a farmer's note book [by] c.e.d. phelps (1912)

8/3/2019 A Farmer's Note Book [by] C.E.D. Phelps (1912)

1/312

AFarmefsNote Book

C.E.D.Phelps


2/312

Gass ^ cS /! /Book _L_51_

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.


3/312

^.12), (PUf^


4/312


5/312


6/312


7/312

A FARMER'SNOTE BOOK

:^i^A'PHELPS

RICHARD G. BADGERTHE GORHAM PRESS

BOSTON


8/312

Copyright, 1912, by C. E. D. PhelpsAll Rights Reserved

The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.,


9/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK


10/312

^

^/riC!.A314876


11/312

A Farmer's Note BookJanuary i. New Year's day ends the gun-

ning season. Noisy Sagittarius and bounc-ing Capricornus are swept away by the washfrom Aquarius' urn. The first snow-fall,however long deferred, is generally unwel-come to the farmer. No matter how neatlyeverything may have been packed andstowed, the mind goes afield for tools for-gotten on some neighbor's place, or jobs thatmight have been completed had open weath-er lasted longer. We look at the thermom-eter, hoping it will rise a few degrees, wescan the flakes, desiring their change to rain-drops. The comfortable old leather bootsthat have served so long will do no more, andrubbers must be worn all day long. Nothingelse will keep out melting slush beyond anhour or two; nothing at least that I haveever tried. My grandfather was wont torecommend boiling one's boots in grease.This, he said would fix 'em, but he addedthat it did spoil one's socks for a week ortwo. Gaiters, so affected by the traditionalEnglish yeoman, will not serve for long; thesnow gets into the shoes, and there melts atleisure. On the whole, an agriculturist maybetter accustom himself, as soon as may be,to the condition of Tytler's farmer. "Getus some supper, can't 'ee, lass?" he roared."I'm half starved, and wet up to the kneeslike all day."

5


12/312

6 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKJanuary 2, Climbed old maple, and

sawed out what was once the principal leadernow a weak diverging limb. Of the thou-sands who have ascended trees for safety,sport, or espial, how many make a figure inhistory or fiction? Zaccheus, Charles II,Robinson Crusoe, Countess of Desmondare there any more? Yet it compares favor-ably with many exploited athletics.No owner of land can be considered thor-oughly acquainted with it until he has

climbed the principal trees upon it. A sur-prising difference is made by changing theangle of view from acute to obtuse. Thecornfield that will bear being looked downon is a good one. Of course, other thingsbeing equal, the higher one ascends, the bet-ter; but much pleasure may be had at themodest altitude of 12 to 20 feet.

Climbing irons, such as telegraph linemenuse, and as were once employed by TomBrown and East to rob the magpie's nest,are not trustworthy in green wood. A flakeof bark into which the spur has been driven,may peel off as soon as weight is thrown onit, while a sudden slip into a crotch, bothfeet together, risks an ugly wound. A stoutbit of rope, 12 feet or so, with a loop at oneend, may be thrown over a limb from theground, noosed and ascended. Many a tree,hopeless at bottom, is an easy ladder afterthe first ten feet.

Great differences exist in the strength oftrees. As a rule, those with strong bark, as


13/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 7lime, birch, and willow, have weak wood,and vice versa. The cherry is the mosttreacherous of all, a fair looking branchsometimes crushing in the hand like an egg-shell; the pin oak the strongest, even its deadtwigs being tough as wire. I have knownone of these, not thicker than a lead pencil,to bear a man's weight. Winter tree mount-ing is on some accounts preferable, especiallyif one seeks a view, for few are the trees inleaf where a good outlook can be had. Butin summer one enters into the very heart ofthe tree, and lives almost detached fromearth. The most hospitable hosts of thiskind are those, which have, so to speak, suf-fered a disappointment in early youth, andlost their leading shoot. This causes themto throw out many side branches, which ulti-mately form a huge basket, where one mayrepose, and even sleep.

January j. A neighbor asked this morn-ing ''Any more news of the trolley?" and re-newed dolor. In "Old Mortality", Claver-house is represented as pausing in his dis-course with Milnwood to look up CuddieHeadrigg's name in a list of the disaffected."Let me see'Gumblegumption, indulged,sly, suspicionsHeathercat, field preacher,fanatical, dangerous. Ah, I have it nowHeadrigg, Cuthbert, his mother a bitter pur-itan, himself a simple fellow,might bemade something of but for his attachment to '. He paused, and glancing at Milnwood


14/312

8 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKreturned the paper to his pocket."

I doubt the railroad agents and surveyorsmay go provided with something equivalentto this, describing those whose lands theyseek. E. G. "A Poor and old; will yieldreadily. B. wealthy; approach with tact, ormay put up stiff fight. C. likely to bluster,but will weaken if threatened with law. D.easily talked over; unreliable. E. An easymark; believes all you tell him, but will standto his word." Equipped with such a manualmuch can be done by a ready talker. I re-member one worthy assuring a neighbor"You'll never take another crop off thisground," and three seasons with their cor-responding crops, have since gone by.

January 4. Looking at a white birch stickin the fire to-night, I was struck by the like-ness in the effect of fire and water. A line offlame crept slowly across the smooth whitebark driving up a little wrinkle before it, likeone of the lines left on sea sand by the re-turning waves. Great is the indestructibilityof logs. I sometimes recognize on the fire astick which I cut a week, a month, or even ayear before.The approach of sleep is much like thefreezing of water in pond or bowl. Faintspiculae dart from the sides, motes and dots,barely perceptible, swim in the midst. Onemight imagine the process not less gratefulto the long unsheltered mere than to themerely longing brain; for as the one desires,


15/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 9for the time being, to be defended from thatthought which is its own component essence,so might the other seek a coat proof againstthe plunge of an icicle, formed of a like ele-ment. Slight agitation applied with judg-ment, will help the matter on. The introduc-tion of a finger will sometimes change a bowlof congealing water to a solid mass; a bit ofice slid in at the proper moment, will help onthe water's freezing, and so will thinking onyour latest dream help to induce slumber.Transparent and cold as are ice and sleep,nothing will keep brain and water safer andwarmer; all glances from them, and naughtstirs up mud or mood. The parallel holdsto the last; for nothing can more resemblethe rude awakening of a slumberer than thesudden breaking of ice, and nothing is morelike a gradual and pleasant wakening thanthe melting thaw where beginning and endare alike indiscernable.

January 5. Turning cold again after rain.Several years ago, when a long period ofdamp weather was succeeded by a sharpnight, in walking through a wood road, Iobserved here and there among the russetleaves a white tulip or lily of ice. The crys-tals, rising from the steaming ground, hadbeen pressed by the stiffening leaves intocurves and convolutions resembling petals.

Frost and drought are not unlike in theirresults, or at least their effects. A wintermeadow, bare of snow, but frozen hard, is


16/312

lo A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKnot very dissimilar to the same meadow dur-ing a dry spell after haying. Color is gone,growth is short, stones show like land turtles,the soil is impenetrable, the wheel of natureis on a dead point. Only the hedgerows, ineither case, retain some life and color. Youlook at the foot hole pits in the ground,made when you rode that way last fall orspring, as the case may be, and wonder thatthe ground would ever have been softenough to receive such impressions, whilethat pools of water could ever have stood up-on it seems impossible. The earth, like theface of a frightened cowboy, is pale to theobliteration of its natural tan; and, again likethe cowboy, this only departs when he drawsrein at home. Then it is good to see, even inwinter, how the tints hasten back, and brownskin and stubby beard assume their naturalhues; for even in winter there is color, when-ever a spell of mild moisture comes.

January 6. Someone has said that a farm-er can often tell trees apart by their winteraspect, when he works most among them,who would be puzzled by their leaves, at atime when he is busied in the fields. I some-what doubt this; yet if all men wore thickmuffling garments of green, even if different-ly tagged and fringed, for half the year,would it not be easier to distinguish African,Hindoo and Caucasian when stripped?Most treesall the fruit treesblossomearly in spring. Oak, maple, elm, birch,


17/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK iibeech, this last very modestly,hickory,gum. The lime and plane come later. Thetulip tree excels both in magnitude of trunkand blossom. I have in mind a fine specimentwelve feet in circumference, eighty feet highand covered every year in early June withgreat yellow-green cups. Had they the colorof quince or apple, such a tree would be oneof the most splendid objects in Nature.

Early in July come the chestnuts, whentheir pretty golden bloom may be distin-guished a mile away bursting from amongthe dark green woods, as though some gigan-tic Gambrinus held up his well loved gobletfrom the shades. This, I think, is the lasttree to bloom, for that uncanny shrub, thewitch-hazel, hardly counts. Acorn andchestnut come nearly together in ripening,and are not unlike in size, but the former hasmuch the longer preparation for its fallperhaps because its burr, as Thoreau found,is inside.

January 7. Cutting bushes after storm.Noticed how persistent are the effects of thegreat ice blizzard of February 21, 1902;nearlythree years have passed, but the tracescan be seen on every hand, and are like to beseen for twenty years. Most of the isolatedchestnuts lost a limb then, some nearly all, afew branches yet dangle and swing by astrand of fibres, and a throng of new sproutspush from their stubs. In one place wheretwo heavy oak trees had fallen on young


18/312


19/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 13compare ourselves with others in the first in-stance and not in the second, may have some-thing to do with it. The danger might bedone away if, under the circumstances, im-agined by Trollope, we endeavored to carryour ideal into execution, and amid those setforth by Meredith, to keep our figment pure-ly speculative. But perhaps a worse habitthan either is that of being sorry for our-selves. We may be, and generally are, rigidtoward others up toor down to, a certainpoint; we blame them severely for ignoranceawkwardness, cowardice, and the like, untilwe discern, or are told, that they are natur-ally deficient in mind, when all stricturescease. But when we are sorry for ourselves,we cease to blame ourselves; when we ceaseto blame and begin to think that we shouldnot be held to the same standards as others,self-control is gone, and from that time ourprogress is on a steep down grade.

January g. Obstinacy of inanimate ob-jects. A wheel mounts a stone, and thenslips off to one side, without the onward im-petus descent would have given; you cutdown a dead weed, and the stem sticks in theground, and has to be plucked away by handbefore the spot is cleared. "When you fightwith a Russian", said Frederick the Great,"you have to kill him first and knock himdown afterwards".Of active courage, pugnacity and energywill make a very fair imitation; of the pas-


20/312

14 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKsive sort, mere sluggishness of mind willserve. For it can hardly be doubted thatmany a man who has gained credit for cool-ness in time of sudden danger did so becausehe did not think quickly enough to be fright-ened; by the time he realized the peril, it waspast. Whereas the nervous, highly strungindividual, taking in the danger as readily aseverything else, fled before it, mentally, evenmore rapidly than the foe advanced, in amanner not to be overlooked or mistaken.Goethe's "seeing red" during his attack ofcannon fever at Valmy was most likely aprovision of nature for enabling him to dis-play reckless courage, much in the same wayas a tendency to corpulence willfor a timeenable a gourmand to avoid the horrorsof dyspepsia. By the way. Creasy, in com-menting on this episode, says Goethe wasthen In early youth; the fact being that hewas well turned of forty.

January lo. I have once or twice alludedto the ice storm of 1902. During a freezingrain many years before, a small native henwho persisted in roosting on a bush out ofdoors, instead of sharing the hen-house withthe Bramas, was covered with what Dantecalls a "vislere dl cristallo", very closelymoulded to its contour, but not quite touch-ing eye and nostril, though attached to comband beak, yet when relieved of her armor,she did not seem a bit the worse.The wondrously intricate defensive arm^


21/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 15or of the Middle Ages contrasts stronglywith their simple and rudimentary weapons.Skill and ingenuity were taxed to the utmostto form an outer artificial skeleton, so tospeak, only of steel instead of bone, fitted,clasped and jointed in a manner comparingnot ill with Nature's own handiwork, shoesand gauntlets which would keep out anythingbut water, helmets which were a perfect de-fense if the wearer could but breathe inthem. And while all this was achieved, noteven excluding a considerable degree of dig-nity and grace, sword and spear, arrow andsling remained almost unchanged from Ju-lius Caesar down to Coeur de Lion. Thegreat superiority of the English bowmen, ofwhich so much has been said, consisted chief-ly in the general excess of their bow-staves inweight and strength over the Continentalones, while their arrows were almost smallspears. The elaborate cross-bow, with itssquared or quarrel head, devised to preventthe bolt rolling sideways from the stock, isperhaps the only exception to the generalsimplicity of missile weapons, and its successwas not on the whole encouraging.

January 11. There is a peculiar kind ofskylarge mackerels, so to speakleadenpear shaped clouds following each other inslow successionwhich always brings aScotch battle to mind. May not some faraway ancestor, as he fought or fled at Largs,Harlaw, or Pinkie, have been struck by such


22/312

1 6 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKaspect of the sky In an Interval of stress, andsent it down to me ?"Neighbor King's stack is on fire!" Foronce apprehension is sufficed. Away you flyin the direction indicated, work and business,pain and pleasure alike forgotten in the ex-citement of a servile Insurrection. Arrivedon the scene, you find the usually docile anduseful slave at bay, surrounded by half adozen of his hereditary masters, beatingdown the stack where he lies entrenched, car-rying it away by forkfuls, and throwing thesmoking bunches among green bushes, intomoist corners, anywhere the rebel will notfind an ally. Buckets of water are draggedfrom the well and flung on the points wherean outbreak is most to be dreaded, whileevery now and then a fierce puff and flashof heat makes all give back. "How did Itstart"? "Who saw it first"? "A good thingthe wind blew this way!" Our conversationis elemental and monosyllabic, as becomesthe time. Well do we know there Is no helpIn the firemen of the distant town; beforethey can arrive, we shall be victorious orworsted. At last the fray Is over, the bond-man lies chained and prostrate again, send-ing forth a few expiring gasps, and we sep-arate avowing our intention to keep a stricterrule for the future.

January 12. Mending Clifton barn. Theflooring of the east mow one thick andtrongly spiked plank exceptedwas torn


23/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 17out for firewood by some of the Irresponsibletenants who Hved there during the nineties,and we are now replacing it. The usual dis-tance of floor beams apart is two to threefeet, here it is nearly five, so we have to putin double planking. Inch hemlock over fiveeighths pine. The hemlock is green frozenstuff, and we have to kneel on a short bit ofthe pine while working, lest we get rheuma-tism in the knees.

It has been observed that in most under-takings calling for endurance of mind andbody, the leaders generally hold out betterthan the subordinates. And, to some extent,this is true on the farm. Either the laborerIs more subject to ailments, or more apt tocomplain of them, than the "boss". Some saythis Is because he don't know so well how totake care of himself; others, that being gen-erally younger he has not had time to growinto a veteran; others, that his health andstrength being his only stock In trade, he Ismore alarmed at their possible failure, andmore Inclined to hold forth upon It, than onewho has something put by against a rainyday. It Is of course Impossible to tell howmuch pain one person suffers as comparedwith another, even from anything so definiteas a crushed finger; much more from invisi-ble Internal pains, like dyspepsia or head-ache. But It maybe generally stated that whena stout young fellow spends two days In bedon account of an alleged toothache he Is rath-er overdoing It ; also that when the opportune


24/312

1 8 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKoccurrence of a holiday causes swift recoveryfrom grinding pain, doubts may be felt as tothe severity of the complaint.

January /j. Took load of hay to neigh-bor K. It is an old device with those thatsell hay to take it to market on a dampthreatening day; for the dry stuff out of thebarn absorbes moisture from the air, andreaches the scales many pounds heavier thanit left the farm. I have also heard a laborerwho came to us from Pennsylvania relatethat in the region where he worked the farm-ers would spend much time adjusting theforkfuls of hay as they were pitched on theload destined for market, so that the headsof timothy should show on the outside asmuch as possible; and this improved its ap-pearance so much as a dollar a ton beyondthat tossed on anyhow.

January i/f. Journeying along the banksof the Delaware I observed what a theatricalappearance has dirty old ice sprinkled withfresh white snow.The four spiritual quarter-days; Walpur-gis, Midsummer, Hallowe'en, Christmas.While they do not exactly correspond in dis-tance to the old days of settlement, beingstrained rather than rent, yet there is somelikeness. Walpurgis, (April 30) as allknow, is the festival of the evil spirits, andthen is kindled the bale-firethe flame ofBaalround which fiend and witch foot it


25/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 19together. Midsummer Eve has more cheeryassociations. Then troop the fairies, thosefailed divinities, Kelpie and Lurley are butshrunken Naiads, gnome and kobold Her-cules or Mercury rubbed down.

Hallowe'en brings on the harmful, un-necessary ghost, the laundress semblance, themirror awaiting Daguerre, the propheticmandrake or its humble imitator, the cab-bage stump, the apples of Eden, upborne bythe Deluge, and Ariadue's clue, flung into theCretan kiln. Lastly, Christmas rises fromthe unearthly to the heavenly; then only an-gels are heard, and that with its solstitialcomrade hath gentle Shakespeare celebratedin his verse, leaving the more fearsome out-breaks occurring in Spring and Autumn tothe treatment of dour Scot and misty Teuton.

January 75. The Stoics are well named.They entered not the house of truth, onlydwelt in its porch, but the porch of the Greektemple was its chief glory and beauty. Theirideal was attainable by man, and dignified inits ignoring of circumstances. Christ's teach-ing went half way with that of the Stoic, thenoverwhelmed it. "Fear not them which killthe body, but are not able to kill the soul",was repeatedly said by Epaphroditus' slave;but the next sentence "Rather fear him"goes far beyond. On the other hand while"Lay not up for yourselves treasures onearth" seems to strike at the root of the Ep-icurean doctrine, what follows of treasure in


26/312

20 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKheaven confirms and sublimes It.

January i6. Walking over field noticedthe empty cartridge shells of the Decembergunners. These cases of brass and paper al-ready rusting and rotting, compare as illwith the Indian's imperishable stone arrow-head as someone says the tin-can of moderncivilization does with the pottery of Kurium.

City people who come into the country, (afew artists and a very few well behaved peo-ple excepted) do so either to pilfer, to pol-lute, or to destroy. Under the first head, comethe snappers up of fruit, flowers, nuts, andferns; under the second, the picnickers; un-der the third, the fishers, hunters, and fire-raisers. Perhaps they do not always proposethese ends to themselves, but the results just-ify the above statement. Who has not seencultivated berries and blossoms snatched up,nay, perhaps, dug up, with trowel afore-thought? How many a pretty woodlandnook more resembles a pig-sty after the de-parture of a jolly lunch party, who have lit-tered it with melon rinds, papers, tin cans,and bottles. And how often is a dangerousfire set by persons who run away and leavesome one else the task of putting it out? Andthese things are done by nice young peoplewithout an ill word or thought, except forthe owner of the property, should he appearwith remonstrance. When country peoplecome to town, it is either to transact businessor to look at shows, for which they pay good


27/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 21money. Yet rustics, boors, and the like,have the name of being deficient in civility.

January ij. Several trees which wereburst by the frost blow last winter now showtheir wounds where sap has oozed from therupture during last summer, and stained thebark. I heard two or three of them go at thetime. One, I remember, a large ailanthus,thus sounded one night when the thermom-eter reached 17 below zero, like a logwhich after holding a long time suddenlysplits under great strain from wedges. Theprocess is not very clear, but would seem tobe just the reverse of a tub or jug burstingfrom the expansion of ice within.

January 18. Drawing up wood. Severalsticks containing hibernating- ants, the largeblack kind. It is said that the Maine log-choppers, when bilious from long feeding onpork and beans, used to eat these insects forthe formic acid they contain. I have tried itmyself, biting off the abdomen, and rejectingthe head and thorax; and I remember theytasted like sorrel.The only hibernating mammal I have everseen in this neighborhood is a long tailedmouse, dark above and yellow beneath, sev-eral specimens of which I have dug out of agravel bank, two or three feet from the sur-face.The city papers, without which whatshould we do, are full of advice to us In


28/312

22 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKthese days concerning the fly. "Down withhim, show no mercy, kill, take, slay!" theycry concerning the insect which Domitian wasblamed, even in heathen times, for putting todeath, and which Uncle Toby spared with akindly word. But admitting that their coun-sel is fundamentally sound, its details areopen to criticism. "The fly's only breeding-place is in filth" they cry. "Disinfect, cleanup, cart away without a moment's respite.Let your cattle have a piece of woods to runin, where they can be free from these tor-ments", etc., etc. Now perhaps filth may bethe fly's nursery in the city, where it is theonly soft moist place he can find, but the re-verse is the case in the country, where hemuch more affects the open fields than thebarn's vicinity. And as to the woods, I haveoften noticed in riding through them that thestinging fly at leastStomoxys calcitranswas more frequent there than anywhere else.Once In riding through a small piece ofwoodland, not above ten acres in extent, Ikilled nine flies of the order referred to onmy horse's neck.

January ig. The purple sap of greenchestnut wood stains the axe blade more thanany other. Cedar, pine and sassafras can allbe told by their odor when cut, and drying ona dead stick turn It bright green. This lastwood, by the way, seems to have formed alarge part of the cargoes sent home to Eng-land by the early settlers. Our ancestors had


29/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 23an exaggerated belief In its medicinal vir-tues; a belief which in Charles Lamb's timeonly lingered among the sweeps, whom hedescribed as delighting in sassafras tea,which they called "Saloop".Has anybody living ever seen a man-trap?One reads of them in the old books, and 1have heard of an eccentric Englishman whomade a collection of them; but they appearfabulous as the Minotaur, and I suppose hewho set them now would be detested as hisowner. Yet a hundred years back they seemto have been considered quite the properthing. See Jane Taylor, "That large ring ofIron, which lies on the ground, with terribleteeth like a saw".Said Bobby"The guard of our garden is

found.It keeps wicked robbers in awe".No doubt then as to who was wicked. But

now, along with the man-trap, have gone theteuter-hooks and the broken glass which Ihave often seen topping fences and walls fif-ty years ago. But bitter as the outcry wouldbe against them now, there is a mode of de-fense which Includes the possibilities of harmthey all possess, which can Inflict most ghast-ly wounds, which yet is turned out by themile from many a mill, and sold In everyState of the Union with scarcely a word ofprotest, at various prices and in variousshapes. I refer to barbed wire, that Ameri-


30/312

24 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKcan hybrid between the man-trap and thehedge.

January 20. Passing over land latelydrained, observed the course of the ditches,both mains and laterals Indicated by the drierand more crumbly earth over them; so thatfrom a balloon one could have drawn a com-plete map of the system. On another field,now in sod, one of the drains can be tracedby a narrow line of timothy, growing uponit, not above a foot wide, swamp grass andrushes on either side.

This last meadow has a curious diversityof soil, some seven by five hundred feet,about two thirds of Its width Is sandy, thencomes a strip of stiff loam, and the rest Isblack muck full of bowlders large and smallbottomed by tough yellow clay. The stonesrest on this as on rock, the largest leaving nohollows. Presumably the muck has formedaround the stones since they were deposited.My efforts at draining this spot have notbeen very successful, as may be seen. Wateras well as stone lies on the hard pan, so thatonly the depth of ditch sunk into the clay af-fects k. Perhaps nothing changes the char-acter of a piece of land like thorough drain-age unless It be the felling of a forest; andthis Is solely destructive. It will be remem-bered that the most beneficlent task Goethecould devise for his reformed Faust was thereclamation of a great salt marsh. If theHackensack meadows had been In Holland,


31/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 25undoubtedly they had been ditched and sownere this.

January 21. There is an oak beside thewood road on which a flat fungus growsevery summer, at the same place, about fivefeet from the ground. It appears in August,lasts through the fall, drops off in winter,and a dark spot marks the bark until warmweather. At the root of another tree a largepink fungus has appeared for several sea-sons.

There is an orange-colored fungus whichsprings up in drooping clusters, not unlikesponges in form, at the roots of cherry-trees.This also is recurrent for years together,though not perennial. Another, which I haveobserved growing in, or rather grownthrough by thick grass, is of a whitish spec-kled hue, resembling the breast of a thrush,as large, or larger, than an ordinary bucket,and apparently held up, disconnected withthe earth, by the hundred or more stemswhich pierce it through as the twigs pierce awasp's nest. Then there is the carrion fun-gus, the asphalltian, which draws flies likespoiled meat. And one more house varietyI remember, during a very hot damp spelldeveloped suddenly in an old couch left in adark and musty basement. So rapid was itsgrowth, enlarging from the dimensions of anapple to those of a pumpkin within a fewhours, that it split and burst the covering ofthe lounge in a manner surprising to behold.


32/312

26 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKAs though witch-craft had inhered, couchand fungus were shortly committed to theflames, without any effort to ascertain itsspecies, which, at this distance, seems rathera pity.

January 22. The mediaeval king kept hisplace by balance; his underlings by grip. Andbetween them they rode that patient horse,the people, hard and far. Still, it should beremembered that the trained horse with arider can generally beat the unburdened wildone. If there had been no kings in history itwould have been necessary for the poets toinvent them; so essential is it to the well-be-ing of humanity to have some one abovethem who can neither be blamed nor pun-ished. Let him who doubts this consider ifthe Great Republic has not an equivalentsovereign, though his name be neither Rich-ard nor Robin. When the old-time king couldnot keep his seat, or hold the rein, he fell, asdid Alfonso from Bavieca; and Bivar aroseto fill his place. So fell the luckless Secondsof English historyEdward, and Richard,and Jamesand so sprang a lawful heir, oran aggrieved noble, or a discontented son-in-law into the saddle. "If our master be notbrave and wise, we will choose another"cried the nation in effect, "but a master wemust have".

January 2^. Mr. N. is carting blue shaleupon his roads. No stone disintegrates morerapidly than the red shale. I have seen great


33/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 27blocks of it carted into a street, which in sixweeks were reduced to small cubes like diceand in six more had become sticky clay. Theblue variety, however, is harder, and will re-main gritty a year or so.The track on a dirt road changes aboutlike the fashions. For weeks, or perhaps formonths, be it winter or summer, the wagonswill keep to one side, wearing deep ruts, orcrushing all into fine dust. At last something,a stalled wagon, a fallen branch, even a brickdropped from a load, will compel, or at leastinduce a turn out, and forthwith all vehiclestake the long, neglected, weathered, perhaps,grass-grown side of the way, and keep to itfor a long term. Of course, the changes aremore frequent and rational in spring, whenthe frost is coming out, and a quag on oneside may exist with very fair travelling onthe other. Again, a bad boulder which everyone strikes and no one will pull out, justshowing in the highway, will keep travelwhere only the wheels will hit it for perhapstwenty years. It has been said that a horsewill not tread on you if he can help it, butneither will he tread on a large stone if hecan help it, and slave as he is to us in manyways, his persistence in this and some otherpoints, gains the day oftener than we sup-pose. Most likely the Hebrews took theirown paths toward the pyramids.

January 24. Our florist has tried nitrateof soda on his carnations, and says that


34/312

28 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKthough they grow large and fine, yet theywould not keep after cutting, decaying thenext day, when he had to make them good ata sacrifice. But even muck cannot always berelied on.Muck is sometimes, perhaps most fre-quently, used to signify barn-yard refuse.The Man with the Muck-rake of whom wehave heard so much, in late years, after hislong slumber in Bunyan's Allegory, drew tohimself with that tool the sticks, straws, andsmall dust of the floor. But another use ofthe word is as a synonym for peat, fromwhich it differs little, save that the latter maybe one step nearer coal. Forty years ago,the stuff was much cried up for application tosandy soils, and competing with manure.Winter after winter we used to go to theswamp of a neighbor whom we paid twelveand a half cents a load, cut up the frozen sodinto squares, pry it off, and then dig out theblack cheese-like muck to a depth of perhapstwo feet, when water was reached. It wasthen carted to dry land nearby, piled, andleft to weather for six months or so; by thattime it had become dry and powdery, andwas either applied directly to the land, ormixed with manure. Many a day have Ispent in the labor, yet I do believe it wasmostly wasted time, and that only by apply-ing it as thickly as the existing soil could anygood have been done.

January 25. Snow began yesterday and


35/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 29this morning a veritable blizzard has set it.Drifts, bitter cold, high wind, cars stopped.''Though our silence be drawn from us withcars, yet peace". Twelfth Night. The firsttime I ever saw the word "blizzard" wasduring the campaign of 1872, in a satire onCarl Schurz ; wherein he was said to give thefoe

"Full five fingers of buckshot.And then reload for the next blizzard".Here it is evident that a charge of shot hadbeen the meaning of the word up to thattime. But it soon after came to mean as atpresent. To take another case, Graft, in thesense of extra-legal gains by city officials, hasso completely overwhelmed the originalmeaning, viz: the transference of a livingbranch or cutting from one tree to another,that it may be doubted if many remain whoknow the word's original significance. Soin a recent tale the boy who heard two of hiselders refer to some young hircines sportingon the rocks nearby as "kids", interruptedthem with the statement that "them wasn'tkids; them was little goats". It were inter-esting to speculate whether a word everchanges to slang before its adopted childrenoutnumber those lawfully its own. Thus, arethere only of late years more corrupt, or atleast venal municipal officials than work-ing gardeners? Did the use of "kid"above noted (and it is not new, it


36/312

30 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKexisted, with an affix, more than a hun-dred years ago) only begin when theyoung of humans outnumbered those of cap-rines? Did the metaphorical sense of "cut-ting a stick" first spring to life when realtravellers became more numerous than dis-appointed lovers? And, to take one of thoserare instances where a word has gained byextension, was the term "witch" onlychanged from a foul insult to a pretty jestwhen the roll of charming girls grew longerthan that of old hags believed to be in leaguewith the devil ?

January 26. To town on wood sled.Snow, like the sea, levels distinctions. Man-ners are laid by; children ask for rides, nay,take them without asking, and pelt you, whowould not think of it during the manymonths, when wheels prevail. Now comeforth old mossy backs from Fresh Ponds,and Black Horse, in ancient sledges with lowrunners, high backs resplendent with blue andyellow rails, and absurd little dashboards,which look as if they might go back to Berk-ley and Carteret. Now and then one sees apung hastily knocked together from greensaplings and rough boards, and the depothacks are fitted with bobs. The sleigh-bell'svoice has drowned the motor man's gong,the auto's horn, the bicyclist's whistle, andall goes dancing by the stalled trolley-car,like a tribe of Indians who have gained tem-porary advantage over the strenuous and in-


37/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 31exorable white man.January 27. The place where chickens

fluttered through the snow is marked by theslaps of their wings on either side, but withpinions distended so that each feather cutsthe snow separately, not with a solid stroke.Is this how they beat the air? Or does thesnow trip them and make them strike awry?The gait of men, as well as that of birdsand I suppose the progress of a gallinace-ous fowl might be termed its gaitis muchaffected by circumstances. The farmer jogsor plods, the soldier strides, the sailor rolls,the maiden trips, or used to do so In the daysbefore she took to offering man her sincerestflattery. The ragged recruits of Falstaffmarched wide between the legs, remember-ing their recent fetters. The tailor is knock-kneed, the smith bow-legged, the savage toesin, the boatman shuffles. Dancer and thiefare light of foot, cook and mason ponderous.None can for long disguise his Spiiren, to usethat admirable German term so wanting toour language, while his accustomed environ-ment remains; but let It suddenly change, aswith the fowls above, and the deft runnermay become a clumsy swimmer, the trudg-ing lout a daring and skillful skater. Weshall never fly with wings; the swing-shelfmen have settled all that for us; but If wedid, perhaps the worst on earth might be thebest In heaven.


38/312

32 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKJanuary 28. The deep snow has put a

stop to fires in the woods, one of which Ifound and extinguished a few days ago. Itwas about eight feet across, burning brisklyaway among dead leaves and spreading inall directions. It was, of course, easy to ex-tinguish a fire of this size; and having doneso, I made after some boys who had just leftand upbraided them. They, of course, de-clared it was the work of "some other fel-lers", a thing hard to believe when the flamewas so recent.^.

January 2g. Stages of travel. Stormingthrough the world, crossing the continent,traversing the town, walking in the garden,pacing the room, tossing in bed, wandering inmind.

January jo. Plants as well as animalsseem to perish before the advance of civili-zation, even when not directly attacked. TheSpinning-vine or Hartford fern, formerlyabundant in swamps hereabout, has utterlydisappeared. And the ground pine, a smallevergreen of upright growth, is rapidly dis-appearing. Could only find a few very smallshoots this year in a place where it once grewthickly. Of course, both of these were gath-ered for decorative purposes, but one wouldnot suppose that this would have annihilatedthem within thirty years.

January 57. The chopping-block is a tree


39/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 33turned traitor, one who becomes an instru-ment of the tyrant's cruelty upon his fellowsto prolong his own miserable existence.

February 1. The reason folk frequentlylament the loss of friends less than the lossof property is that the former is inevitableand the latter is not, at least to our represen-tatives.

Old Ageget thee hence, thou shipper in-to the land of stumbling and weariness, offear and favors. So far as thou art tolera-ble or admired, it is because thou art not al-together old agethou retainest from neigh-bor Youth a strong hand, or an abundantchevelure, a keen eye, or a quick wit. WhenSwift's wanderer first heard of the Struld-brugs, he cried in transport "What a happysociety theirs must be ! Relieved from thefear of death, at leisure to stow their mindswith the wisdom of the ancients, and evergathering experiencesure there can be nobetter company!" But upon introduction, hefound them bitter and querulous, gloomy yettrifling; their only pleasure the disseminationof scandal, and the ailments which afflictedthem at sixty continuing always the same,without increase or diminution. Yet thisDantean circle resulted only from durabilityof life, segregation, and numbers. There were,if I remember rightly, about fifteen hundredin the colony. No Old Folks' Home has everbeen so large; but if such an one were found,it would, I imagine, bear a strong resem-


40/312

34 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKblance to Swift's community of Struldbrugs.

February 2. As usual, the sun shone to-day. Candlemas is almost always brightwith us. The old sayings "Clear and bright,winter will have another flight". "Candle-mas Day, half your corn and half your hay",refer not only to a climate very differentfrom ours, but also to the old style so longprevalent in England, which set everythingback eight or ten days. A pretty strife intown between trolley and grocery men, pitch-ing snow back and forth from tracks to gut-ter.The Sybarite whom it tired to see otherpeople work, has been often held up to ridi-cule; but he was only born before his time.Had he lived nowadays he might well havebelonged to one of those associations someof whose members were not long since hearddiscussing and denouncing the conduct of afarmer who worked sixteen hours a day. Insome wayhow, was not exactly made clearthey conceived that the interests of theirorder were jeopardized because a man in hisown business worked longer hours than theydid in theirs. Somewhat analogous to this isthe indignation expressed by times at men-tion of the harvest moon, for that the peas-antry of Europe used to get in their crops byits light, supplementing the day; which indig-nation appears almost side by side with jub-ilant statements that the Western harvestsare so heavy that the farmers are obliged to


41/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 3^run their reapers by night. Again, one shallsee calls for an eight hour day in one news-paper column, and in the next glad refer-ences to the fact that the mills at such andsuch a place are running overtime.

February j. Very cold. Spent all morn-ing carrying wood and keeping up fires. Ani-mals seem to have no idea of exercising tokeep warm. They just turn their backs tothe wind and crouch; but perhaps if one hadonly a limited amount of fuel it would be bet-ter just to keep a spark alive till the snap wasover than to burn it all out in a few hours.The first legislation against cruelty to ani-mals is said to have been an enactmentpassed in the days of Queen Elizabeth pro-hibiting "plowing at the horse's tail" as thenpractised in Ireland.

This custom consisted in lashing the plow-beam to the horse's tail with a bit of rope,and then, while one man held the plow, an-other walked backward before the animal,guiding it with blows of a stick. It seems asthough this plan must have cocked the plowso high into the air that the point would takeno hold on the soil. It seems also as if onlythe most spiritless of equines would have sub-mitted to the treatment, but that it was fre-quently done the act against it proves. Thecruelty of the practise needs no demonstra-tion; it could not have been profitable, butwas perhaps preferable to starvation.Whether the English legislators were moved


42/312

36 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKsolely by pity of the miserable beast, orwhether they desired to make a market forEnglish plows and harness does not appear;probably their motives were mixed, as some-times happens, even at the present day, whenthose who bear to look on fights, cannot bearto look on films.Fahruary /f. Shakespeare, in ''Henry theV." speaks of the meadows, neglectedthrough war, being grown up to docks and

kecksies. In "Evenings at Home", (circa1800) George says, referring to the stemsof the water hemlock, "the boys blowthrough them, and call them kexes". Thissame water hemlock is said to be poisonousto foals, and is allied to our wild carrot,through eating of which Mr. W. died. Tamecarrots occasionally revert to wild, or elsethe seed is mixed.

Poisonous plants and herbage seem tohave been more abundant in days of yorethan now, as, indeed, do poisonous grainsand fruits. But it may be that everythingwhich was, or looked, edible was so scarcethat neither man nor beast could pick andchoose. It may also be that dyspepsia wasso rare that a brisk attack of it was called acase of poisoning. Xenophon's troops, poi-soned by wild honey, will at once come tomind, also the divinity students who ate wildgourds with Elisha. Sheep have at timesbeen more or less poisoned by lambkill, kal-mia, or wild laurel. Cows can eat poison


43/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 37ivy with impunity, though as that Is a bloodpoison, the fact is the less remarkable. Bothcattle and sheep are said to have been pois-oned by eating the young sprouts of the wildcherry, which, as does the peach, contains adash of prussic acid in its leaves. Poke-weed berries, and the flowers of the trumpetcreeper, used to be classed among noxiousattractions of this kind, at least I rememberdivers woes being visited on children whoassayed to blow the said trumpets. Lastly,that very uninviting herb, stramomium, orjimson weed, is placed, with much reason,among the forbidden fruits.

February 5. Yesterday distinctly saw sunspot through smoked glass. Some attributethe extreme cold of the winter to this.A glass slipper, in the well known fairytale, probably meant one spangled with glassbeads; just as a glass coach, somewhat laterin the day, signified a carriage fitted withglass windows. It needs no demonstrationthat a slipper of solid glass would be utter-ly unsuited for dancing, even though it mightmore rigidly exclude the pretender and theintruder. Glass, like most of the flowers wecultivate, came at first in very small morsels,though in many cases, unsurpassedly rich incolor teste the mediaeval church windows.But as the chrysanthemum has grown from abutton to a hat, so has plate glass enlargedupon us; and now every little shopkeeper canhave panes to his show window of a size no


44/312

3S A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKmonarch on earth could have obtained twohundred years ago. So far has this gonethat the pane's humble old friendsputtyand leadseem in a fair way to be entirelydiscarded; and some of the modern windowsare hooked together with little metal hingesor buckles as though intended to open at anypoint that will please the taste of customers,or the art of the window dresser.

February 6. Gullying of slopes variesgreatly with the soil. As a rule, it is worston the best lands. On a heavy, strong loamthe washout is crooked, at first thrown rightand left by the stones which It later under-mines, bringing down the overlying soil. Onour red shale the matter Is different. Whilethe soil gullies easily, the washout is straightand always hard at the bottom, where it goesdown to the rock. But never have I seenmore melancholy examples of washing thanin the Apennines near Pistoia. Great hillsof yellow clay, without tree, bush or grass,ripped down the sides in all directions byhuge, ragged gullies with deltas of siltspreading out from their bottoms, went toform one of the most depressing landscapesI have ever looked upon.

February J . Started an owl from a treenear the barn-yard last night. He probablyhad an eye to the pigeons. Some years sinceI heard a curious snapping noise In the barnat night, which I attributed to rats. Next


45/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 39morning on opening the door of the pigeon'sbox an owl bustled out, leaving behind himthe remains of two squabs. This was mostlikely a screech owl, as they are numeroushereabout, while I have never certainly notedthe large barn owl.

February 8. What can be seen of thewinter wheat looks poorly. A heavy driftoverlies part of the field, but beyond this athin sheet of ice covers most of it. And iceis as bad for grain as snow is good.How many of Dickens' grimy, gloomy,squalid interiors would be unbearable but forone irradiating objecta pot of liquor. Thedraught administered by Newman Noggs toSmike, just arrived in London from York-shire, the purl shared by Swiveller and theMarchioness at their memorable game ofcards in the damp kitchen, the punch whichQuilp's family and the watermen were im-bibing at the time of his unexpected returnis not the cordial julep, flaming and dancingin its pewter bounds, the life of many morethat might be enumerated?

February g. Much time has been spentthis winter in shoveling paths and breakingout roads. What useless and unprofitablework it is. After hours of it, one is no bet-ter off than before the storm. The Romanswere the best road builders, the Arabs thepoorest. These last had no snow, frost, mudor swamps and but few rivers.


46/312

40 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK iThe condition of a slave or serf is the

cause of contumelious treatment lingeringafter the conditions to which it gave risehave passed awaynot the color of the skin.The Ethiopians were slaves here, the abo-rigines were not generally so. Consequently,they are held in very different esteem. Mostfolks are rather proud of being descendedfrom an Indian. Negroes are not pariahs inEurope, because there the dark face never in-dicated a bondmannay, the swarthyMoors ruled over the fairer Spaniards forcenturies. By the way, did that fine old ex-pression "blackamore" designate a personblack as a Moor, or blacker than a Moor?In England, that early bird, the Saxon, be-came a serf under Norman rule; and that iswhy the low class Englishman was so cava-lierly treated by the high class Englishmanuntil a very recent period. One proof of theway human beings were regarded as stocksand stones in that country (as a Friend ofHumanitymight exclaim) is that the travellerthere hardly ever sees a hitching post; a boyis supposed to spring up at a whistle (and hemostly does) to hold your horse for tup-pence.

February lo. When splitting a heavychunk, if you cannot hit hard enough tocleave it, turn the axe, so as to strike its pollon the chopping block, with the billet stick-ing on the blade. Gravitation thus conies toyour aid, and the weight of the chunk is its


47/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 41own undoing.Many modern tools were fashioned or de-vised from the unaccustomed use of an old

one. E. G., the Acme harrow-tooth fromthe track left by a plow run on its shareedge ; the tedder from the upward and back-ward stroke of a pitchfork. It is said thatthe old-time sickle had teeth like a saw, andfrom no other instrument could the actionof the machine mower blade even seem to bederived. The greatest step in the evolutionof the plow was probably taken by him whofirst observed that a triangular stock wouldturn the soil upward and sideways better thana round rooter. Next, but at a great inter-val, came the iron point or share used bySamson's contemporaries. Then the coulterknown to Chaucer and the Cid; but thewooden mold board, so often alluded to byScott's peasantry as needing to be scrapedclear of mold with the plough-paidle, hungon almost to our own time. An illustrationto an edition of Thomson's "Seasons", pub-lished in the late 1700's, represents the farm-er going forth to turn his first spring furrow,paidle in hand. And a most discouragingtask it must have been, for only a sandv sodwill slip cleanly from wood.

February 11. How many fatal spots onecomes to know in a neighborhood after longresidence. Just adjoining the north end ofthis farm is a gully where a murder was com-mitted some fifty years ago; and in the river


48/312

42 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKnearby a girl was drowned thirty-five yearsback. About the same time a drunkard wasdrowned in a ditch of the Island Farm east-ward. I know a house in town, which whilebuilding fell on two men and killed them,and a yard wherein a woman was burnt todeath.

February 12. S. Perhaps one of thehardest blows ever dealt the hapless abo-rigines of this continent was calling them In-dians so that naming them referred them, asit were, to another land.That more than half our States have re-tained the aboriginal names was a thinghardly to be expected, considering that buttwo of the old thirteen did so, and howstrongly the colonists' taste ran to old asso-ciations. Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, theCarolinas, were named for monarchs, Dela-ware for a noble, Vermont, Pennsylvania,Florida were fanciful. New York goes backto old Eboracum, New Jersey to Caesar'sIsle in the Channel. Maine and Rhode Isl-and were dubbed for territory that never be-longed to Great Britain. New Hampshirefor an English county, California for a Span-ish romance. Montana, Colorado, and Ne-vada would seem to have gone on their looks.That one state should have refused to partwith the name of our greatest man was per-haps inevitable. It is not surprising thatScandinavians should have termed southernNew England Vinland; but (to go out of our


49/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 43Union for a moment) a reason is far toseek for Spaniards calling that forbiddingpeninsula north of the St. Lawrence Labra-dor (farming land). One can but supposethey did it because, bearing no forests, itlooked already cleared for the husbandman.

February /j. Hay coming up from thesalt meadows on sleds. It is difficult to makea good load on a sled, as on a boat, becauseof the narrowness and instability of thefoundation.Hay seems to have been little known inthe Middle Ages. Stock was wintered most-ly on straw and leaves. Tusser, who wrotein the reign of Queen Elizabeth, gives muchadvice to the farmer as to the cutting andstoring of green branches, which might serveas fodder, when pasture failed. He is par-ticular as to the desirability of saving thebeech cuttings for the milch cows ; whereasfor sheep anything would do. A miserabledependence it would appear to us now, butthen it seems to have been looked on, if notas a matter of course, at least as a thingpracticed by the more forehanded and capa-ble. There must have been some naturalmeadows in England, even then, but perhapsall their produce was saved for the horses ofkings. As far as I can recollect, there is nomention of hay in Shakespeare, if we exceptBottom's remark ''Good hay, sweet hay,hath no fellow", and even that suggests itsrarity. By Milton's time, a hundred years


50/312

44 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKlater, "The mower whets his scythe" "Andthe tanned haycock In the mead" were faml-Har country objects.

February i^. Last season, when I gotsome potatoes from a cellar under an unin-habited house, It was like plucking them outof the very jaws of winter. The planks andbeams above the windows, and the upperpart of the walls, shone and sparkled withfrost, while only the warm breath slowly ris-ing from the heart of earth kept the vegeta-bles alive.

February 75. Thoreau has spoken of theIndigo shadows on snow. One summer day,when looking toward the distant horizon, un-der the branches of thick trees, I saw whatI took for black storm clouds. Next momentI saw that some clothing upon a line filled thespace, and Instantly what had looked blacklooked white.

February 16. Once, burning some brushwith an English boy, we differed as to thebest method of placing the sticks. He wantedto set them up In pyramidal form, while Ithought they did best laid horizontally. Af-ter some days' dissension, I said to him onemorning "You make a fire over there, I'llbuild one here; It will save carrying the sticksso far". This we accordingly did, but I no-ticed that several times during the forenoonhe came to my fire for brands to keep his up,


51/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 45and after that he was more of my opinion.When showing a laborer that he "kensna his work by half", is it best to do so as

soon as the error is made, or the fault com-mitted, or to let it go until the next time heis about to do the same thing? Of course,one has then the advantage of speaking incoolness, and being able to point out the mis-takes to be avoided as they approach. Onthe other hand, there arc those who cannotreprove at all, unless they do it under irrita-tion, and to postpone it until emotion haspassed away makes them feel, with Archdea-con Grantley, that much good hot anger hasbeen wasted. Doubtless the laborer wouldprefer that nothing should ever be said at allabout his faults, but the owner can hardly beexpected to submit to the spoiling of hisgoods until it gradually dawns upon the hire-ling that something is wrong, and (still moreslowly) what is the best way to mend it.Burns, it is recorded, was wont to say whenhe heard his brother, Gilbert, scolding thefarmhands, "Oh, man, ye are no for youngfolk", but Burns' end was not such as to en-courage any other farmer in the like goodnature.

February //. Very icy roads. Went totown with smooth shod horse, and crawledabout the lower streets, both he and I ingreat terror. Being unable to get a place atthe blacksmith's, I finally procured some bur-lap at a store, and tied his feet up in It like


52/312

46 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKpuddings. This, to some extent, gave himstability, but as the stuff cut through everyfive minutes, I had frequently to stop and ad-just it, endeavoring to get as much of a padas possible under the sole. Thus, with muchdelay and many scrambles, we got homewithout an actual fall.

February i8. Those numerous ladieswho nowadays denounce skirts should pauseand reflect how many female statues havebeen preserved by their flowing draperies,and of how many male nought has comedown to us but feet and ankles.The first thing which can be called a stat-ue, mentioned in all history, was probablyLot's wife. Then there were those whichwoke to life, e. g., Pygmalion's bride andHermione, and those whose mutilation wasresented as if they had been alivetheAthenian Hermae. It has often been statedthat sculpture, to be satisfactory, must eitherfollow the lines of the human figure, or theflow of drapery. Plate-armor, it is true,which does neither of these things, makes avery fair appearance in counterfeit present-ments, probably for the reason that it recog-nizes the joints. Perhaps a remark mightnot here be misplaced concerning the presenthelpless state of the Worth monument. Asall men know, this stands at Broadway andTwentieth Street, bearing a small equestrianfigure of the hero on the south and on thenorth an arm mailed and bowed, holding a


53/312


54/312

48 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKa mighty change In this matter since Gray'stime; the gentleman has been attrited, theartisan elaborated. But he was the pioneerin the movement, the discoverer of the lowlyand grimy coal, which was ultimately to turnout so many more pot-boUers than the fairand stately trees of the forest could everhave furnished with sufficient fuel.

February 20. The phenomenon known as"freezing dry" has been many times ob-served this cold weather. The Ice on thefront porch, hard and black on Tuesday, be-gins to look whitish underneath, Wednesday,as If pried away from the planks a little.Thursday, the edges begin to break Into baysand coves. Friday, only a few ribs and ridgesremain. Saturday, they are all gone, like ascrawl wiped off a slate. And meanwhile nothaw.

February 21. Probably the venal voter Ismore In evidence now than at one time In theRepublic's historya vulgar antithesis to theconscientious Mugwump. A neighbor hassuggested a remedy, which If not Immediate-ly practical seems at any rate worthy of con-sideration. This consists In the buying up ofsuch voters, once for all, by the Federal orState Government, for a lump sumsay,$50.00 per head. Every person so selling,would be. Ipso facto, disfranchised for lifeand officially registered as such. Addlckseswould thus be deprived of their following,


55/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 49and bribery confined to legislative halls.Probably any one who would sell his vote atall would sell it to the Government, for asum to equal which would require a dozenyears chaffering. The advantages of thisplan are obvious and great, and Its costwould be soon repaid.

February 22. Children sliding down thestreets have never been so numerous or im-pudent as this year. The long continuedfrost has made almost every part of the townavailable for the sport. On Hassert Street,a few days ago, I noticed how the ice hadpiled up ; not only the sky-fall, but the slopsthrown from the houses had congealed, andburled gutter and sidewalk out of sight. Ifthese conditions prevailed the year round,many a house would be entombed in its ownfilth.The innate corruption and depravity ofhuman nature were perhaps never moreclearly brought out than in the historic BlackHole of Calcutta. That atrocity stands un-rivalled as an Instance of the utmost suffer-ing humanity can endure, passed through bya large number, yet leaving a few survivorsto tell the tale. Many more have been slainor executed at one time, death being antici-pated; but probably only safe keeping of theprisoners was Intended, and only fear ofbreaking a despot's sleep prevented theirearlier release. Yet this torture, "unequaledIn history or fiction, whose record cannot be


56/312

50 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKread unmoved after the lapse of a hundredand fifty years", was produced merely bycrowding men together in an ill ventilatedroom. No fires, racks, or scourges wereneeded; all that was done or required to bedone was to take from each the amount ofair and space to which he was accustomed,crush him into close proximity with his fel-lows, and the thing was accomplished.February 2j. Finished splitting the winter's

railsabout sixty. Have never been ableto determine whether they split best from topor butt. Sometimes one succeeds, sometimesthe other. In splitting posts the usual planis for the men to face each other, one slowlyadvancing while the other backs away, andthe blow of each into the cleft loosening hispartner's axe. Some years ago, as twobrothers were thus engaged, one of them gota little too close, and the descending bladejust grazed his forehead, knocking him downand leaving an ugly gash. Another inchwould have split his skull.

February 2^. Pigeons are very persistentbathers. Whenever the horse-trough is leftuncovered, a cheesy white scum shows theyhave been there; and one bitter cold daywhen the plumbers turned a stream from thepipe they were repairing into an icy hollowthe pigeons flew down and began plunginginto the freezing pool.


57/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 51February 2^. I do not know that

the process of milking has ever beendescribed. The forefinger first claspsthe upper part of the teat, and thenthe middle, ring, and little fingers inrapid succession, so as to drive the milk be-fore them through the orifice. The knack israther dif^cult to acquire, and at first verywearying to the hands; though this soonpasses.Some form of green feed for milch cowsIn winter was long a desideratum, but theneed Is now fairly well supplied by ensilage,which, as every one knows, is some kind offodder, generally green corn, cut up andpacked under pressure, which preserves It ina certain state of fermentation, very likesauer-kraut. The process was first appliedto the tops of beets, which It seemed pity towaste, and which kept in pits fairly well for afew weeks. I cannot say that my experiencewith silage has been favorable, but then Iam not a progressive. Roots do fairly wellfor a few cows, and do not require a largeforce at once, or a special building for theirreception. Sugar beets or mangels are best;turnips will do, but do not keep so well, andgive the milk an unpleasant taste. Root cut-ters are on the market, but the one we usedlost a tooth now and then, which fallingamong the beets, was like to choke the cows.So for years we have sliced them up prlme-vally with a knife or sharp spade. In Eng-landsee Hardy's "Tess"they smash


58/312


59/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 53dogs cease to express their pleasure or pain,lowing and neighing and squalling are wellnigh forgotten. The animals stand for anhour together in one place instead of the con-stant stamping and shifting induced by theflies. Only once a month or so will an aval-anche of corn, undermined at one end, pourdown in the crib, or melting snow, with avery similar sound, go sliding off a steeproof.

1February 28. On averaging the sunrisetemperature of the month, which I have keptfor many years, I find this to be the coldestFebruary since 1875; just thirty years. Thisyear averaged (taking only early morningtemperatures) thirteen degrees.

Should have trimmed grape vines today;have done it for many years on Feb. 28.Of course the method of taking tempera-tures mentioned above is open to objection.If every afternoon and evening were mild,and only the morning sharp (a thing not like-ly, but possible) the month, as a whole,might show a high average.The imperfection of standards is striking-ly illustrated by the frequent practice of put-ting a human figure beside the thing depicted,for comparison. While this is the most feas-ible way of getting at the size of many ob-jects,'trees for example it is liable toabuse on the advertising page. There, if youwant the goods offered, or the advantages at-tained, as a horse or a string of fish, to ap-


60/312

54 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKpear large, put a small man besideif it isdesirable they should appear small, as thefolding boat from which the fish are taken,put a large man beside. The counterfeit pre-sentment of a bright and pretty girl has soldmany a sewing machine; and that of a tallhandsome man helped off much whiskey andcigars. Not that grief, misfortune, wounds,and penury are absent from the advertisingsheet; but they are always traceable to one oftwo causeseither a refusal to purchase anygoods whatever, or a mistaken purchase ofthe other fellow's goods.March i. The perfection of art is to con-

ceal art, the perfection of riding to be car-ried without much thinking about it; the per-fection of digestion is not to know that youhave one, and so the perfection of life maybe not to feel, through the senses, that wclive.

March 2. Let evil end with you. Do notpass on the scandal, the doubt, the injustice,the abuse you have received. Moral gar-bage, thus consumed, shall lighten yourneighborhood, instead of cumbering and de-filing it.

March j. Fox-fire has been unusuallyprevalent this year. Generally it appears ona white oak stump, which has decayed fromwithin, so that the whole interior glows likea crucible. At times it seems to vibrate and


61/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 55change like the Northern Lights on a smallscale, but it is difficult to be sure of this.March 4. The following conversationwas heard between two young people in a

trolley car passing Ross Hall, an old timebuilding up the river, now the Golf House.He"That was the home of Janice Mere-dith". She"Who was she?" He"Oh, aRevolutionary character." She"She mustbe a very old lady by now." He"Oh, shewas a creation of the brain of Paul Ford, themillionaire was killed by his brother lastSpring." She"Is that so?" He"So, yousee, she never lived at all." She"Oh, thepoor thing!"In the above dialogue, it is doubtful whichstood first with the narrator; Ford's talent,his fate, or his wealth.How few authors have lived by theirworks until they were dead ! Homer proba-bly did it, and perhaps Kipling; and Pope,and Dumas. But Dante was a hanger-on,and so,was Horace, and so was La Fontaine.Petrarch was a titular canon. Burns an exciseman, ditto Wordsworth. Thomson undersecretary to the Leeward Islands, wherein henever set foot. Hook treasurer at the Mau-ritius. Gibbon had, for a short time, a placeunder government, and Congreve had too,for a long time. Spenser was secretary tothe deputy lieutenant of Ireland. Nay, is itnot said that a certain prominent Americanman of letters was given a counsulship at


62/312

S6 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKVenice because he wrote a campaign life ofthe successful candidate? Voltaire died rich,stock-jobbing was his line, and he seems tohave kept what he got. Even the few writ-ers whose pens have really been golden ones,like Scott and Tupper, (their only slmlllar-ity) seem generally to have been beguiled in-to taking stock In the publishing companywhich sent forth their works, with results themost disastrous. Of no other profession canIt be said that two members of it as distin-guished as Spenser and Otway died, the onefor lack of bread, the other from Its super-abundance.March 5. S. The blackbirds are begin-

ning to drift to and fro. In moving they gowestward, presumably to Bear Swamp sometwenty miles away. In evening eastwardagain to spend the night on the salt marshes.They fly In large flocks of two or three hun-dred each, for the most part very compactly,but there are always a few stragglers, striv-ing to keep up and chirping dismally. Theyrush over with a loud "hoosh" thick 'as rip-ples on a pond.March 6. Our County-seat is what has

been called a "wooden town". The greatmajority of the houses are frame, perhapsone In ten brick; and only three stone ones.On the road to Bound Brook there are fouror five more, built from the best and hardestof the native shale. One of these, said to


63/312


64/312

58 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKnever thinks himself a fool; a humorist of-ten doubts his wisdom. Mephistopheles hadplenty of wit; it belongs to the "freundlichElement", but a water drinking saint may bea rare humorist. Wit is natural to a womanas a hat-pin, but few females wield the clubof humor. Dignity is the garb of wit, asbrevity its soul; humor goes barefoot andungirt, as Gamelyn, dealing much in circum-locutions. Wit may rebuke a king; humorjests with a clown. Wit is of the town andthe covert; humor of the field and the ale-house. Wit Is a spur, humor a peck of oats.And yet, with all these differences, so muchdo they at times Include and resemble eachother, that both may be found packed togeth-er In the title of one small StateConnecti-cut.March g. I remember a cedar and maplegrowing as close together as if they sprangfrom the same root. Some thirty-five or six

years ago they were about twenty feet inheight and the maple was probably about thesame number of years old; the cedar twice asmuch. The maple Is now twice that height,and Its desperate efforts to straighten killedthe cedar (round which It takes a completeturn) and flattened itself grotesquely.March lo. First spring-like day. In even-

ing smelt a muskrat. This and the skunkcabbage are the first scents of spring and itis curious they should both be unpleasant


65/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 59ones. Have never yet seen a musk-rat, longas I have lived here, and often as I havesmelt him, the 'possum is much more famil-iar, being now and then found in outlyingtown houses. This last animal has been de-scibed as a mix up of bear, hog, and monkey.This has been a profitless winter in the wayof work; little done beyond cutting wood,breaking paths and keeping alive.March 11. Cutting at a stump today, I

reached a httle too far, and, striking on topof the stump, split the axe helve from end toend. I kept at work, however, and at lastcut through the root with the crippled tool,swinging it by the fibres. It reminded me ofUmslopogaas' mace, described by RiderHaggard, wherewith he was able to do greatexecution because the handle was flexible.The Novel, some few sports and freaksexcepted. Is an annual plant. Fine biennialsare known, and even perennials, though theselast, when closely examined, will generally befound to have thrown out a kind of sucker orlayer, which maintains an independent exis-tence after the parent stock has perished.But as a rule, they are growths of one sea-son.The old-fashioned romance, indeed, ranits course with the season's vegetation,springing up in April or May, blooming insummer, and ending in September; while per-haps the majority of modern novels do bet-ter under glass from Fall to Spring; still,


66/312

6o A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKtheir average time of thrift remains muchthe same in length, viz. from six to ninemonths. The briefest bloomer of celebrityis perhaps Ivanhoe, the time occupied in theactions of that novel being little more thanthree weeks. The Antiquary covers about amonth, July 15th to August loth. Craw-ford's "Cigarette Maker's Romance", thecress and mustard literature, covers onlyfour and twenty hours. "The Heart of MidLothian" and "Old Mortality" are so tospeak, resurrection plants burgeoningsome three months, then closing for a longterm of years, and anon blooming out oncemore for a week or two. "Joseph Vance"and its like are not plants, but trees.March 12. S. Yesterday began pullingdown lean-to of the barn at Clifton. The

door of this building is made of plankswhich, from their markings, evidently onceformed the case of a picture sent fromFrance to a Philadelphia dealer on the S. S.Normania. Pried off the roof as a whole;dizzy work.

Probably most persons on a height aremore or less ill at ease. A stationary heightthat is; for by all accounts the prentice sailorsoon recovered from his qualms in this re-spect, a result only to be accounted for bythe ship's independent life and motion. Theweakness may perhaps be overcome by earlyand determined effort; it is said that Goethecured himself of it, when a youth, by sitting


67/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 6ialoft in Strassburg spire, where the chimesseemed to make the structure vibrate andswing, but success In this line must ever re-main doubtful. The actual or apparent re-volts set up by various parts of the humanframe divinethe insurgency of those or-gans whose existence wc would ever chooseto forget: The sudden anxiety of brain andeye for a merry waltz, the determined re-solve of feet to become hands, almost burst-ing their shoes In the effort to gripe a suppo-sitious branchall these cannot but con-found the constitution's well ordered feder-ahty, and probably to feel secure on the out-side of a dome one must have either wingslike birds or roots like hair. Memory stillpictures that unhappy youth once seen walk-ing round the circle of St. Paul's, holdinghis hat before his face, and groaning, "Oh,why did I come up here?"

Little has been done in literature withroofs; those places whereon, as good JeremyTaylor salth, "the footing Is slight, the pros-pect vertiginous, and the devil busy, and de-sirous to thrust us headlong". Not to dwellfurther on the instance thus adverted to, noryet on David's promenade, perhaps the mostnotable success In this sort is Hugo's "NotreDame". The illusion of being high In theair (but by no means the nearer heaven onthat account ) is wondrously caught and keptin this story. While perhaps less than halfthe action takes place aloft, nearly all of itseems to do so; wc rebound like balls to the


68/312

62 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKlevel which has come to seem our naturalhabitat. The death of Jehan over the door-way, that of Claud by falling from the tow-er, seem like those of sailors who end theirduty or their mutiny by the chances of theship whereon their lives have been spent;while Esmeralda's mother, the anchoress, isa barnacle on its side. That once popularauthor, George Macdonald, has a very gooddescription of two children astray on achurch roof in "Wilfred Cumbermede".The chapter was widely copied as a scene ofadventure, without respect to the rest of thetale, but though elaborate and ingenious, itlacked Hugo's well mastered giddiness.March /j. With warm and drying days

appear those little whirlwinds known in Eng-land, according to Haggard, as ^'Roger'sblasts" or "Fairies going to court". Fromtwo to six feet in diameter, they rush acrossthe fields, whirling up dust and dead grass,and sometimes breaking into quite a roarwhen they strike a mass of leaves. The per-sistence of these baby tornadoes is wonder-ful. One that I well remember, not morethan a yard across, passed over a field, andentered the woods, where I looked to see itsoon broken up and stilled, but, with marvel-ous vitality, it passed among and through thetree trunks and after enduring for a hundredyards or more, went down a hillside and outupon the pond, still whirling from left toright like a watch.


69/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 63March 14. Was It Person who went

from Dante to beer shop crying "All is bar-ren"?March 75. A farmer in this country ismore or less an object of contempt to town's

people. It was not always so, if one maytrust the books. In "Doctor Thorne" Trol-lope represents the young men from Barches-ter pretending to be laborers on the estate inorder to get to the squire's picnic. But nowa mill-hand considers himself better than afarmer, ipso factory. Even when peoplewant to be friendly with a tiller of the soil,it may be observed that they generally beginby asking if he finds farming pays; a ques-tion they would never dream of putting to aman of any other occupation.

This sinking of the farmer in general es-teem is the more remarkable in view of therise of sundry once despised occupations, e.g., nurse and scavenger. But apparently theagriculturist has inherited the contempt oncebestowed on the rising serf and the fallingsquire.The nurses of history and of ancient fic-tion, were mostly in charge of infants, not in-valids. Such was the case with Sichaeus*nurse, appealed to by Dido (hers beingdead) and Juliet's safe mentor. Helena, In"Much Ado about Nothing" rather playsthe part of doctress than nurse, and we havenot the sex of the attendant appealed to byCharles IX, of France, when in extremis,


70/312

64 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKand remorseful for St. Bartholomew; Mrs.Rooke, or Nurse Rooke, in "Persuasion"has a sHghtly modern smack; but she is keptmuch in the background, and is chiefly use-ful as a gossip.No list of this kind were complete withoutmention of the great Sairey Gamp, full ofhumors as her own umbrella of packages.Severe criticism has been visited on her tip-pling and pilfering, but with it all shebrought her patient through, and who can domore? Perhaps the profession reached itsnadir about i860, when (as I have seen withmy own eyes) female convicts from the Pen-itentiary were employed as nurses in some ofthe great city hospitals. Since then, thechange in income, demeanor, and costume ofthe trained nurse has been marvellous, and towhat is it destined to grow?March 16. Scene of a little tragedy. On

a bit of ground plowed last fall, a sprinkleof small feathers showed where a pigeon hadbeen devoured. That it had been done by ahawk, not a crow, was shown by the few ker-nels of corn, which the bird's crop had con-tained, lying untouched.Found a nest containing three young rab-bits in the field. The mother selecting a smallhollow, deposits her young therein, first lin-ing it with fur plucked from her own coat,and covering all over with a bunch of thesame. So long as the grass, or rather weeds,stood they were well protected, but mower


71/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOK 6sand rake had both passed over, carried awaythe crop, and done no further harm beyonddragging the fur to one side, thus giving aclue to the nursery. I looked in at them, thenintroduced a finger. Until this was done,they were still as if dead, but soon as thetouch of alien flesh was felt they began suc-cessively to kick with startling violence. Tooyoung to run, (they were about the size oflarge mice, and probably but a day or twoold,) this must have been to terrify the in-tending captor. The coat was thick, andrather darker than the adult's; ears, paws,and tail yellow and bare; the eyes closed likethose of young kittens. Covering them up,I departed, but when last seen they were try-ing to kick off the blanket. Their fate seemsvery uncertain. Such choice morsels for dog,crow, or hawk can hardly escape. Seeminglythey would have been safer in the thicketclose by, but I suppose maternal instinct maybe trusted.March ly. Saw chicken hawk in flight

which suggests the motion of an automobile.No flapping, no soaring but a series of quick,explosive beats of the wings, each sendingthe bird forward in a leap of several yards.The flicker gives five strokes, then a jump.March i8. Heard a woodpecker, tapping

the trees in the high woods. How strangelyhe is constructed! If we chopped our teethon a stick loud enough to be heard a hundred


72/312

66 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKfeet off, at the end of an hour jaws and gumswould be so sore we could not bear it. Butthe woodpecker seems to suffer no inconven-ience.March ig. S. Ice has pretty well gone

off the pond, and the phenomenon of tidesin the cove again appears. This is a littlebay from the pond, about twenty-five feetwide by a hundred long, and no where morethan two feet deep, mostly much less. It isfed by a small but constant stream from theuplands. For half to three-quarters of aminute, the water flows out of this cove,swaying the weeds, and carrying the siltalong, then it stops, and flows inward again;a regular tide, proportioned to the water'ssize. I have never been able to determinethe cause of this movement. The brookseems too small to affect it in such a way, thepumping station too far off.March 20. There are two trees on Rid-

er's Lane whose union I have watched fornearly forty years. As I first rememberthem, a small branch grew horizontally fromone, just touching the stem of the other, andprojecting some feet beyond. This, afterfretting the bark of the tree it did not belongto for some years, finally grew into it, joiningthe two; then the part beyond decayed andfell off, leaving a short tie; then this alsorotted and disappeared, and now there mere-ly remains a big scar, or callous, on eachtree, almost meeting.


73/312


74/312

68 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKof this neighborhood who used to go aboutIn a greenish coat girded with rope, and wassaid to have slept all one winter In a burrowunder a haystack. I can well understand thecomfort of such primitive lodgings to a per-son who cared not for certain mouldlness,probable rats or possible fire.March 2j. The work of milking Is one of

those jobs which women have completelyshuffled off upon the men. For many cen-turies this seems to have been their peculiarprovince, at a time, too, when the milkmaidhad to go after the cows. But never but oncein my life did I see a woman milking, and IImagine this is generally the case in theNorthern and Western states. Haggardsays it Is the same In England. Harris, anagricultural writer of thirty years back,states that in Canada the women did themilking at that time ; but I presume they havechanged all that. The consequence is, thatcows are so unused to the sight of womenthat if one by chance comes near them, theygrow frightened or angry, even to the pointof attacking her.March 24. Working at the demolition of

Clifton barn today, saw two flocks of wildgeese go over. Never before have I wit-nessed their Northern migration. The firstgang, of about a dozen, went straight ontheir course, high up In thick gray clouds,uttering that "honk", "honk" so easy to rec-


75/312

A FARMER'S NOTE BOOlC 69dgnlze, so hard to imitate. A few minuteslater came another flock, some eighteen ortwenty, evidently too large for their leaderto manage. They disappeared to the north,but must have taken a great turn, for fiveminutes after they were right over head,tending south. When almost disappearfngI saw them swirl and scatter like splashedwater, then form again and bear up north-ward, as if they had got their bearings fromthe river, which at that point must have beenjust below them. While thus boxing the com-pass they flew quite low within gunshot.March 2^. Many are the idiosyncracies

of animals. Some horses are afraid of adog, some of a bit of paper, some of a bear,some of a car. I have known two mules toshy at a big yellow cucumber on a fence, anda cow we formerly owned could not endureto see any man's hat removed. First frogs.The oldest trick recorded of a riding ani-mal is that of Balaam's ass, who tried tocrush its rider's foot against the wall. Bit-ing, pawing, and bolting are also describedin the Scriptures. A balky team figures inEsop and Chaucer. That the horses of theSaracens used to shy is shown by the tradi-tional inquiry "if they thought King Rich-ard was in that bush"? This same balking,or jibbing, in all its varieties is one of themost aggravating of vices. I have in mindone horse who, when he thought himselfoverloaded, would rear higher and higher,


76/312

70 A FARMER'S NOTE BOOKand finally throw himself down on his side.That he never broke a leg in this proceedingwas wonderful. Others will stand shufflingand shivering, and finally give a spring,breaking the weakest part of their harnesswhiffletree, trace, tug, or hame-strap. Some-times changing sides, or even changing di-rection will put the notion out of the brute'shead; and he will go off as if nothing hadhappened. However, no trick makes thedriver feel more helpless than violent back-ing; one loses all control over the horse, andcan do not

a farmer's note book [by] c.e.d. phelps (1912)

Documents