This remark generally led to inquiry, and then Kate was brought out with the whole story of our first and second cow, which she accordingly gave with illustrations infinitely more amusing than any I have been able to introduce. Indeed, her power of amplification sometimes astonished me. She told the story of our having been cheated by the old sinner, with such graphic liveliness, my wife now and then interposing a parenthesis, that the company invariably concluded it was by far the better policy to give a wide berth to cheap cows. I am not certain whether the fun occasioned by Kate’s narratives was not really very cheaply purchased by the small loss we suffered on that occasion.
This abundance of milk wrought quite a change in our habits as to tea and coffee. At supper, during the summer, we drank milk only; but insensibly we ran on in the same way into cold weather. In the end, we found that we liked coffee in the morning only. This was a clear saving, besides being quite as wholesome. Our city milk bill had usually been a dollar a week. I am quite sure it did not cost over sixty cents a week to keep the cow. Then we had puddings and other dishes, which milk alone makes palatable, whenever we wanted them; and at any time of a hot summer’s day a full draught of cold milk was always within reach. Then the quality was much superior, exceeding any thing to be found in city milk. I must admit that keeping a cow, like most other good things, involves some trouble; but my family would cheerfully undertake twice as much as they have ever had with ours, rather than dispense with this yet uncanonized saint of the barnyard.
CHAPTER XI.
A CLOUD OF WEEDS—GREAT SALES OF PLANTS.
JUNE came without my being obliged to hire any thing but occasional help on the farm. But when the month was fairly set in, I found every inch of my ploughed land in a fair way of being smothered by the weeds. I was amazed at the countless numbers which sprang up, as well as at the rapidity with which they grew. There was almost every variety of these pests. It seemed as if the whole township had concentrated its wealth of weeds upon my premises. In the quick, warm soil of New Jersey, they appear to have found a most congenial home, as they abound on every farm that I have seen. Cultivators appear to have abandoned all hope of eradicating them. Knowing that the last year’s crop had gone to seed, I confess to looking for something of the kind, but I was wholly unprepared for the thick haze which everywhere covered the ground.
I can bear any quantity of snakes, but for weeds I have a sort of religious aversion. I tried one week to overcome them with the cultivator, but I made discouraging headway. I then bought a regular horse-weeder, which cut them down rapidly and effectually. But meantime others were growing up in the rows, and corners, and by-places, where nothing but the hoe could reach them, and robbing the crops of their support. It would never do to cultivate weeds—they must be got rid of at any cost, or my crops would be worthless. Several neighboring farmers, who had doubtless counted on this state of things, came along about the time they supposed my hands would be full, looked over the fence at my courageous onslaught, laughed, and called out, “It’s no use—you can’t kill the weeds!” Such was the sympathy they afforded. If my house had been on fire, every one of them would have promptly hurried to the rescue; but to assist a man in killing his weeds was what no one dreamed of doing. He didn’t kill his own.
In this dilemma I was forced to hire a young man to help me, contracting to give him twelve dollars a month and board him. He turned out sober and industrious. We went to work courageously on the weeds. I will admit that my man Dick was quite as certain as my neighbors that we could never get permanently ahead of them, and that thus lacking faith he took hold of the cultivator and weeder, while I attacked the enemy in the rows and by-places. I kept him constantly at it, and worked steadily myself. A week’s labor left a most encouraging mark upon the ground. The hot sun wilted and dried up the weeds as we cut them off. Two weeks enabled us to get over the whole lot, making it look clean and nice. I congratulated myself on our success, and inquired of Dick if he didn’t think we had got ahead of the enemy now. This was on a Saturday evening. Dick looked up at the sky, which was then black and showery, with a warm south wind blowing, and a broad laugh came over his features as he replied, “This will do till next time.” The fellow was evidently unwilling either to encourage or to disappoint me.
That night a powerful rain fell, with a warm sultry wind, being what farmers call “growing weather.” I found it to be even so, good for weeds at least. Monday morning came with a hot, clear sun, and, under the combined stimulating power of sun, rain, and temperature, I found that in two nights a new generation had started into life, quite as numerous as that we had just overcome. As I walked over the ground in company with Dick, I was confounded at the sight. But I noticed that he expressed no astonishment whatever—it was just what he knew was to come—and so he declared it would be if we made the ground as clean as a parlor every week.
He said he never knew the weeds to be got out of Jersey ground, and protested that it couldn’t be done. He admitted that they were nuisances, but so were mosquitoes. But as neither, in his opinion, did any great harm, so he thought it not worth while to spend much time or money in endeavoring to get rid of them. In either case he considered the attempt a vain one, and this was the whole extent of his philosophy. He had in fact been educated to believe in weeds. I was mortified at his indifference, for I had labored to infuse into his mind the same hatred of the tribe with which my wife and Kate had been so happily inoculated. But Dick was proof against inoculation—his system repudiated it.
But it set me to thinking. As to defining what a weed was, I did not undertake that, beyond pronouncing it to be a plant growing out of its proper place. Neither did I undertake to settle the question as to the endless variety there seemed to be of these pests, nor by what unaccountable agency they had become so thoroughly diffused over the earth. I could not fail to admit, however, that it seemed, in the providence of God, that whenever man ceased to till the ground and cover it with cultivated crops, at his almighty command there sprung up a profuse vegetation with which to clothe its nakedness. While man might be idle, it was impossible for nature to be so—the earth could not lie barren of every thing. But it seemed to me impossible that these ten acres of mine could contain an absolutely indefinite number of seeds of these unwelcome plants. There must be some limitation of the number. At what figure did it stop? Was it one million, or a hundred millions? Neither Dick nor myself could answer this question.
Yet I came resolutely to the conclusion that there must be a limitation, and that if we could induce all the seeds contained in the soil to vegetate, and then destroy the plants before they matured a new crop, we should ever afterwards be excused from such constant labor as we had gone through, and as was likely to be our experience in the future. I submitted this proposition to Dick—that if we killed all the weeds as they grew, the time would come when there would be no weeds to kill. It struck me as being so simple that even Dick, with all his doggedness, could neither fail to comprehend nor acknowledge it. He did manage to comprehend it, but as to acknowledging its force, one might have argued with him for a month. He utterly denied the premises—he had no faith in our Jersey weeds ever being killed, no matter how much luck we had thus far had with them, and I would see that he was right.