being prepared

for seeding to the grain crop with which clover will be sown, a

plat containing four square rods should be measured off, and

preferably this should be away from the border to insure even

soil conditions. A bushel of lump-lime, weighing eighty pounds,

should be slaked and evenly distributed over the surface of the

plat of ground. It can be broadcasted by hand if a spreader is not

available, and mixed with the surface soil while in a powdered

state. The plat of ground should be left as firm as the remainder

of the field, so that all conditions may be even for the test. The

appearance of the clover the following year will determine

whether lime was needed or not. There is no reason why any

one should remain in doubt regarding the lime requirement of

his fields. If income is limited by such a cause, the fact should

be known as soon as possible.

Duration of Effect.—Soil acidity is not permanently

corrected by a lime application. The original supply failed to

prove lasting, and the relatively small amount given the land in

an application will become exhausted. The duration depends

upon the degree of acidity, the nature of the soil and its crops,

and the size of the application. Experiments at the Pennsylvania

experiment station have shown that an application only in

sufficient amount to correct the existing acidity at the time of

application will not maintain an alkaline condition in the soil,

even for a few months. There must be some excess at hand to

unite with acids as formed later in the crop-rotation, or limings

must be given at short intervals of time to maintain alkaline

conditions.

Experience causes us to assume that enough lime should be

applied at one time to meet all requirements for a single crop-

rotation of four, five, or six years, and, wherever lime is cheap,

the unpleasant character of the labor inclines one to make the

application in sufficient amount to last through two such

rotations. It is a reasonable assumption, however, that more

waste results from the heavier applications at long intervals than

from light applications at short intervals. In any event need will

return, and soil acidity will again limit income if applications do

not continue to be made.

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BOOK TWO:

HOME VEGETABLE GARDENING:

A Complete and Practical Guide to the Planting

and Care of All Vegetables, Fruits and Berries

Worth Growing For Home Use

By F. F. Rockwell

Originally Published in 1911

PREFACE

With some, the home vegetable garden is a hobby; with

others, especially in these days of high prices, a great help.

There are many in both classes whose experience in gardening

has been restricted within very narrow bounds, and whose

present spare time for gardening is limited. It is as "first aid" to

such persons, who want to do practical, efficient gardening, and

do it with the least possible fuss and loss of time, that this book

is written. In his own experience the author has found that

garden books, while seldom lacking in information, often do not

present it in the clearest possible way. It has been his aim to

make the present volume first of all practical, and in addition to

that, though comprehensive, yet simple and concise. If it helps

to make the way of the home gardener more clear and definite,

its purpose will have been accomplished.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE – THE GARDEN

I Introduction

II Why You Should Garden

III Requisites of the Home Vegetable Garden

IV The Planting Plan

V Implements and Their Uses

VI Manures and Fertilizers

VII The Soil And Its Preparation

PART TWO--VEGETABLES

VIII Starting the Plants

IX Sowing and Planting

X The Cultivation of Vegetables

XI The Vegetables and Their Special Needs

XII Best Varieties of the Garden Vegetables

XIII Insects and Disease, and Methods of Fighting Them

XIV Harvesting and Storing

PART THREE--FRUITS

XV The Varieties Of Pome And Stone Fruits

XVI Planting; Cultivation; Filler Crops

XVII Pruning, Spraying, Harvesting

XVIII Berries and Small Fruits

XIX A Calendar of Operations

XX Conclusion

PART I: THE GARDEN

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

Formerly it was the custom for gardeners to invest their

labors and achievements with a mystery and secrecy which

might well have discouraged any amateur from trespassing upon

such difficult ground. "Trade secrets" in either flower or

vegetable growing were acquired by the apprentice only through

practice and observation, and in turn jealously guarded by him

until passed on to some younger brother in the profession. Every

garden operation was made to seem a wonderful and difficult

undertaking. Now, all that has changed. In fact the pendulum

has swung, as it usually does, to the other extreme. Often, if you

are a beginner, you have been flatteringly told in print that you

could from the beginning do just as well as the experienced

gardener.

My garden friend, it cannot, as a usual thing, be done. Of

course, it may happen and sometimes does. You might, being a

trusting lamb, go down into Wall Street with $10,000 [Editor's

Note: all monetary values throughout the book are 1911 values]

and make a fortune. You know that you would not be likely to;

the chances are very much against you. This garden business is

a matter of common sense; and the man, or the woman, who has

learned by experience how to do a thing, whether it is cornering

the market or growing cabbages, naturally does it better than the

one who has not. Do not expect the impossible. If you do, read a

poultry advertisement and go into the hen business instead of

trying to garden. I have grown pumpkins that necessitated the

tearing down of the fence in order to get them out of the lot, and

sometimes, though not frequently, have had to use the axe to cut

through a stalk of asparagus, but I never "made $17,000 in ten

months from an eggplant in a city back-yard." No, if you are

going to take up gardening, you will have to work, and you will

have a great many disappointments. All that I, or anyone else,

could put between the two covers of a book will not make a

gardener of you. It must be learned through the fingers, and

back, too, as well as from the printed page. But, after all, the

greatest reward for your efforts will be the work itself; and

unless you love the work, or have a feeling that you will love it,

probably the best way for you, is to stick to the grocer for your

garden.

Most things, in the course of development, change from the

simple to the complex. The art of gardening has in many ways

been an exception to the rule. The methods of culture used for

many crops are more simple than those in vogue a generation

ago. The last fifty years has seen also a tremendous advance in

the varieties of vegetables, and the strange thing is that in many

instances the new and better sorts are more easily and quickly

grown than those they have replaced. The new lima beans are an

instance of what is meant. While limas have always been

appreciated as one of the most delicious of vegetables, in many

sections they could never be successfully grown, because of

their aversion to dampness and cold, and of the long season

required to mature them. The newer sorts are not only larger and

better, but hardier and earlier; and the bush forms have made

them still more generally available.

Knowledge on the subject of gardening is also more widely

diffused than ever before, and the science of photography has

helped wonderfully in telling the newcomer how to do things. It

has also lent an impetus and furnished an inspiration which

words alone could never have done. If one were to attempt to

read all the gardening instructions and suggestions being

published, he would have no time left to practice gardening at

all. Why then, the reader may ask at this point, another garden

book? It is a pertinent question, and it is right that an answer be

expected in advance. The reason, then, is this: while there are

garden books in plenty, most of them pay more attention to the

"content" than to the form in which it is laid before the

prospective gardener. The material is often presented as an

accumulation of detail, instead of by a systematic and

constructive plan which will take the reader step by step through

the work to be done, and make clear constantly both the

principles and the practice of garden making and management,

and at the same time avoid every digression unnecessary from

the practical point of view. Other books again, are either so

elementary as to be of little use where gardening is done without

gloves, or too elaborate, however accurate and worthy in other

respects, for an every-day working manual. The author feels,

therefore, that there is a distinct field for the present book.

And, while I still have the reader by the "introduction"

buttonhole, I want to make a suggestion or two about using a

book like this. Do not, on the one hand, read it through and then

put it away with the dictionary and the family Bible, and trust to

memory for the instruction it may give; do not, on the other

hand, wait until you think it is time to plant a thing, and then go

and look it up. For instance, do not, about the middle of May,

begin investigating how many onion seeds to put in a hill; you

will find out that they should have been put in, in drills, six

weeks before. Read the whole book through carefully at your

first opportunity, make a list of the things you should do for

your own vegetable garden, and put opposite them the proper

dates for your own vicinity. Keep this available, as a working

guide, and refer to special matters as you get to them.

Do not feel discouraged that you cannot be promised

immediate success at the start. I know from personal experience

and from the experience of others that "book-gardening" is a

practical thing. If you do your work carefully and thoroughly,

you may be confident that a very great measure of success will

reward the efforts of your first garden season.

And I know too, that you will find it the most entrancing

game you ever played.

Good luck to you!

CHAPTER II: WHY YOU SHOULD GARDEN

There are more reasons today than ever before why the

owner of a small place should have his, or her, own vegetable

garden. The days of home weaving, home cheese-making, home

meat-packing, are gone. With a thousand and one other things

that used to be made or done at home, they have left the fireside

and followed the factory chimney. These things could be turned

over to machinery. The growing of vegetables cannot be so

disposed of. Garden tools have been improved, but they are still

the same old one-man affairs--doing one thing, one row at a

time. Labor is still the big factor--and that, taken in combination

with the cost of transporting and handling such perishable stuff

as garden produce, explains why the home gardener can grow

his own vegetables at less expense than he can buy them. That is

a good fact to remember.

But after all, I doubt if most of us will look at the matter only

after consulting the columns of the household ledger. The big

thing, the salient feature of home gardening is not that we may

get our vegetables ten percent cheaper, but that we can have

them one hundred percent better. Even the long-keeping sorts,

like squash, potatoes and onions, are very perceptibly more

delicious right from the home garden, fresh from the vines or

the ground; but when it comes to peas, and corn, and lettuce,--

well, there is absolutely nothing to compare with the home

garden ones, gathered fresh, in the early slanting sunlight, still

gemmed with dew, still crisp and tender and juicy, ready to

carry every atom of savory quality, without loss, to the dining

table. Stale, flat and unprofitable indeed, after these have once

been tasted, seem the limp, travel-weary, dusty things that are

jounced around to us in the butcher's cart and the grocery

wagon. It is not in price alone that home gardening pays. There

is another point: the market gardener has to grow the things that

give the biggest yield. He has to sacrifice quality to quantity.

You do not. One cannot buy Golden Bantam corn, or

Mignonette lettuce, or Gradus peas in most markets. They are

top quality, but they do not fill the market crate enough times to

the row to pay the commercial grower. If you cannot afford to

keep a professional gardener there is only one way to have the

best vegetables--grow your own!

And this brings us to the third, and what may be the most

important reason why you should garden. It is the cheapest,

healthiest, keenest pleasure there is. Give me a sunny garden

patch in the golden springtime, when the trees are picking out

their new gowns, in all the various self-colored delicate grays

and greens--strange how beautiful they are, in the same old

unchanging styles, isn't it?--give me seeds to watch as they find

the light, plants to tend as they take hold in

the fine, loose, rich soil, and you may have the other sports.

And when you have grown tired of their monotony, come back

in summer to even the smallest garden, and you will find in it,

every day, a new problem to be solved, a new campaign to be

carried out, a new victory to win.

Better food, better health, better living--all these the home

garden offers you in abundance. And the price is only the price

of every worth-while thing--honest, cheerful patient work.

But enough for now of the dream garden. Put down your

book. Put on your old togs, light your pipe--some kind-hearted

humanitarian should devise for women such a kindly and

comforting vice as smoking--and let's go outdoors and look the

place over, and pick out the best spot for that garden-patch of

yours.

CHAPTER III:

REQUISITES OF THE

HOME VEGETABLE GARDEN

In deciding upon the site for the home vegetable garden it is

well to dispose once and for all of the old idea that the garden

"patch" must be an ugly spot in the home surroundings. If

thoughtfully planned, carefully planted and thoroughly cared

for, it may be made a beautiful and harmonious feature of the

general scheme, lending a touch of comfortable homeliness that

no shrubs, borders, or beds can ever produce.

With this fact in mind we will not feel restricted to any part

of the premises merely because it is out of sight behind the barn

or garage. In the average moderate-sized place there will not be

much choice as to land. It will be necessary to take what is to be

had and then do the very best that can be done with it. But there

will probably be a good deal of choice as to, first, exposure, and

second, convenience. Other things being equal, select a spot

near at hand, easy of access. It may seem that a difference of

only a few hundred yards will mean nothing, but if one is

depending largely upon spare moments for working in and for

watching the garden--and in the growing of many vegetables the

latter is almost as important as the former--this matter of

convenient access will be of much greater importance than is

likely to be at first recognized. Not until you have had to make a

dozen time-wasting trips for forgotten seeds or tools, or gotten

your feet soaking wet by going out through the dew-drenched

grass, will you realize fully what this may mean.

EXPOSURE

But the thing of first importance to consider in picking out

the spot that is to yield you happiness and delicious vegetables

all summer, or even for many years, is the exposure. Pick out

the "earliest" spot you can find--a plot sloping a little to the

south or east, that seems to catch sunshine early and hold it late,

and that seems to be out of the direct path of the chilling north

and northeast winds. If a building, or even an old fence, protects

it from this direction, your garden will be helped along

wonderfully, for an early start is a great big factor toward

success. If it is not already protected, a board fence, or a hedge

of some low-growing shrubs or young evergreens, will add very

greatly to its usefulness. The importance of having such a

protection or shelter is altogether underestimated by the

amateur.

THE SOIL

The chances are that you will not find a spot of ideal garden

soil ready for use anywhere upon your place. But all except the

very worst of soils can be brought up to a very high degree of

productiveness-- especially such small areas as home vegetable

gardens require. Large tracts of soil that are almost pure sand,

and others so heavy and mucky that for centuries they lay

uncultivated, have frequently been brought, in the course of only

a few years, to where they yield annually tremendous crops on a

commercial basis. So do not be discouraged about your soil.

Proper treatment of it is much more important, and a garden-

patch of average run-down,--or "never-brought-up" soil--will

produce much more for the energetic and careful gardener than

the richest spot will grow under average methods of cultivation.

The ideal garden soil is a "rich, sandy loam." And the fact

cannot be overemphasized that such soils usually are made, not

found. Let us analyze that description a bit, for right here we

come to the first of the four all-important factors of gardening--

food. The others are cultivation, moisture and temperature.

"Rich" in the gardener's vocabulary means full of plant food;

more than that--and this is a point of vital importance--it means

full of plant food ready to be used at once, all prepared and

spread out on the garden table, or rather in it, where growing

things can at once make use of it; or what we term, in one word,

"available" plant food. Practically no soils in long- inhabited

communities remain naturally rich enough to produce big crops.

They are made rich, or kept rich, in two ways; first, by

cultivation, which helps to change the raw plant food stored in

the soil into available forms; and second, by manuring or adding

plant food to the soil from outside sources.

"Sandy" in the sense here used, means a soil containing

enough particles of sand so that water will pass through it

without leaving it pasty and sticky a few days after a rain;

"light" enough, as it is called, so that a handful, under ordinary

conditions, will crumble and fall apart readily after being

pressed in the hand. It is not necessary that the soil be sandy in

appearance, but it should be friable.

"Loam: a rich, friable soil," says Webster. That hardly covers

it, but it does describe it. It is soil in which the sand and clay are

in proper proportions, so that neither greatly predominate, and

usually dark in color, from cultivation and enrichment. Such a

soil, even to the untrained eye, just naturally looks as if it would

grow things. It is remarkable how quickly the whole physical

appearance of a piece of well cultivated ground will change. An

instance came under my notice

last fall in one of my fields, where a strip containing an acre

had been two years in onions, and a little piece jutting off from

the middle of this had been prepared for them just one season.

The rest had not received any extra manuring or cultivation.

When the field was plowed up in the fall, all three sections were

as distinctly noticeable as though separated by a fence. And I

know that next spring's crop of rye, before it is plowed under,

will show the lines of demarcation just

as plainly.

This, then, will give you an idea of a good garden soil.

Perhaps in yours there will be too much sand, or too much clay.

That will be a disadvantage, but one which energy and

perseverance will soon overcome to a great extent--by what

methods may be learned in Chapter VIII.

DRAINAGE

There is, however, one other thing you must look out for in

selecting your garden site, and that is drainage. Dig down eight

or twelve inches after you have picked out a favorable spot, and

examine the sub-soil. This is the second strata, usually of

different texture and color from the rich surface soil, and harder

than it. If you find a sandy or gravelly bed, no matter how

yellow and poor it looks, you have chosen the right spot. But if

it be a stiff, heavy clay, especially a blue clay, you will have

either to drain it or be content with a very late garden--that is,

unless you are at the top of a knoll or on a slope. Chapter VII

contains further suggestions in regard to this problem.

SOIL ANTECEDENTS

There was a further reason for, mentioning that strip of onion

ground. It is a very practical illustration of what last year's

handling of the soil means to this year's garden. If you can pick

out a spot, even if it is not the most desirable in other ways, that

has been well enriched or cultivated for a year or two previous,

take that for this year's garden. And in the meantime have the

spot on which you intend to make your permanent vegetable

garden thoroughly "fitted," and grow there this year a crop of

potatoes or sweet corn, as suggested in Chapter IX. Then next

year you will have conditions just right to give your vegetables a

great start.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

There are other things of minor importance but worth

considering, such as the shape of your garden plot, for instance.

The more nearly rectangular, the more convenient it will be to

work and the more easily kept clean and neat. Have it large

enough, or at least open on two ends, so that a horse can be used

in plowing and harrowing. And if by any means you can have it

within reach of an adequate supply of water, that will be a

tremendous help in seasons of protracted drought. Then again, if

you have ground enough, lay off two plots so that you can take

advantage of the practice of rotation, alternating grass, potatoes

or corn with the vegetable garden. Of course it is possible to

practice crop rotation to some extent within the limits of even

the small vegetable garden, but it will be much better, if

possible, to rotate the entire garden-patch.

All these things, then, one has to keep in mind in picking the

spot best suited for the home vegetable garden. It should be, if

possible, of convenient access; it should have a warm exposure

and be well enriched, well worked-up soil, not too light nor too

heavy, and by all means well drained. If it has been thoroughly

cultivated for a year or two previous, so much the better. If it is

near a supply of water, so situated that it can be at least plowed

and harrowed with a horse, and large enough to allow the

garden proper to be shifted every other year or two, still more

the better.

Fill all of these requirements that you can, and then by taking

full advantage of the advantages you have, you can discount the

disadvantages. After all it is careful, persistent work, more than

natural advantages, that will tell the story; and a good garden

does notgrow--it is made.

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BOOK THREE:

The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide to

DRY-FARMING

A Complete System for Achieving Bountiful Harvests

Where Rain is Scarce, and Without Irrigation

By John A. Widtsoe

CONTENTS

Author's Preface

Chapter I: Dry-Farming Defined

Chapter II: The Theoretical Basis of Dry-Farming

Chapter III: Dry-Farm Areas – Rainfall

Chapter IV: Dry-Farm Areas – Climatic Features

Chapter V: Dry-Farm Soils

Chapter VI: The Root Systems of Plants

Chapter VII: Storing Water in the Soil

Chapter VIII: Regulating Evaporation

Chapter IX: Regulating Transpiration

Chapter X: Plowing and Fallowing

Chapter XI: Sowing and Harvesting

Chapter XII: Crops for Dry-Farming

Chapter XIII: The Composition of Dry-Farm Crops

Chapter XIV: Maintaining Soil Fertility

Chapter XV: Implements for Dry-Farming

Chapter XVI: Irrigation and Dry-Farming

Chapter XVII: The History of Dry-Farming

Chapter XVIII: Dry-Farming in a Nutshell

Chapter XIX: The Year of Drought

Chapter XX: The Present Status of Dry-Farming

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Nearly six tenths of the earth's land surface receives an

annual rainfall of less than twenty inches, and can be reclaimed

for agricultural purposes only by irrigation and dry-farming. A

perfected world-system of irrigation will convert about one

tenth of this vast area into an incomparably fruitful garden,

leaving about one half of the earth's land surface to be

reclaimed, if at all, by the methods of dry-farming. The noble

system of modern agriculture has been constructed almost

wholly in countries of abundant rainfall, and its applications are

those demanded for the agricultural development of humid

regions. Until recently irrigation was given scant attention, and

dry-farming, with its world problem of conquering one half of

the earth, was not considered. These facts furnish the apology

for the writing of this book.

The book now offered is the first attempt to assemble and

organize the known facts of science in their relation to the

production of plants, without irrigation, in regions of limited

rainfall. The needs of the actual farmer, who must understand

the principles before his practices can be wholly satisfactory,

have been kept in view primarily; but it is hoped that the

enlarging group of dry-farm investigators will also be helped by

this presentation of the principles of dry-farming. The subject is

now growing so rapidly that there will soon be room for two

classes of treatment: one for the farmer, and one for the

technical student.

This book has been written far from large libraries, and the

material has been drawn from the available sources. Specific

references are not given in the text, but the names of

investigators or institutions are found with nearly all statements

of fact. The files of the Experiment Station Record and Der

Jahresbericht der Agrikultur Chemie have taken the place of the

more desirable original publications. Free use has been made of

the publications of the experiment stations and the United States

Department of Agriculture. Inspiration and suggestions have

been sought and found constantly in the works of the princes of

American soil investigation, Hilgard of California and King of

Wisconsin. I am under deep obligation, for assistance rendered,

to numerous friends in all parts of the country, especially to

Professor L. A. Merrill, with whom I have collaborated for

many years in the study of the possibilities of dry-farming in

Western America.

The possibilities of dry-farming are stupendous. In the

strength of youth we may have felt envious of the great ones of

old; of Columbus looking upon the shadow of the greatest

continent; of Balboa shouting greetings to the resting Pacific; of

Father Escalante, pondering upon the mystery of the world,

alone, near the shores of America's Dead Sea. We need harbor

no such envyings, for in the conquest of the nonirrigated and

nonirrigable desert are offered as fine opportunities as the world

has known to the makers and shakers of empires. We stand

before an undiscovered land; through the restless, ascending

currents of heated desert air the vision comes and goes. With

striving eyes the desert is seen covered with blossoming fields,

with churches and homes and schools, and, in the distance, with

the vision is heard the laughter of happy children.

The desert will be conquered.

John A. Widtsoe.

June 1, 1910.

CHAPTER I: DRY-FARMING DEFINED

Dry-farming, as at present understood, is the profitable

production of useful crops, without irrigation, on lands that

receive annually a rainfall of 20 inches or less. In districts of

torrential rains, high winds, unfavorable distribution of the

rainfall, or other water-dissipating factors, the term "dry-

farming" is also properly applied to farming without irrigation

under an annual precipitation of 25 or even 30 inches. There is

no sharp demarcation between dry-and humid-farming.

When the annual precipitation is under 20 inches, the

methods of dry-farming are usually indispensable. When it is

over 30 inches, the methods of humid-farming are employed; in

places where the annual precipitation is between 20 and 30

inches, the methods to be used depend chiefly on local

conditions affecting the conservation of soil moisture. Dry-

farming, however, always implies farming under a

comparatively small annual rainfall.

The term "dry-farming" is, of course, a misnomer. In reality

it is farming under drier conditions than those prevailing in the

countries in which scientific agriculture originated. Many

suggestions for a better name have been made. "Scientific

agriculture" has-been proposed, but all agriculture should be

scientific, and agriculture without irrigation in an arid country

has no right to lay sole claim to so general a title. "Dry-land

agriculture," which has also been suggested, is no improvement

over "dry-farming," as it is longer and also carries with it the

idea of dryness. Instead of the name "dry-farming" it would,

perhaps, be better to use the names, "arid-farming." "semiarid-

farming," "humid-farming," and "irrigation-farming," according

to the climatic conditions prevailing in various parts of the

world. However, at the present time the name "dry-farming" is

in such general use that it would seem unwise to suggest any

change. It should be used with the distinct understanding that as

far as the word "dry" is concerned it is a misnomer. When the

two words are hyphenated, however, a compound technical

term--"dry-farming"--is secured which has a meaning of its

own, such as we have just defined it to be; and "dry-farming,"

therefore, becomes an addition to the lexicon.

DRY-VERSUS HUMID-FARMING

Dry-farming, as a distinct branch of agriculture, has for its

purpose the reclamation, for the use of man, of the vast

unirrigable "desert" or "semi-desert" areas of the world, which

until recently were considered hopelessly barren. The great

underlying principles of agriculture are the same the world over,

yet the emphasis to be placed on the different agricultural

theories and practices must be shifted in accordance with

regional conditions. The agricultural problem of first

importance in humid regions is the maintenance of soil fertility;

and since modern agriculture was developed almost wholly

under humid conditions, the system of scientific agriculture has

for its central idea the maintenance of soil fertility. In arid

regions, on the other hand, the conservation of the natural water

precipitation for crop production is the important problem; and

a new system of agriculture must therefore be constructed, on

the basis of the old principles, but with the conservation of the

natural precipitation as the central idea. The system of dry-

farming must marshal and organize all the established facts of

science for the better utilization, in plant growth, of a limited

rainfall. The excellent teachings of humid agriculture respecting

the maintenance of soil fertility will be of high value in the

development of dry-farming, and the firm establishment of right

methods of conserving and using the natural precipitation will

undoubtedly have a beneficial effect upon the practice of humid

agriculture.

THE PROBLEMS OF DRY-FARMING

The dry-farmer, at the outset, should know with comparative

accuracy the annual rainfall over the area that he intends to

cultivate. He must also have a good acquaintance with the

nature of the soil, not only as regards its plant-food content, but

as to its power to receive and retain the water from rain and

snow. In fact, a knowledge of the soil is indispensable in

successful dry-farming. Only by such knowledge of the rainfall

and the soil is he able to adapt the principles outlined in this

volume to his special needs.

Since, under dry-farm conditions, water is the limiting factor

of production, the primary problem of dry-farming is the most

effective storage in the soil of the natural precipitation. Only the

water, safely stored in the soil within reach of the roots, can be

used in crop production. Of nearly equal importance is the

problem of keeping the water in the soil until it is needed by

plants. During the growing season, water may be lost from the

soil by downward drainage or by evaporation from the surface.

It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine under what

conditions the natural precipitation stored in the soil moves

downward and by what means surface evaporation may be

prevented or regulated. The soil-water, of real use to plants, is

that taken up by the roots and finally evaporated from the

leaves. A large part of the water stored in the soil is thus used.

The methods whereby this direct draft of plants on the soil-

moisture may be regulated are, naturally, of the utmost

importance to the dry-farmer, and they constitute another vital

problem of the science of dry-farming.

The relation of crops to the prevailing conditions of arid

lands offers another group of important dry-farm problems.

Some plants use much less water than others. Some attain

maturity quickly, and in that way become desirable for dry-

farming. Still other crops, grown under humid conditions, may

easily be adapted to dry-farming conditions, if the correct

methods are employed, and in a few seasons may be made

valuable dry-farm crops. The individual characteristics of each

crop should be known as they relate themselves to a low rainfall

and arid soils.

After a crop has been chosen, skill and knowledge are

needed in the proper seeding, tillage, and harvesting of the crop.

Failures frequently result from the want of adapting the crop

treatment to arid conditions.

After the crop has been gathered and stored, its proper use is

another problem for the dry-farmer. The composition of dry-

farm crops is different from that of crops grown with an

abundance of water. Usually, dry-farm crops are much more

nutritious and therefore should command a higher price in the

markets, or should be fed to stock in corresponding proportions

and combinations.

The fundamental problems of dry-farming are, then, the

storage in the soil of a small annual rainfall; the retention in the

soil of the moisture until it is needed by plants; the prevention

of the direct evaporation of soil-moisture during; the growing

season; the regulation of the amount of water drawn from the

soil by plants; the choice of crops suitable for growth under arid

conditions; the application of suitable crop treatments, and the

disposal of dry-farm products, based upon the superior

composition of plants grown with small amounts of water.

Around these fundamental problems cluster a host of minor,

though also important, problems. When the methods of dry-

farming are understood and practiced, the practice is always

successful; but it requires more intelligence, more implicit

obedience to nature's laws, and greater vigilance, than farming

in countries of abundant rainfall.

The chapters that follow will deal almost wholly with the

problems above outlined as they present themselves in the

construction of a rational system of farming without irrigation in

countries of limited rainfall.

CHAPTER II:

THE THEORETICAL

BASIS OF DRY-FARMING

The confidence with which scientific investigators, familiar

with the arid regions, have attacked the problems of dry-farming

rests largely on the known relationship of the water

requirements of plants to the natural precipitation of rain and

snow. It is a most elementary fact of plant physiology that no

plant can live and grow unless it has at its disposal a sufficient

amount of water.

The water used by plants is almost entirely taken from the

soil by the minute root-hairs radiating from the roots. The water

thus taken into the plants is passed upward through the stem to

the leaves, where it is finally evaporated. There is, therefore, a

more or less constant stream of water passing through the plant

from the roots to the leaves.

By various methods it is possible to measure the water thus

taken from the soil. While this process of taking water from the

soil is going on within the plant, a certain amount of soil-

moisture is also lost by direct evaporation from the soil surface.

In dry-farm sections, soil-moisture is lost only by these two

methods; for wherever the rainfall is sufficient to cause drainage

from deep soils, humid conditions prevail.

WATER FOR ONE POUND DRY MATTER

Many experiments have been conducted to determine the

amount of water used in the production of one pound of dry

plant substance. Generally, the method of the experiments has

been to grow plants in large pots containing weighed quantities

of soil. As needed, weighed amounts of water were added to the

pots. To determine the loss of water, the pots were weighed at

regular intervals of three days to one week. At harvest time, the

weight of dry matter was carefully determined for each pot.

Since the water lost by the pots was also known, the pounds of

water used for the production of every pound of dry matter were

readily calculated.

The first reliable experiments of the kind were undertaken

under humid conditions in Germany and other European

countries. From the mass of results, some have been selected

and presented in the following table. The work was done by the

famous German investigators, Wollny, Hellriegel, and Sorauer,

in the early eighties of the last century. In every case, the

numbers in the table represent the number of pounds of water

used for the production of one pound of ripened dry substance:

Pounds of Water for One Pound of Dry Matter

KEY: Plant/Wollny/Hellreigel/Sorauer

Wheat/--/338/459

Oats/665/376/569

Barley/--/310/431

Rye/774/353/236

Corn/--/--/233

Buckwheat/--/646/363

Peas/--/416/273

Horsebeans/--/--/282

Red clover/--/--/310

Sunflowers/--/--/490

Millet/--/--/447

It is clear from the above results, obtained in Germany, that

the amount of water required to produce a pound of dry matter

is not the same for all plants, nor is it the same under all

conditions for the same plant. In fact, as will be shown in a later

chapter, the water requirements of any crop depend upon

numerous factors, more or less controllable. The range of the

above German results is from 233 to 774 pounds, with an

average of about 419 pounds of water for each pound of dry

matter produced.

During the late eighties and early nineties, King conducted

experiments similar to the earlier German experiments, to

determine the water requirements of crops under Wisconsin

conditions. A summary of the results of these extensive and

carefully conducted experiments is as follows:--

Oats = 385

Barley = 464

Corn = 271

Peas = 477

Clover = 576

Potatoes = 385

The figures in the above table, averaging about 446 pounds,

indicate that very nearly the same quantity of water is required

for the production of crops in Wisconsin as in Germany. The

Wisconsin results tend to be somewhat higher than those

obtained in Europe, but the difference is small.

It is a settled principle of science, as will be more fully

discussed later, that the amount of water evaporated from the

soil and transpired by plant leaves increases materially with an

increase in the average temperature during the growing season,

and is much higher under a clear sky and in districts where the

atmosphere is dry. Wherever dry-farming is likely to be

practiced, a moderately high temperature, a cloudless sky, and a

dry atmosphere are the prevailing conditions. It appeared

probable therefore, that in arid countries the amount of water

required for the production of one pound of dry matter would be

higher than in the humid regions of Germany and Wisconsin. To

secure information on this subject, Widtsoe and Merrill

undertook, in 1900, a series of experiments in Utah, which were

conducted upon the plan of the earlier experimenters. An

average statement of the results of six years' experimentation is

given in the subjoined table, showing the number of pounds of

water required for one pound of dry matter on fertile soils:--

Wheat = 1048

Corn = 589

Peas = 1118

Sugar Beets = 630

These Utah findings support strongly the doctrine that the

amount of water required for the production of each pound of

dry matter is very much larger under arid conditions, as in Utah,

than under humid conditions, as in Germany or Wisconsin. It

must be observed, however, that in all of these experiments the

plants were supplied with water in a somewhat wasteful

manner; that is, they were given an abundance of water, and

used the largest quantity possible under the prevailing

conditions. No attempt of any kind was made to economize

water. The results, therefore, represent maximum results and

can be safely used as such. Moreover, the methods of dry-

farming, involving the storage of water in deep soils and

systematic cultivation, were not employed. The experiments,

both in Europe and America, rather represent irrigated

conditions. There are good reasons for believing that in

Germany, Wisconsin, and Utah the amounts above given can be

materially reduced by the employment of proper cultural

methods.

The water in the large bottle would be required to produce

the grain in the small bottle.

In view of these findings concerning the water requirements

of crops, it cannot be far from the truth to say that, under

average cultural conditions, approximately 750 pounds of water

are required in an arid district for the production of one pound

of dry matter. Where the aridity is intense, this figure may be

somewhat low, and in localities of sub-humid conditions, it will

undoubtedly be too high. As a maximum average, however, for

districts interested in dry-farming, it can be used with safety.

CROP-PRODUCING POWER OF RAINFALL

If this conclusion, that not more than 750 pounds of water

are required under ordinary dry-farm conditions for the

production of one pound of dry matter, be accepted, certain

interesting calculations can be made respecting the possibilities

of dry-farming. For example, the production of one bushel of

wheat will require 60 times 750, or 45,000 pounds of water. The

wheat kernels, however, cannot be produced without a certain

amount of straw, which under conditions of dry-farming seldom

forms quite one half of the weight of the whole plant. Let us

say, however, that the weights of straw and kernels are equal.

Then, to produce one bushel of wheat, with the corresponding

quantity of straw, would require 2 times 45,000, or 90,000

pounds of water. This is equal to 45 tons of water for each

bushel of wheat. While this is a large figure, yet, in many

localities, it is undoubtedly well within the truth. In comparison

with the amounts of water that fall upon the land as rain, it does

not seem extraordinarily large.

One inch of water over one acre of land weighs

approximately 226,875 pounds, or over 113 tons. If this quantity

of water could be stored in the soil and used wholly for plant

production, it would produce, at the rate of 45 tons of water for

each bushel, about 2-1/2 bushels of wheat. With 10 inches of

rainfall, which up to the present seems to be the lower limit of

successful dry-farming, there is a maximum possibility of

producing 25 bushels of wheat annually.

In the subjoined table, constructed on the basis of the

discussion of this chapter, the wheat-producing powers of

various degrees of annual precipitation are shown:--

One acre inch of water will produce 2-1/2 bushels of wheat.

Ten acre inches of water will produce 25 bushels of wheat.

Fifteen acre inches of water will produce 37-1/2 bushels of

wheat.

Twenty acre inches of water will produce 50 bushels of

wheat.

It must be distinctly remembered, however, that under no

known system of tillage can all the water that falls upon a soil

be brought into the soil and stored there for plant use. Neither is

it possible to treat a soil so that all the stored soil-moisture may

be used for plant production. Some moisture, of necessity, will

evaporate directly from the soil, and some may be lost in many

other ways. Yet, even under a rainfall of 12 inches, if only one

half of the water can be conserved, which experiments have

shown to be very feasible, there is a possibility of producing 30

bushels of wheat per acre every other year, which insures an

excellent interest on the money and labor invested in the

production of the crop.

It is on the grounds outlined in this chapter that students of

the subject believe that ultimately large areas of the "desert"

may be reclaimed by means of dry-farming. The real question

before the dry-farmer is not, "Is the rainfall sufficient?" but

rather, "Is it possible so to conserve and use the rainfall as to

make it available for the production of profitable crops?"

CHAPTER III:

DRY-FARM AREAS - RAINFALL

The annual precipitation of rain and snow determines

primarily the location of dry-farm areas. As the rainfall varies,

the methods of dry-farming must be varied accordingly.

Rainfall, alone, does not, however, furnish a complete index of

the crop-producing possibilities of a country.

The distribution of the rainfall, the amount of snow, the

water-holding power of the soil, and the various moisture-

dissipating causes, such as winds, high temperature, abundant

sunshine, and low humidity frequently combine to offset the

benefits of a large annual precipitation. Nevertheless, no one

climatic feature represents, on the average, so correctly dry-

farming possibilities as does the annual rainfall. Experience has

already demonstrated that wherever the annual precipitation is

above 15 inches, there is no need of crop failures, if the soils are

suitable and the methods of dry-farming are correctly employed.

With an annual precipitation of 10 to 15 inches, there need be

very few failures, if proper cultural precautions are taken. With

our present methods, the areas that receive less than 10 inches

of atmospheric precipitation per year are not safe for dry-farm

purposes. What the future will show in the reclamation of these

deserts, without irrigation, is yet conjectural.

ARID, SEMIARID, AND SUB-HUMID

Before proceeding to an examination of the areas in the

United States subject to the methods of dry-farming it may be

well to define somewhat more clearly the terms ordinarily used

in the description of the great territory involved in the

discussion.

The states lying west of the 100th meridian are loosely

spoken of as arid, semiarid, or sub-humid states. For

commercial purposes no state wants to be classed as arid and to

suffer under the handicap of advertised aridity. The annual

rainfall of these states ranges from about 3 to over 30 inches.

In order to arrive at greater definiteness, it may be well to

assign definite rainfall values to the ordinarily used descriptive

terms of the region in question. It is proposed, therefore, that

districts receiving less than 10 inches of atmospheric

precipitation annually, be designated arid; those receiving

between 10 and 20 inches, semiarid; those receiving between 20

and 30 inches, sub-humid, and those receiving over 30 inches,

humid. It is admitted that even such a classification is arbitrary,

since aridity does not alone depend upon the rainfall, and even

under such a classification there is an unavoidable overlapping.

However, no one factor so fully represents varying degrees of

aridity as the annual precipitation, and there is a great need for

concise definitions of the terms used in describing the parts of

the country that come under dry-farming discussions. In this

volume, the terms "arid," "semiarid," "sub-humid" and "humid"

are used as above defined.

PRECIPITATION OVER THE DRY-FARM TERRITORY

Nearly one half of the United States receives 20 inches or

less rainfall annually; and that when the strip receiving between

20 and 30 inches is added, the whole area directly subject to

reclamation by irrigation or dry-farming is considerably more

than one half (63 per cent) of the whole area of the United

States.

Eighteen states are included in this area of low rainfall. The

areas of these, as given by the Census of 1900, grouped

according to the annual precipitation received, are shown

below:--

Arid to Semi-arid Group/Total Area Land Surface (Sq.

Miles)

Arizona/112,920

California/156,172

Colorado/103,645

Idaho/84,290

Nevada/109,740

Utah/ 82,190

Wyoming/97,545

TOTAL = 746,532

Semiarid to Sub-Humid Group /Total Area Land Surface

Montana/145,310

Nebraska/ 76,840

New Mexico/112,460

North Dakota/70,195

Oregon/ 94,560

South Dakota/76,850

Washington/66,880

TOTAL = 653,095

Sub-Humid to Humid Group /Total Area Land Surface

Kansas/81,700

Minnesota/79,205

Oklahoma/38,830

Texas/262,290

TOTAL = 462,025

GRAND TOTAL = 1,861,652

The territory directly interested in the development of the

methods of dry-farming forms 63 per cent of the whole of the

continental United States, not including Alaska, and covers an

area of 1,861,652 square miles, or 1,191,457,280 acres. If any

excuse were needed for the lively interest taken in the subject of

dry-farming, it is amply furnished by these figures showing the

vast extent of the country interested in the reclamation of land

by the methods of dry-farming. As will be shown below, nearly

every other large country possesses similar immense areas under

limited rainfall.

Of the one billion, one hundred and ninety-one million, four

hundred and fifty-seven thousand, two hundred and eighty acres

(1,191,457,280) representing the dry-farm territory of the

United States, about 22 per cent, or a little more than one fifth,

is sub-humid and receives between 20 and 30 inches of rainfall,

annually; 61 per cent, or a little more than three fifths, is

semiarid and receives between 10 and 20 inches, annually, and

about 17 per cent, or a little less than one fifth, is arid and

receives less than 10 inches of rainfall, annually.

These calculations are based upon the published average

rainfall maps of the United States Weather Bureau. In the far

West, and especially over the so-called "desert" regions, with

their sparse population, meteorological stations are not

numerous, nor is it easy to secure accurate data from them. It is

strongly probable that as more stations are established, it will be

found that the area receiving less than 10 inches of rainfall

annually is considerably smaller than above estimated. In fact,

the United States Reclamation Service states that there are only

70,000,000 acres of desert-like land; that is, land which does not

naturally support plants suitable for forage. This area is about

one third of the lands which, so far as known, at present receive

less than 10 inches of rainfall, or only about 6 per cent of the

total dry-farming territory.

In any case, the semiarid area is at present most vitally

interested in dry-farming. The sub-humid area need seldom

suffer from drought, if ordinary well-known methods are

employed; the arid area, receiving less than 10 inches of rainfall,

in all probability, can be reclaimed without irrigation only by

the development of more suitable methods than are known

today. The semiarid area, which is the special consideration of

present-day dry-farming, represents an area of over 725,000,000

acres of land. Moreover, it must be remarked that the full

certainty of crops in the sub-humid regions will come only with

the adoption of dry-farming methods; and that results already

obtained on the edge of the "deserts" lead to the belief that a

large portion of the area receiving less than 10 inches of rainfall,

annually, will ultimately be reclaimed without irrigation.

Naturally, not the whole of the vast area just discussed could

be brought under cultivation, even under the most favorable

conditions of rainfall. A very large portion of the territory in

question is mountainous and often of so rugged a nature that to

farm it would be an impossibility. It must not be forgotten,

however, that some of the best dry-farm lands of the West are

found in the small mountain valleys, which usually are pockets

of most fertile soil, under a good supply of rainfall. The foothills

of the mountains are almost invariably excellent dry-farm lands.

Newell estimates that 195,000,000 acres of land in the arid to

sub-humid sections are covered with a more or less dense

growth of timber. This timbered area roughly represents the

mountainous and therefore the nonarable portions of land. The

same authority estimates that the desert-like lands cover an area

of 70,000,000 acres. Making the most liberal estimates for

mountainous and desert-like lands, at least one half of the whole

area, or about 600,000,000 acres, is arable land which by proper

methods may be reclaimed for agricultural purposes. Irrigation

when fully developed may reclaim not to exceed 5 per cent of

this area. From any point of view, therefore, the possibilities

involved in dry-farming in the United States are immense.

DRY-FARM AREA OF THE WORLD

Dry-farming is a world problem. Aridity is a condition met

and to be overcome upon every continent. McColl estimates that

in Australia, which is somewhat larger than the continental

United States of America, only one third of the whole surface

receives above 20 inches of rainfall annually; one third receives

from 10 to 20 inches, and one third receives less than lO inches.

That is, about 1,267,000,000 acres in Australia are subject to

reclamation by dry-farming methods. This condition is not far

from that which prevails in the United States, and is

representative of every continent of the world. The following

table gives the proportions of the earth's land surface under

various degrees of annual precipitations:--

Annual Precipitation/Proportion of Earth's Land Surface

Under 10 inches/25.0 per cent

From 10 to 20 inches/30.0 per cent

From 20 to 40 inches/20.0 per cent

From 40 to 60 inches/11.0 per cent

From 60 to 80 inches/9.0 per cent

From 100 to 120 inches/4.0 per cent

From 120 to 160 inches/0.5 per cent

Above 160 inches/0.5 per cent

Total = 100 per cent

Fifty-five per cent, or more than one half of the total land

surface of the earth, receives an annual precipitation of less than

20 inches, and must be reclaimed, if at all, by dry-farming. At

least 10 per cent more receives from 20 to 30 inches under

conditions that make dry-farming methods necessary. A total of

about 65 per cent of the earth's land surface is, therefore,

directly interested in dry-farming. With the future perfected

development of irrigation systems and practices, not more than

10 per cent will be reclaimed by irrigation. Dry-farming is truly

a problem to challenge the attention of the race.

(skip)

BOOK FOUR:

The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide to Growing

Cabbages and Cauliflowers

A Practical Treatise, Giving Full Details on Every

Point,Including Keeping and Marketing the Crop

By James J. H. Gregory

CONTENTS

Object of Treatise

The Origin of Cabbage

What a Cabbage is

Selecting the Soil

Preparing the Soil

The Manure

How to Apply the Manure

Making the Hills and Planting the Seed

Care of the Young Plants

Protecting the Plants from their Enemies

The Green Worm

Club, or Stump Root, or Maggot

Care of the Growing Crop

Marketing the Crop

Keeping Cabbage through the Winter

Having Cabbage make Heads in Winter

Foreign Varieties of Cabbage

American Varieties

Savoy Varieties

Other Varieties of Cabbage

Cabbage Greens

Cabbage for Stock

Raising Cabbage Seed

Cooking Cabbage, Sour-Krout, etc.

Cabbage under Glass

Cold Frame and Hot-Bed

Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussels-Sprouts, Kale and

Sea-Kale

OBJECT OF THIS TREATISE

As a general, yet very thorough, response to inquiries from

many of my customers about cabbage raising, I have aimed in

this treatise to tell them all about the subject. The different

inquiries made from time to time have given me a pretty clear

idea of the many heads under which information is wanted; and

it has been my aim to give this with the same thoroughness of

detail as in my little work on Squashes. I have endeavored to

talk in a very practical way, drawing from a large observation

and experience, and receiving, in describing varieties, some

valuable information from McIntosh's work, "The Book of the

Garden."

THE ORIGIN OF CABBAGE

Botanists tell us that all of the Cabbage family, which

includes not only every variety of cabbage, Red, White, and

Savoy, but all the cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and brussels

sprouts, had their origin in the wild cabbage of Europe (Brassica

oleracea), a plant with green, wavy leaves, much resembling

charlock, found growing wild at Dover in England, and other

parts of Europe. This plant, says McIntosh, is mostly confined

to the sea-shore, and grows only on chalky or calcareous soils.

Thus through the wisdom of the Great Father of us all, who

occasionally in his great garden allows vegetables to sport into a

higher form of life, and grants to some of these sports sufficient

strength of individuality to enable them to perpetuate

themselves, and, at times, to blend their individuality with that

of other sports, we have the heading cabbage in its numerous

varieties, the creamy cauliflower, the feathery kale, the curled

Savoy. On my own grounds from a strain of seed that had been

grown isolated for years, there recently came a plant that in its

structure closely resembled brussels sprouts, growing about two

feet in height, with a small head under each leaf. The cultivated

cabbage was first introduced into England by the Romans, and

from there nearly all the kinds cultivated in this country were

originally brought. Those which we consider as peculiarly

American varieties have only been made so by years of careful

improvement on the original imported sorts. The characteristics

of these varieties will be given farther on.

WHAT A CABBAGE IS

If we cut vertically through the middle of the head, we shall

find it made up of successive layers of leaves, which grow

smaller and smaller, almost ad infinitum. Now, if we take a fruit

bud from an apple-tree and make a similar section of it, we shall

find the same structure. If we observe the development of the

two, as spring advances, we shall find another similarity (the

looser the head the closer will be the resemblance),—the outer

leaves of each will unwrap and unfold, and a flower stem will

push out from each. Here we see that a cabbage is a bud, a seed

bud (as all fruit buds may be termed, the production of seed

being the primary object in nature, the fruit enclosing it playing

but a secondary part), the office of the leaves being to cover,

protect, and afterwards nourish the young seed shoot. The outer

leaves which surround the head appear to have the same office

as the leaves which surround the growing fruit bud, and that

office closes with the first year, as does that of the leaves

surrounding fruit buds, when each die and drop off. In my

locality the public must have perceived more or less clearly the

analogy between the heads of cabbage and the buds of trees, for

when they speak of small heads they frequently call them

"buds." That the close wrapped leaves which make the cabbage

head and surround the seed germ, situated just in the middle of

the head at the termination of the stump, are necessary for its

protection and nutrition when young, is proved, I think, by the

fact that those cabbages, the heads of which are much decayed,

when set out for seed, no matter how sound the seed germ may

be at the end of the stump, never make so large or healthy a seed

shoot as those do the heads of which are sound; as a rule, after

pushing a feeble growth, they die.

For this reason I believe that the office of the head is similar

to and as necessary as that of the leaves which unwrap from

around the blossom buds of our fruit trees. It is true that the

parallel cannot be fully maintained, as the leaves which make up

the cabbage head do not to an equal degree unfold (particularly

is this true of hard heads); yet they exhibit a vitality of their

own, which is seen in the deeper green color the outer leaves

soon attain, and the change from tenderness to toughness in

their structure: I think, therefore, that the degree of failure in the

parallel may be measured by the difference between a higher

and a lower form of organic life.

Some advocate the economy of cutting off a large portion of

the heads when cabbages are set out for seed to use as food for

stock. There is certainly a great temptation, standing amid acres

of large, solid, heads in the early spring months, when green

food of all kinds is scarce, to cut and use such an immense

amount of rich food, which, to the inexperienced eye, appears to

be utterly wasted if left to decay, dry, and fall to the ground; but,

for the reason given above, I have never done so. It is possible

that large heads may bear trimming to a degree without injury to

the seed crop; yet I should consider this an experiment, and one

to be tried with a good deal of caution.

SELECTING THE SOIL

In some of the best cabbage-growing sections of the country,

until within a comparatively few years it was the very general

belief that cabbage would not do well on upland. Accordingly

the cabbage patch would be found on the lowest tillage land of

the farm. No doubt, the lowest soil being the richer from a

gradual accumulation of the wash from the upland, when

manure was but sparingly used, cabbage would thrive better

there than elsewhere,—and not, as was generally held, because

that vegetable needed more moisture than any other crop.

Cabbage can be raised with success on any good corn land,

provided such land is well manured; and there is no more loss in

seasons of drought on such land than there is in seasons of

excessive moisture on the lower tillage land of the farm. I wish I

could preach a very loud sermon to all my farmer friends on the

great value of liberal manuring to carry crops successfully

through the effects of a severe drought. Crops on soil precisely

alike, with but a wall to separate them, will, in a very dry

season, present a striking difference,—the one being in fine

vigor, and the other "suffering from drought," as the owner will

tell you; but, in reality, from want of food.

The smaller varieties of cabbage will thrive well on either

light or strong soil, but the largest drumheads do best on strong

soil. For the Brassica family, including cabbages, cauliflowers,

turnips, etc., there is no soil so suitable as freshly turned sod,

provided the surface is well fined by the harrow; it is well to

have as stout a crop of clover or grass, growing on this sod,

when turned under, as possible, and I incline to the belief that it

would be a judicious investment to start a thick growth of these

by the application of guano to the surface sufficiently long

before turning the sod to get an extra growth of the clover or

grass. If the soil be very sandy in character, I would advise that

the variety planted be the Winnigstadt, which, in my experience,

is unexcelled for making a hard head under almost any

conditions, however unpropitious. Should the soil be naturally

very wet it should be underdrained, or stump foot will be very

likely to appear, which is death to all success.

PREPARING THE SOIL

Should the soil be a heavy clay, a deep fall plowing is best,

that the frosts of winter may disintegrate it; and should the plan

be to raise an early crop, this end will be promoted by fall

plowing, on any soil, as the land will thereby be made drier in

early spring. In New England the soil for cabbages should be

plowed as deep as the subsoil, and the larger drumheads should

be planted only on the deepest soil. If the season should prove a

favorable one, a good crop of cabbage may be grown on sod

broken up immediately after a crop of hay has been taken from

it, provided plenty of fine manure is harrowed in. One great risk

here is from the dry weather that usually prevails at that season,

preventing the prompt germination of the seed, or rooting of the

plants. It is prudent in such a case to have a good stock of

plants, that such as die may be promptly replaced. It is wise to

plant the seed for these a week earlier than the main crop, for

when transplanted to fill the vacant places it will take about a

week for them to get well rooted.

The manure may be spread on the surface of either sod or

stubble land and plowed under, or be spread on the surface after

plowing and thoroughly worked into the soil by the wheel

harrow or cultivator. On plowed sod I have found nothing so

satisfactory as the class of wheel harrows, which not only cut

the manure up fine and work it well under, but by the same

operation cut and pulverize the turf until the sod may be left not

over an inch in thickness. To do the work thus thoroughly

requires a yoke of oxen or a pair of stout horses. All large stones

and large pieces of turf that are torn up and brought to the

surface should be carted off before making the hills.

THE MANURE

Any manure but hog manure for cabbage,—barn manure,

rotten kelp, night-soil, guano, fertilizers, wood ashes, fish, salt,

glue waste, hen manure, slaughter-house manure. I have used all

of these, and found them all good when rightly applied. If pure

hog manure is used it is apt to produce that corpulent

enlargement of the roots known in different localities as "stump

foot," "underground head," "finger and thumb;" but I have found

barn manure on which hogs have run, two hogs to each animal,

excellent. The cabbage is the rankest of feeders, and to perfect

the larger sort a most liberal allowance of the richest composts

is required. To grow the smaller varieties either barn-yard

manure, guano, fertilizers, or wood ashes, if the soil be in good

condition, will answer; though the richer and more abundant the

manure the larger are the cabbages, and the earlier the crop will

mature.

To perfect the large varieties of drumhead,—by which I

mean to make them grow to the greatest size possible,—I want a

strong compost of barn-yard manure, with night-soil and muck

or fish-waste, and, if possible, rotten kelp. A compost into

which night-soil enters as a component is best made by first

covering a plot of ground, of easy access, with soil or muck that

has been exposed to a winter's frost, to the depth of about

eighteen inches, and raising around this a rim about three feet in

height, and thickness. Into this the night-soil is poured from

carts built for the purpose, until the receptacle is about two-

thirds full. Barn manure is now added, being dropped around

and covering the outer rim, and, if the supply is sufficient, on

the top of the heap also, on which it can be carted after cold

weather sets in. Early in spring, the entire mass should be

pitched over, thoroughly broken up with the bar and pick where

frozen, and the frozen masses thrown on the surface. In pitching

over the mass, work the rim in towards the middle of the heap.

After the frozen lumps have thawed, give the heap another

pitching over, aiming to mix all the materials thoroughly

together, and make the entire mass as fine as possible. A

covering of sand, thrown over the heap, before the last pitching,

will help fine it.

To produce a good crop of cabbages, with a compost of this

quality, from six to twelve cords will be required to the acre. If

the land is in good heart, by previous high cultivation, or the

soil is naturally very strong, six cords will give a fair crop of the

small varieties; while, with the same conditions, from nine to

twelve cords to the acre will be required to perfect the largest

variety grown, the Marblehead Mammoth Drumhead.

Of the other kinds of manure named above, I will treat

farther under the head of:

HOW TO APPLY THE MANURE

The manure is sometimes applied wholly in the hill, at other

times partly broadcast and partly in the hill. If the farmer desires

to make the utmost use of his manure for that season, it will be

best to put most of it into the hill, particularly if his supply runs

rather short; but if he desires to leave his land in good condition

for next year's crop, he had better use part of it broadcast. My

own practice is to use all my rich compost broadcast, and

depend on guano, fertilizers, or hen manure in the hill. Let all

guano, if at all lumpy, like the Peruvian, be sifted, and let all the

hard lumps be reduced by pounding, until the largest pieces

shall not be larger than half a pea before it is brought upon the

ground. My land being ready, the compost worked under and

the rows marked out, I select three trusty hands who can be

relied upon to follow faithfully my directions in applying so

dangerous manure as guano is in careless or ignorant hands; one

takes a bucket of it, and, if for large cabbage, drops as much as

he can readily close in his shut hand, where each hill is to be; if

for small sorts, then about half that quantity, spreading it over a

circle about a foot in diameter; the second man follows with a

pronged hoe, or better yet, a six-tined fork, with which he works

the guano well into the soil, first turning it three or four inches

under the surface, and then stirring the soil very thoroughly with

the hoe or fork. Unless the guano (and this is also true of most

fertilizers) is faithfully mixed up with the soil, the seed will not

vegetate. Give the second man about an hour the start, and then

let the third man follow with the seed. Of other fertilizers, I use

about half as much again as of guano to each hill, and of hen

manure a heaping handful, after it has been finely broken up,

and, if moist, slightly mixed with dry earth. When salt is used, it

should not be depended on exclusively, but be used in

connection with other manures, at the rate of from ten to fifteen

bushels to the acre, applied broadcast over the ground, or

thoroughly mixed with the manure before that is applied; if

dissolved in the manure, better yet. Salt itself is not a manure.

Its principal office is to change other materials into plant food.

Fish and glue waste are exceedingly powerful manures, very

rich in ammonia, and, if used the first season, they should be in

compost. It is best to handle fish waste, such as heads, entrails,

backbones, and liver waste, precisely like night soil. "Porgy

cheese," or "chum," the refuse, after pressing out the oil from

menhaden and halibut heads, and sometimes sold extensively

for manure, is best prepared for use by composting it with muck

or loam, layer with layer, at the rate of a barrel to every foot and

a half, cord measure, of soil. As soon as it shows some heat,

turn it, and repeat the process, two or three times, until it is well

decomposed, when apply. Another excellent way to use fish

waste is to compost it with barn manure, in the open fields. It

will be best to have six inches of soil under the heap, and not

layer the fish with the lower half of the manure, for it strikes

down. Glue waste is a very coarse, lumpy manure, and requires

a great deal of severe manipulation, if it is to be applied the first

season. A better way is to compost it with soil, layer with layer,

having each layer about a foot in thickness, and so allow it to

remain over until the next season, before using. This will

decompose most of the straw, and break down the hard, tough

lumps. In applying this to the crop, most of it had better be used

broadcast, as it is apt, at best, to be rather too coarse and

concentrated to be used liberally directly in the hill. Slaughter-

house manure should be treated much like glue manure.

Mr. Proctor, of Beverly, has raised cabbage successfully on

strong clay soil, by spreading a compost of muck containing fish

waste, in which the fish is well decomposed, at the rate of two

tons of the fish to an acre of land, after plowing, and then,

having made his furrows at the right distance apart, harrowing

the land thoroughly crossways with the furrows. The result was,

besides mixing the manure thoroughly with the soil, to land an

extra proportion of it in the furrows, which was equivalent to

manuring in the drill.

Cabbage can be raised on fertilizers alone. I have raised some

crops in this way; but have been led to plow in from four to six

cords of good manure to the acre, and then use from five

hundred to a thousand pounds of some good fertilizer in the hill.

The reason I prefer to use a portion of the cabbage food in the

form of manure, is, that I have noticed that when the attempt is

made to raise the larger drumhead varieties on fertilizers only,

the cabbages, just as the heads are well formed, are apt to come

nearly to a standstill. I explain this on the supposition that they

exhaust most of the fertilizer, or some one of the ingredients

that enter into it, during the earlier stage of growth; perhaps

from the fact that the food is in so easily digestible condition,

they use an over share of it, and the fact that those fed on

fertilizers only, tend to grow longer stumped than usual, appears

to give weight to this opinion. Though any good fertilizer is

good for cabbage, yet I prefer those compounded on the basis of

an analysis of the composition of the plants; they should contain

the three ingredients, nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid, in

the proportion of six, seven, five, taking them in the order in

which I have written them.

MAKING THE HILLS

AND PLANTING THE SEED

The idea is quite prevalent that cabbages will not head up

well except the plants are started in beds, and then transplanted

into the hills where they are to mature. This is an error, so far as

it applies to the Northern States,—the largest and most

experienced cultivators of cabbage in New England usually

dropping the seed directly where the plant is to stand, unless

they are first started under glass, or the piece of land to be

planted cannot be prepared in season to enable the farmer to put

his seed directly in the hill and yet give the cabbage time

sufficient to mature. Where the climate is unpropitious, or the

quantity of manure applied is insufficient, it is possible that

transplanting may promote heading. The advantages of planting

directly in the hill, are a saving of time, avoiding the risks

incidental to transplanting, and having all the piece start alike;

for, when transplanted, many die and have to be replaced, while

some hesitate much longer than others before starting, thus

making a want of uniformity in the maturing of the crop. There

is, also, this advantage, there being several plants in each hill,

the cut-worm has to depredate pretty severely before he really

injures the piece; again, should the seed not vegetate in any of

the hills, every farmer will appreciate the advantage of having

healthy plants growing so near at hand that they can be

transferred to the vacant spaces with their roots so undisturbed

that their growth is hardly checked. In addition to the labor of

transplanting saved by this plan, the great check that plants

always receive when so treated is prevented, and also the extra

risks that occur should a season of drought follow. It is the

belief of some farmers, that plants growing where the seed was

planted are less liable to be destroyed by the cut-worm than

those that have been transplanted. When planning to raise late

cabbage on upland, I sow a portion of the seed on a moist spot,

or, in case a portion of the land is moist, I plant the hills on such

land with an extra quantity of seed, that I may have enough

plants for the whole piece, should the weather prove to be too

dry for the seed to vegetate on the dryer portions of it. It is wise

to sow these extra plants about a week earlier, for they will be

put back about a week by transplanting them.

Some of our best farmers drill their seed in with a sowing

machine, such as is used for onions, carrots, and other vegetable

crops. This is a very expeditious way, and has the advantage of

leaving the plants in rows instead of bunches, as in the hill

system, and thus enables the hoe to do most of the work of

thinning. It has also this advantage: each plant being by itself

can be left much longer before thinning, and yet not grow long

in the stump, thus making it available for transplanting, or for

sale in the market, for a longer period.

The usual way of preparing the hills is to strike out furrows

with a small, one-horse plow, as far apart as the rows are to be.

As it is very important that the rows should be as straight as

practicable, it is a good plan to run back once in each furrow,

particularly on sod land where the plow will be apt to catch in

the turf and jump out of line. A manure team follows,

containing the dressing for the hills, which has previously been

pitched over and beaten up until all the ingredients are fine and

well mixed. This team is so driven, if possible, as to avoid

running in the furrows. Two or three hands follow with forks or

shovels, pitching the manure into the furrows at the distance

apart that has been determined on for the hills. How far apart

these are to be will depend on the varieties, from eighteen

inches to four feet. On land that has been very highly manured

for a series of years, cabbage can be planted nearer than on land

that has been under the plow but a few years. For the distance

apart for different varieties see farther on. The manure is leveled

with hoes, a little soil is drawn over it, and a slight stamp with

the back of the hoe is given to level this soil, and, at the same

time, to mark the hill. The planter follows with seed in a tin

box, or any small vessel having a broad bottom, and taking a

small pinch between the thumb and forefinger he gives a slight

scratch with the remaining fingers of the same hand, and

dropping in about half a dozen seed covers them half an inch

deep with a sweep of the hand, and packs the earth by a gentle

pat with the open palm to keep the moisture in the ground and

thus promote the vegetation of the seed. With care a quarter of a

pound of seed will plant an acre, when dropped directly in the

hills; but half a pound is the common allowance, as there is

usually some waste from spilling, while most laborers plant

with a free hand.

The soil over the hills being very light and porous, careless

hands are apt to drop the seed too deep. Care should be taken

not to drop the seed all in one spot, but to scatter them over a

surface of two or three inches square, that each plant may have

room to develop without crowding its neighbors.

If the seed is planted in a line instead of in a mass the plants

can be left longer before the final thinning without danger of

growing tall and weak.

If the seed is to be drilled in, it will be necessary to scatter

the manure all along the furrows, then cover with a plow,

roughly leveling with a rake.

Should the compost applied to the hills be very concentrated,

it will be apt to produce stump foot; it will, therefore, be safest

in such cases to hollow out the middle with the corner of the

hoe, or draw the hoe through and fill in with earth, that the roots

of the young plants may not come in direct contact with the

compost as soon as they begin to push.

When guano or phosphates are used in the hills it will be

well to mark out the rows with a plow, and then, where each hill

is to be, fill in the soil level to the surface with a hoe, before

applying them. I have, in a previous paragraph, given full

instructions how to apply these. Hen manure, if moist, should be

broken up very fine, and be mixed with some dry earth to

prevent it from again lumping together, and the mixture applied

in sufficient quantity to make an equivalent of a heaping

handful of pure hen manure to each hill. Any liquid manure is

excellent for the cabbage crop; but it should be well diluted, or

it will be likely to produce stump foot.

Cabbage seed of almost all varieties are nearly round in form,

but are not so spherical as turnip seed. I note, however, that seed

of the Savoys are nearly oval. In color they are light brown

when first gathered, but gradually turn dark brown if not

gathered too early. An ounce contains nearly ten thousand seed,

but should not be relied upon for many over two thousand good

plants, and these are available for about as many hills only when

raised in beds and transplanted; when dropped directly in the

hills it will take not far from eight ounces of the larger sorts to

plant an acre, and of the smaller cabbage rather more than this.

Cabbage seed when well cured and kept in close bags will retain

their vitality four or five years; old gardeners prefer seed of all

the cabbage family two or three years old.

When the plan is to raise the young plants in beds to be

transplanted, the ground selected for the beds should be of rich

soil; this should be very thoroughly dug, and the surface worked

and raked very fine, every stone and lump of earth being

removed. Now sprinkle the seed evenly over the bed and gently

rake in just under the surface, compacting the soil by pressure

with a board. As soon as the young plants appear, sprinkle them

with air-slaked lime. Transplant when three or four inches high,

being very careful not to let the plants get tall and weak.

For late cabbage, in the latitude of Boston, to have cabbages

ready for market about the first of November, the Marblehead

Mammoth should be planted the 20th of May, other late

drumheads from June 1st to June 12th, provided the plants are

not to be transplanted; otherwise a week earlier. In those

localities where the growing season is later, the seed should be

planted proportionally later.

CARE OF THE YOUNG PLANTS

In four or five days, if the weather is propitious, the young

plants will begin to break ground, presenting at the surface two

leaves, which together make nearly a square, like the first leaves

of turnips or radishes. As soon as the third leaf is developed, go

over the piece, and boldly thin out the plants. Wherever they are

very thick, pull a mass of them with the fingers and thumb,

being careful to fill up the hole made with fine earth. After the

fourth leaf is developed, go over the piece again and thin still

more; you need specially to guard against a slender weak

growth, which will happen when the plants are too crowded. In

thinning, leave the short-stumped plants, and leave them as far

apart in the hill as possible, that they may not shade each other,

or so interfere in growing as to make long stumps. If there is any

market for young plants, thousands can be sold from an acre

when the seed are planted in the hill; but in doing this bear in

mind that your principal object is to raise cabbages, and to

succeed in this the young plants must on no account be allowed

to stand so long together in the hills as to crowd each other,

making a tall, weak, slender growth,—getting "long-legged," as

the farmers call it.

If the manure in any of the hills is too strong, the fact will be

known by its effects on the plants, which will be checked in

their growth, and be of a darker green color than the healthy

plants. Gently pull away the earth from the roots of such with

the fingers, and draw around fresh earth; or, what is as well or

better, transplant a healthy plant just on the edge of the hill.

When the plants are finger high they are of a good size to

transplant into such hills as have missed, or to market. When

transplanting, select a rainy day, if possible, and do not begin

until sufficient rain has fallen to moisten the earth around the

roots, which will make it more likely to adhere to them when

taken up. Take up the young plants by running the finger or a

trowel under them; put these into a flat basket or box, and in

transplanting set them to the same depth they originally grew,

pressing the earth a little about the roots.

If it is necessary to do the transplanting in a dry spell, as

usually happens, select the latter part of the afternoon, if

practicable, and, making holes with a dibble, or any pointed

stick an inch and a half in diameter, fill these holes, a score or

more at a time, with water; and as soon as the water is about

soaked away, beginning with the hole first filled, set out your

plants. The evaporation of the moisture below the roots will

keep them moist until they get a hold. Cabbage plants have great

tenacity of life, and will rally and grow when they appear to be

dead; the leaves may all die, and dry up like hay, but if the

stump stands erect and the unfolded leaf at the top of the stump

is alive, the plant will usually survive. When the plants are quite

large, they may be used successfully by cutting or breaking off

the larger leaves. Some advocate wilting the plants before

transplanting, piling them in the cellar a few days before setting

them out, to toughen them and get a new setting of fine roots;

others challenge their vigor by making it a rule to do all

transplanting under the heat of mid-day. I think there is not

much of reason in this latter course. The young plants can be set

out almost as fast as a man can walk, by holding the roots close

to one side of the hole made by the dibble, and at the same

moment pressing earth against them with the other hand.

(skip)

BOOK FIVE:

The Better Days Books Origiganic Guide To

The Culinary Herbs

Their Cultivation, Harvesting, Curing and Uses

By M. G. Kains

Originally Published in 1912 by Orange Judd Company, New York

Herbs and Children, a Happy Harmony

Ah, Zephyrus! art here, and Flora too!

Ye tender bibbers of the rain and dew,

Young playmates of the rose and daffodil,

Be careful, ere ye enter in, to fill

Your baskets high

With fennel green, and balm, and golden pines,

Savory, latter-mint, and columbines,

Cool parsley, basil sweet, and sunny thyme;

Yea, every flower and leaf of every clime,

All gather'd in the dewy morn: hie

Away! fly, fly!

—Keats, "Endymion"

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

A small boy who wanted to make a good impression once

took his little sweetheart to an ice cream parlor. After he had

vainly searched the list of edibles for something within his

means, he whispered to the waiter, "Say, Mister, what you got

that looks tony an' tastes nice for nineteen cents?"

This is precisely the predicament in which many thousand

people are today. Like the boy, they have skinny purses,

voracious appetites and mighty yearnings to make the best

possible impression within their means. Perhaps having been

"invited out," they learn by actual demonstration that the herbs

are culinary magicians which convert cheap cuts and "scraps"

into toothsome dainties. They are thus aroused to the fact that by

using herbs they can afford to play host and hostess to a larger

number of hungry and envious friends than ever before.

Maybe it is mainly due to these yearnings and to the

memories of mother's and grandmother's famous dishes that so

many inquiries concerning the propagation, cultivation, curing

and uses of culinary herbs are asked of authorities on gardening

and cookery; and maybe it is because no one has really loved the

herbs enough to publish a book on the subject. That herbs are

easy to grow I can abundantly attest, for I have grown them all. I

can also bear ample witness to the fact that they reduce the cost

of high living, if by that phrase is meant pleasing the palate

without offending the purse.

For instance, a few days ago a friend paid twenty cents for

soup beef, and five cents for "soup greens." The addition of salt,

pepper and other ingredients brought the initial cost up to

twenty-nine cents. This made enough soup for ten or twelve

liberal servings. The lean meat removed from the soup was

minced and mixed with not more than ten cents' worth of diced

potatoes, stale bread crumbs, milk, seasoning and herbs before

being baked as a supper dish for five people, who by their bland

smiles and "scotch plates" attested that the viands both looked

"tony" and tasted nice.

I am glad to acknowledge my thanks to Mr. N. R. Graves of

Rochester, N. Y., and Prof. R. L. Watts of the Pennsylvania

State Agricultural College, for the photographic illustrations,

and to Mr. B. F. Williamson, the Orange Judd Co.'s artist, for

the pen and ink drawings which add so much to the value,

attractiveness and interest of these pages.

If this book shall instill or awaken in its readers the

wholesome though "cupboard" love that the culinary herbs

deserve both as permanent residents of the garden and as

masters of the kitchen, it will have accomplished the object for

which it was written.

M. G. Kains.

New York, 1912.

CONTENTS

Author's Preface

Culinary Herbs

A Dinner of Herbs

Culinary Herbs Defined

History

Production of New Varieties

Status and Uses

Notable Instance of Uses

Methods of Curing

Drying and Storing

Herbs as Garnishes

Propagation, Seeds

Cuttings

Layers

Division

Transplanting

Implements

Location of Herb Garden

The Soil and Its Preparation

Cultivation

Double Cropping

Herb Relationships _____________

The Herb List:

Angelica

Anise

Balm

Basil

Borage

Caraway

Catnip

Chervil

Chives

Clary

Coriander

Cumin

Dill

Fennel

Finocchio

Fennel Flower

Hoarhound

Hyssop

Lavender

Lovage

Marigold

Marjoram

Mint

Parsley

Pennyroyal

Peppermint

Rosemary

Rue

Sage

Samphire

Savory, Summer

Savory, Winter

Southernwood

Tansy

Tarragon

Thyme

CULINARY HERBS

In these days of jaded appetites, condiments and canned

goods, how fondly we turn from the dreary monotony of the

"dainty" menu to the memory of the satisfying dishes of our

mothers! What made us, like Oliver Twist, ask for more? Were

those flavors real, or was it association and natural, youthful

hunger that enticed us? Can we ever forget them; or, what is

more practical, can we again realize them? We may find the

secret and the answer in mother's garden. Let's peep in.

The garden, as in memory we view it, is not remarkable

except for its neatness and perhaps the mixing of flowers, fruits

and vegetables as we never see them jumbled on the table.

Strawberries and onions, carrots and currants, potatoes and

poppies, apples and sweet corn and many other as strange

comrades, all grow together in mother's garden in the utmost

harmony.

Spading Fork

All these are familiar friends; but what are those plants near

the kitchen? They are "mother's sweet herbs." We have never

seen them on the table. They never played leading roles such as

those of the cabbage and the potato. They are merely members

of "the cast" which performed the small but important parts in

the production of the pleasing tout ensemble—soup, stew,

sauce, or salad—the remembrance of which, like that of a well-

staged and well-acted drama, lingers in the memory long after

the actors are forgotten.

Barrel Culture of Herbs

Probably no culinary plants have during the last 50 years

been so neglected. Especially during the "ready-to-serve" food

campaign of the closed quarter century did they suffer most. But

they are again coming into their own. Few plants are so easily

cultivated and prepared for use. With the exception of the onion,

none may be so effectively employed and none may so

completely transform the "left-over" as to tempt an otherwise

balky appetite to indulge in a second serving without being

urged to perform the homely duty of "eating it to save it."

Indeed, sweet herbs are, or should be the boon of the housewife,

since they make for both pleasure and economy. The soup may

be made of the most wholesome, nutritious and even costly

materials; the fish may be boiled or baked to perfection; the

joint or the roast and the salad may be otherwise faultless, but if

they lack flavor they will surely fail in their mission, and none

of the neighbors will plot to steal the cook, as they otherwise

might did she merit the reputation that she otherwise might, by

using culinary herbs.

This doleful condition may be prevented and the cook enjoy

an enviable esteem by the judicious use of herbs, singly or in

combination. It is greatly to be regretted that the uses of these

humble plants, which seem to fall lower than the dignity of the

title "vegetable," should be so little understood by intelligent

American housewives.

In the flavoring of prepared dishes we Americans—people,

as the French say, "of one sauce"—might well learn a lesson

from the example of the English matron who usually considers

her kitchen incomplete without a dozen or more sweet herbs,

either powdered, or in decoction, or preserved in both ways. A

glance into a French or a German culinary department would

probably show more than a score; but a careful search in an

American kitchen would rarely reveal as many as half a dozen,

and in the great majority probably only parsley and sage would

be brought to light. Yet these humble plants possess the power

of rendering even unpalatable and insipid dishes piquant and

appetizing, and this, too, at a surprisingly low cost. Indeed, most

of them may be grown in an out-of-the-way corner of the

garden, or if no garden be available, in a box of soil upon a

sunny windowsill—a method adopted by many foreigners living

in tenement houses in New York and Jersey City. Certainly they

may be made to add to the pleasure of living and, as Solomon

declares, "better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled

ox with contention."

It is to be regretted that the moving picture show and the

soda water fountain have such an influence in breaking up old-

fashioned family evenings at home when everyone gathered

around the evening lamp to enjoy homemade dainties. In those

good old days the young man was expected to become

acquainted with the young woman in the home. The girl took

pride in serving solid and liquid culinary goodies of her own

construction. Her mother, her all-sufficient guide, mapped out

the sure, safe, and orthodox highway to a man's heart and saw to

it that she learned how to play her cards with skill and precision.

Those were the days when a larger proportion "lived happy ever

after" than in modern times, when recreation and refreshment

are sought more frequently outside than inside the walls of

home.

But it is not too late to learn the good old ways over again

and enjoy the good old culinary dainties. Whoever relishes the

summer cups that cheer but do not inebriate may add

considerably to his enjoyment by using some of the sweet herbs.

Spearmint adds to lemonade the pleasing pungency it as readily

imparts to a less harmful but more notorious beverage. The blue

or pink flowers of borage have long been famous for the same

purpose, though they are perhaps oftener added to a mixture of

honey and water, to grape juice, raspberry vinegar or strawberry

acid. All that is needed is an awakened desire to re-establish

home comforts and customs, then a little later experimentation

will soon fix the herb habit.

Transplanting Board and Dibble

The list of home confections may be very pleasingly

extended by candying the aromatic roots of lovage, and thus

raising up a rival to the candied ginger said to be imported from

the Orient. If anyone likes coriander and caraway—I confess

that I don't—he can sugar the seeds to make those little

"comfits," the candies of our childhood which our mothers tried

to make us think we liked to crunch either separately or

sprinkled on our birthday cakes. Those were before the days

when somebody's name was "stamped on every piece" to aid

digestion. Can we ever forget the picnic when we had certain

kinds of sandwiches? Our mothers minced sweet fennel, the

tender leaves of sage, marjoram or several other herbs, mixed

them with cream cheese, and spread a layer between two thin

slices of bread. Perhaps it was the swimming, or the three-

legged racing, or the swinging, or all put together, that put a

razor edge on our appetites and made us relish those sandwiches

more than was perhaps polite; but will we not, all of us who ate

them, stand ready to dispute with all comers that it was the

flavors that made us forget "our manners"?

But sweet herbs may be made to serve another pleasing, an

esthetic purpose. Many of them may be used for ornament. A

bouquet of the pale pink blossoms of thyme and the delicate

flowers of marjoram, the fragrant sprigs of lemon balm mixed

with the bright yellow umbels of sweet fennel, the finely

divided leaves of rue and the long glassy ones of bergamot, is

not only novel in appearance but in odor. In sweetness it excels

even sweet peas and roses. Mixed with the brilliant red berries

of barberry and multiflora rose, and the dark-green branches of

the hardy thyme, which continues fresh and sweet through the

year, a handsome and lasting bouquet may be made for a

midwinter table decoration, a fragrant reminder of

Shakespeare's lines in "A Winter's Tale":

"Here's flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun

And with him rises weeping."

The rare aroma of sweet marjoram reminds so many city

people of their mother's and their grandmother's country

gardens, that countless muslin bags of the dried leaves sent to

town ostensibly for stuffing poultry never reach the kitchen at

all, but are accorded more honored places in the living room.

They are placed in the sunlight of a bay window where Old Sol

may coax forth their prisoned odors and perfume the air with

memories of childhood summers on the farm.

Other memories cling to the delicate little lavender, not so

much because the owner of a well-filled linen closet perfumed

her spotless hoard with its fragrant flowers, but because of more

tender remembrances. Would any country wedding chest be

complete without its little silk bags filled with dried lavender

buds and blooms to add the finishing touch of romance to the

dainty trousseau of linen and lace? What can recall the bridal

year so surely as this same kindly lavender?

A DINNER OF HERBS

In an article published in American Agriculturist, Dora M.

Morrell says: "There is an inference that a dinner of herbs is

rather a poor thing, one not to be chosen as a pleasure. Perhaps

it might be if it came daily, but, for once in a while, try this

which I am going to tell you.

"To prepare a dinner of herbs in its best estate you should

have a bed of seasonings such as our grandmothers had in their

gardens, rows of sage, of spicy mint, sweet marjoram, summer

savory, fragrant thyme, tarragon, chives and parsley. To these

we may add, if we take herbs in the Scriptural sense, nasturtium,

and that toothsome esculent, the onion, as well as lettuce. If you

wish a dinner of herbs and have not the fresh, the dried will

serve, but parsley and mint you can get at most times in the

markets, or in country gardens, where they often grow wild.

"Do you know, my sister housewife, that if you were to have

a barrel sawed in half, filled with good soil, some holes made in

the side and then placed the prepared half barrel in the sun, you

could have an herb garden of your own the year through, even if

you live in a city flat? In the holes at the sides you can plant

parsley, and it will grow to cover the barrel, so that you have a

bank of green to look upon. On the top of the half barrel plant

your mint, sage, thyme and tarragon. Thyme is so pleasing a

plant in appearance and fragrance that you may acceptably give

it a place among those you have in your window for ornament.

Assortment of Favorite Weeders

"The Belgians make a parsley soup that might begin your

dinner, or rather your luncheon. For the soup, thicken flour and

butter together as for drawn butter sauce, and when properly

cooked thin to soup consistency with milk. Flavor with onion

juice, salt and pepper. Just before serving add enough parsley

cut in tiny bits to color the soup green. Serve croutons with this.

"For the next course choose an omelet with fine herbs. Any

cookbook will give the directions for making the omelet, and all

that will be necessary more than the book directs is to have

added to it minced thyme, tarragon and chives before folding, or

they may be stirred into the omelet before cooking.

"Instead of an omelet you may have eggs stuffed with fine

herbs and served in cream sauce. Cut hard-boiled eggs in half

the long way and remove the yolks. Mash and season these,

adding the herbs, as finely minced as possible. Shape again like

yolks and return to the whites. Cover with a hot cream sauce

and serve before it cools. Both of these dishes may be garnished

with shredded parsley over the top.

"With this serve a dish of potatoes scalloped with onion.

Prepare by placing in alternate layers the two vegetables; season

well with salt, pepper and butter, and then add milk even with

the top layer. This dish is quite hearty and makes a good supper

dish of itself.

"Of course you will not have a meal of this kind without

salad. For this try a mixture of nasturtium leaves and blossoms,

tarragon, chives, mint, thyme and the small leaves of the lettuce,

adding any other green leaves of the spicy kind which you find

to taste good. Then dress these with a simple oil and vinegar

dressing, omitting sugar, mustard or any such flavoring, for

there is spice enough in the leaves themselves.

"Pass with these, if you will, sandwiches made with lettuce

or nasturtium dressed with mayonnaise. You may make quite a

different thing of them by adding minced chives or tarragon, or

thyme, to the mayonnaise. The French are very partial to this

manner of compounding new sauces from the base of the old

one. After you do it a few times you also will find it worth

while.

Popular Adjustable Row Marker

"When it comes to a dessert I am afraid you will have to go

outside of herbs. You can take a cream cheese and work into it

with a silver knife any of these herbs, or any two of them that

agree with it well, and serve it with toasted crackers, or you can

toast your crackers with common cheese, grating above it sage

and thyme."

Whether this "dinner of herbs" appeals to the reader or not, I

venture to say that no housewife who has ever stuffed a

Thanksgiving turkey, a Christmas goose or ducks or chickens

with home-grown, home-prepared herbs, either fresh or dried,

will ever after be willing to buy the paper packages or tin cans

of semi-inodorous, prehistoric dust which masquerades equally

well as "fresh" sage, summer savory, thyme or something else,

the only apparent difference being the label.

To learn to value herbs at their true worth one should grow

them. Then every visitor to the garden will be reminded of some

quotation from the Bible, or Shakespeare or some other

repository of interesting thoughts; for since herbs have been

loved as long as the race has lived on the earth, literature is full

of references to facts and fancies concerning them. Thus the

herb garden will become the nucleus around which cluster hoary

legends, gems of verse and lilts of song, and where one almost

stoops to remove his shoes, for

"The wisdom of the ages

Blooms anew among the sages."

CULINARY HERBS DEFINED

It may be said that sweet or culinary herbs are those annual,

biennial or perennial plants whose green parts, tender roots or

ripe seeds have an aromatic flavor and fragrance, due either to a

volatile oil or to other chemically named substances peculiar to

the individual species. Since many of them have pleasing odors

they have been called sweet, and since they have been long used

in cookery to add their characteristic flavors to soups, stews,

dressings, sauces and salads, they are popularly called culinary.

This last designation is less happy than the former, since many

other herbs, such as cabbage, spinach, kale, dandelion and

collards, are also culinary herbs. These vegetables are, however,

probably more widely known as potherbs or greens.

HISTORY

It seems probable that many of the flavoring herbs now in

use were similarly employed before the erection of the pyramids

and also that many then popular no longer appear in modern

lists of esculents. Of course, this statement is based largely upon

imperfect records, perhaps, in many cases only hints more or

less doubtful as to the various species. But it seems safe to

conclude that a goodly number of the herbs discussed in this

volume, especially those said to be natives of the Mediterranean

region, overhung and perfumed the cradle of the human race in

the Orient and marked the footsteps of our rude progenitors as

they strode more and more sturdily toward the horizon of

promise. This idea seems to gain support also from the fact that

certain Eastern peoples, whom modern civilization declares to

have uneducated tastes, still employ many herbs which have

dropped by the wayside of progress, or like the caraway and the

redoubtable "pusley," an anciently popular potherb, are but

known in western lands as troublesome weeds.

Relying upon Biblical records alone, several herbs were

highly esteemed prior to our era; in the gospels of Matthew and

Luke reference is made to tithes of mint, anise, rue, cumin and

other "herbs"; and, more than 700 years previously, Isaiah

speaks of the sowing and threshing of cumin which, since the

same passage (Isaiah xxviii, 25) also speaks of "fitches"

(vetches), wheat, barley and "rie" (rye), seems then to have been

a valued crop.

Popular Spades

The development of the herb crops contrasts strongly with

that of the other crops to which reference has just been made.

Whereas these latter have continued to be staples, and to judge

by their behavior during the last century may be considered to

have improved in quality and yield since that ancient time, the

former have dropped to the most subordinate position of all

food plants. They have lost in number of species, and have

shown less improvement than perhaps any other groups of

plants cultivated for economic purposes. During the century just

closed only one species, parsley, may be said to have developed

more than an occasional improved variety. And even during this

period the list of species seems to have been somewhat

curtailed—tansy, hyssop, horehound, rue and several others

being considered of too pronounced and even unpleasant flavor

to suit cultivated palates.

With the exception of these few species, the loss of which

seems not to be serious, this absence of improvement is to be

regretted, because with improved quality would come increased

consumption and consequent beneficial results in the appetizing

flavor of the foods to which herbs are added. But greatly

improved varieties of most species can hardly be expected until

a just appreciation has been awakened in individual cultivators,

who, probably in a majority of cases, will be lovers of plants

rather than men who earn their living by market gardening.

Until the public better appreciates the culinary herbs there

will be a comparatively small commercial demand; until the

demand is sufficient to make growing herbs profitable upon an

extensive scale, market gardeners will devote their land to crops

which are sure to pay well; hence the opportunity to grow herbs

as an adjunct to gardening is the most likely way that they can

be made profitable. And yet there is still another; namely,

growing them for sale in the various prepared forms and selling

them in glass or tin receptacles in the neighborhood or by

advertising in the household magazines. There surely is a

market, and a profitable one if rightly managed. And with right

management and profit is to come desire to have improved

varieties. Such varieties can be developed at least as readily as

the wonderful modern chrysanthemum has been developed from

an insignificant little wild flower not half as interesting or

promising originally as our common oxeye daisy, a well-known

field weed.

Not the least object of this volume is, therefore, to arouse

just appreciation of the opportunities awaiting the herb grower.

Besides the very large and increasing number of people who

take pleasure in the growing of attractive flowering and foliage

plants, fine vegetables and choice fruits, there are many who

would find positive delight in the breeding of plants for

improvement—the origination of new varieties—and who

would devote much of their leisure time to this work—make it a

hobby—did they know the simple underlying principles. For

their benefit, therefore, the following paragraphs are given.

PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES

Besides the gratification that always accompanies the

growing of plants, there is in plant breeding the promise that the

progeny will in some way be better than the parent, and there is

the certainty that when a stable variety of undoubted merit has

been produced it can be sold to an enterprising seedsman for

general distribution. In this way the amateur may become a

public benefactor, reap the just reward of his labors and keep his

memory green!

The production of new varieties of plants is a much simpler

process than is commonly supposed. It consists far more in

selecting and propagating the best specimens than in any so-

called "breeding." With the majority of the herbs this is the most

likely direction in which to seek success.

Suppose we have sown a packet of parsley seed and we have

five thousand seedlings. Among these a lot will be so weak that

we will naturally pass them by when we are choosing plantlets

to put in our garden beds. Here is the first and simplest kind of

selection. By this means, and by not having space for a great

number of plants in the garden, we probably get rid of 80 per

cent of the seedlings—almost surely the least desirable ones.

Lath Screen for Shading Beds

Suppose we have transplanted 1,000 seedlings where they are

to grow and produce leaves for sale or home use. Among these,

provided the seed has been good and true, at least 90 per cent

will be about alike in appearance, productivity and otherwise.

The remaining plants may show variations so striking as to

attract attention. Some may be tall and scraggly, some may be

small and puny; others may be light green, still others dark

green; and so on. But there may be one or two plants that stand

out conspicuously as the best of the whole lot. These are the

ones to mark with a stake so they will not be molested when the

crop is being gathered and so they will attain their fullest

development.

These best plants, and only these, should then be chosen as

the seed bearers. No others should be allowed even to produce

flowers. When the seed has ripened, that from each plant should

be kept separate during the curing process described elsewhere.

And when spring comes again, each lot of seed should be sown

by itself. When the seedlings are transplanted, they should be

kept apart and labeled No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, etc., so the progeny

of each parent plant can be known and its history kept.

The process of selecting the seedlings the second year is the

same as in the first; the best are given preference, when being

transplanted. In the beds all sorts of variations even more

pronounced than the first year may be expected. The effort with

the seedlings derived from each parent plant should be to find

the plants that most closely resemble their own parents, and to

manage these just as the parents were managed. No other should

be allowed to flower.

This process is to be continued from year to year. If the

selection is carefully made, the grower will soon rejoice,

because he will observe a larger and a larger number of plants

approaching the type of plant he has been selecting for. In time

practically the whole plantation will be coming "true to type,"

and he will have developed a new variety. If his ideal is such as

to appeal to the practical man—the man who grows parsley for

money—and if the variety is superior to varieties already grown,

the originator will have no difficulty in disposing of his stock of

seed and plants, if he so desires, to a seedsman, who will gladly

pay a round price in order to have exclusive control of the "new

creation." Or he may contract with a seedsman to grow seed of

the new variety for sale to the trade.

Harvesting Thyme Grown on a Commercial Scale

It may be said, further, that new varieties may be produced

by placing the pollen from the flowers of one plant upon the

pistils in the flowers of another and then covering the plant with

fine gauze to keep insects out. With the herbs, however, this

method seems hardly worth while, because the flowers are as a

rule very small and the work necessarily finicky, and because

there are already so few varieties of most species that the

operation may be left to the activities of insects. It is for this

reason, however, that none but the choicest plants should be

allowed to bloom, so none but desirable pollen may reach and

fertilize the flowers of the plants to be used as seed producers.

STATUS AND USES

Some readers of a statistical turn of mind may be

disappointed to learn that figures as to the value of the annual

crops of individual herbs, the acreage devoted to each, the

average cost, yield and profit an acre, etc., are not obtainable

and that the only way of determining the approximate standing

of the various species is the apparent demand for each in the

large markets and stores.

Unquestionably the greatest call is for parsley, which is used

in restaurants and hotels more extensively as a garnish than any

other herb. In this capacity it ranks about equal with watercress

and lettuce, which both find their chief uses as salads. As a

flavoring agent it is probably less used than sage, but more than

any of the other herbs. It is chiefly employed in dressings with

mild meats such as chicken, turkey, venison, veal, with baked

fish; and for soups, stews, and sauces, especially those used

with boiled meats, fish and fricassees of the meats mentioned.

Thus it has a wider application than any other of the culinary

herbs.

Sage, which is a strongly flavored plant, is used chiefly with

such fat meats as pork, goose, duck, and various kinds of game.

Large quantities are mixed with sausage meat and, in some

countries, with certain kinds of cheese. Throughout the United

States it is probably the most frequently called into requisition

of all herbs, probably outranking any two of the others, with the

exception of parsley.

Garden Hoes of Various Styles

Thyme and savory stand about equal, and are chiefly used

like parsley, though both, especially the former, are used in

certain kinds of sausage. Marjoram, which is similarly

employed, comes next, then follow balm, fennel, and basil.

These milder herbs are often mixed for much the same reason

that certain simple perfumes are blended—to produce a new

odor—combinations of herbs resulting in a new compound

flavor. Such compounds are utilized in the same way that the

elementary herbs are.

In classes by themselves are tarragon and spearmint, the

former of which is chiefly used as a decoction in the flavoring

of fish sauces, and the latter as the universal dressing with

spring lamb. Mint has also a more convivial use, but this seems

more the province of the W. C. T. U. than of this book to

discuss.

Dill is probably the most important of the herbs whose seeds,

rather than their leaves, are used in flavoring food other than

confectionery. It plays its chief role in the pickle barrel.

Immense quantities of cucumber pickles flavored principally

with dill are used in the restaurants of the larger cities and also

by families, the foreign-born citizens and their descendants

being the chief consumers. The demand for these pickles is met

by the leading pickle manufacturers who prepare special brands,

generally according to German recipes, and sell them to the

delicatessen and the grocery stores. If they were to rely upon me

for business, they would soon go bankrupt. To my palate the dill

pickle appeals as almost the acme of disagreeableness.

NOTABLE INSTANCE OF USES

The flavors of the various herbs cover a wide range,

commencing with fennel and ending with sage, and are capable

of wide application. In one case which came under my

observation, the cook made a celery-flavored stew of some meat

scraps. Not being wholly consumed, the surviving debris

appeared a day or two later, in company with other odds and

ends, as the chief actor in a meat pie flavored with parsley. Alas,

a left-over again! "Never mind," mused the cook; and no one

who partook of the succeeding stew discovered the lurking

parsley and its overpowered progenitor, the celery, under the

effectual disguise of summer savory. By an unforeseen

circumstance the fragments remaining from this last stew did

not continue the cycle and disappear in another pie. Had this

been their fate, however, their presence could have been

completely obscured by sage. This problem in perpetual

progression or culinary homeopathy can be practiced in any

kitchen. But hush, tell it not in the dining-room!

Dried Herbs in Paper and Tin

# # # #

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