CHAPTER XXV
A LESSON ON TOBACCO
PERCY found Leonardtown almost in the center of St. Mary county, situated on Breton bay, an arm of the lower Potomac.
From the data recorded on the back of his map of Maryland, Percy noted that a population of four hundred and fifty-four found support in this old county seat, according to the census of I 900. After spending the day in the country, he found himself wondering how even that number of people could be supported, and then remembered that there is one industry of some importance in the United States which exists independent of agriculture, an industry which preceded agriculture, and which evidently has also succeeded agriculture to a very considerable extent in some places; namely, fishing.
"Clams, oysters and fish, and in this order," he said to himself, "apparently constitute the means of support for some of these people."
And yet the country was not depopulated, although very much of the arable land was abandoned for agricultural purposes. A farm of a hundred acres might have ten acres under cultivation, this being as much as the farmer could "keep up," as was commonly stated. This meant that all of the farm manure and other refuse that could be secured from the entire farm or hauled from the village, together with what commercial fertilizer the farmer was able to buy, would not enable him to keep more than ten acres of land in a state of productiveness that justified its cultivation. Tobacco, corn, wheat and cowpeas were the principal crops. Corn was the principal article of food, with wheat bread more or less common. The cowpeas and corn fodder usually kept one or more cows through the winter when they could not secure a living in the brush. Tobacco, the principal "money crop," was depended on to buy clothing, and "groceries," which included more or less fish and pork, although some farmers "raised their own meat," in part by fattening hogs on the acorns that fell in the autumn from the scrub oak trees.
One farm of one hundred and ninety acres owned by an old lady, who lived in the nearby country village was rented for $100 a year, which amounted to about fifty-two and one-half cents an acres as the gross income to the landowner. After the taxes were paid, about thirty cents an acre remained for repairs on buildings and fences and interest on the investment.
Percy spent some time on a five hundred acre farm belonging to an old gentleman who still gave his name as F. Allerton Jones, a man whose father had been prominent in the community. According to the county soil map which had been presented to Percy by the Bureau of Soils, the soil of this farm was all Leonardtown loam, except about forty acres which occupied the sides of a narrow valley a bend of which cut the farm on the south side.
"My father had this whole farm under cultivation," said Mr. Jones, "except the hillsides. But what's the use? We get along with a good deal less work, and I've found it better to cultivate less ground during the forty odd years I've had to meet the bills. But I've kept up more of my land than most of my neighbors. I reckon I've got about eighty acres of good cleared land yet on this farm, and the leaves and pine needles we rake up where the trees grow on the old fields make a good fertilizer for the land we aim to cultivate, and I get a good many loads of manure from friends who live in the village and keep a cow or a horse.
"The last crop I raised on that east field, where you see those scrub pines, was in 1881. I finished cultivating corn there the day I heard about President Garfield being shot; and it was a mighty hot July day too. My neighbor, Seth Whitmore, who died about ten years ago, came along from the village and waited for me to come to the end of the row down by the road and he told me that Garfield was shot. We both allowed the corn would be a pretty fair crop and when I gathered the fodder that fall there was a right smart of a corn crop. Yes, Sir, it's pretty good land, but we don't need much corn, no how, and we can make more money out of tobacco. Of course it takes lots of manure and fertilizer to grow a good patch of tobacco, but good tobacco always brings good money."
"About how much money do you get for an acre of tobacco?" asked
Percy.
"That varies a lot with the quality and price—sometimes $100—sometimes $300, when the trust don't hold the price down on us. We can raise good tobacco and good tobacco brings us good money. We can always manure an acre or two for tobacco and get our groceries and some clothes now and then, and that's about all anybody gets in this world, I reckon. But taxes are mighty high, I tell you. About $75 to $80 I have to pay. Are taxes high out West?"
"We pay about forty to fifty cents an acre in the corn belt," Percy replied; "but, in a course I took in economics, I learned that the taxes do not vary in proportion to land values. Poor lands, if inhabited, must always pay heavy taxes; whereas, large areas of good land carry lighter taxes compared with their earning capacity. You must provide your regular expenses for county officers, county courthouse, jail, and poorhouse, about the same as we do. Your roads and bridges cost as much as ours; and the schools in the South must cost more than ours, for a complete double system of schools is usually provided.
"But did you say that you paid fifty cents an acre in taxes?" asked
Mr. Jones.
"Yes, about that, in the corn belt," replied Percy, "but not so much in Southern Illinois where the land is poor. I think the farmers in that section pay taxes as low as yours. Perhaps twenty cents an acre."
"Do you mean to say that you have poor land in Illinois?"
"Yes, the common prairie land of Southern Illinois must be called poor as compared with the corn belt land. There is a good deal of land in Southern Illinois that was put under cultivation before 1820, and eighty crops must have made a heavy draft upon the store of plant food originally contained in those soils."
"Only since 1820? Why, we began to till the soil right here, Young Man, in St. Mary County, in 1634 and don't you know, Sir, that we had a rebellion here as early as 1645? Yes, Sir, that was one hundred and seventy-five years before 1820. So you've raised only eighty crops and the land is already getting poor, and we've raised two hundred and fifty crops—well, maybe, not quite so many, for we've been giving our land a good deal of rest for the last fifty or sixty years; but my grandfather used to raise twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre with the help of a hundred pounds of land-plaster, and I've no doubt I could do it again today if I cared to raise wheat, but one acre of tobacco is worth ten of wheat, so why should I bother with wheat?"
"Twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre," repeated Percy, half to himself. "The total supply of phosphorus still remaining in the plowed soil would be sufficient for only twenty more crops like that. Two hundred years of such crops would require 1600 pounds of phosphorus, making nearly 1800 pounds at the beginning, if it all came from the plowed soil. That is one and a half times as much as is now contained in our common corn belt prairie land."
"More stuff in our land than in yours, did you say?" questioned the old man. "I told you we had pretty good soil here, but I've always allowed your soil was better, but maybe not. I tell you manure lasts on this land. You can see where you put it for nigh twenty years. Then we rest our land some and that helps a sight, and if the price stays up we make good money on tobacco. I'm sorry your land is getting so poor out West, especially if you can't raise tobacco. Ever tried tobacco, Young Man?—gosh, but you remind me of one of them Government fellows who came driving along here once when Bob and his brothers were plowing corn right here about three years ago. Bob's my tenant's nigger, and he ain't no fool either, even if he is colored; but then, to tell the truth, he ain't much colored. Well, I was sitting under a tree right here smoking and keeping an eye on the niggers unbeknownst to them when one of them Government fellows stopped his horse as Bob was turning the end, and says he to Bob:
"'Your corn seems to be looking mighty yellow?'
"'Yes, suh,' says Bob. 'Yes, suh, we done planted yellow corn.'
"'Well, I mean it looks as though you won't get more than half a crop,' says he.
"'I reckon not,' says Bob. 'The landlord, he done gets the other half.'
"With that the fellow says to Bob:
"'It seems to me you're mighty near a fool.'
"'Yes, suh,' says Bob, 'and I'm mighty feared I'll catch it if I don't get a goin'.'
"The fellow just gave his horse a cut and drove on, but I liked to died. He'd been here two or three times pestering me with questions about raising tobacco. Say, you ain't one of them Government fellows, are you? They were travelling all around over this county three years ago, learning how we raised tobacco and all kinds of crops. They had augers and said they were investigating soils, but I never heard nothing of 'em since. Have you got an auger to investigate soils with?"
Percy was compelled to admit that he had an auger and that he was trying to learn all he could about the soil.
He had driven to Mr. Jones' farm because his land happened to be situated in a large area of Leonardtown loam, and he felt free to stop and talk with him because he had found him leaning against the fence, smoking a cob pipe, apparently trying to decide what to do with some small shocks of corn scattered over a field of about fifteen acres.
Percy stepped to the buggy and drew out his soil auger, then returned to the corn field and begun to bore a hole near where Mr. Jones was standing.
"That's the thing," said he, "the same kind of an auger them fellows had three years ago. Still boring holes, are you? Want to bore around over my farm again, do you?"
Percy replied that he would be glad to make borings in several places in order that he might see about what the soil and subsoil were like in that kind of land.
"That's all right, Young Man. Just bore as many holes as you please. I suppose you'd rather do that than work; but you'll have to excuse me. I've got a lot to do today, and it's already getting late. I can't take time again to tell you fellows how to raise tobacco. Good day."