Ten Acres Enough / A practical experience, showing how a very small farm may be made to keep a very large family

by Edmund Morris

But having originated the dogma, I fully believed in it, and felt bound to maintain it; so Dick and I went resolutely to work a second time, as soon as the new crop was well out of the ground. The labor was certainly not as great as on the first crop, but it was hot work. I carried a file in my pocket, and kept my hoe as sharp as I have always kept my carving knife, and taught Dick to put his horse-weeder in prime order every evening when we had quit work. The perspiration ran in a stream from me in the hot sun, and a few blisters rose on my hands, but my appetite was rampant, and never have my slumbers been so undisturbed and peaceful.

About the third week in June we got through the second cleaning, and then rested. From that time to the end of the first week in July there had been no rain, with a powerfully hot sun. During this interval the weeds grew again, and entirely new generations, some few of the first varieties, but the remainder being new sorts. Thus there were wet-weather weeds and dry-weather weeds; and as I afterwards found, there was a regular succession of varieties from spring to winter, and even into December—cold-weather weeds as well as hot-weather weeds. Against each new army as it showed itself an onslaught was to be made. I was persuaded in my mind that the same army which we killed this year could not show itself the next, and that therefore there ought to be that number less. But Dick could not see this.

I observed, moreover, that each variety had its particular period when it vegetated, so that it might have time to get ahead and keep out of the way of its successor. It was evident that the seeds of any one kind did not all vegetate the same season. Herein was a wonderful provision of Providence to insure the perpetuity of all; for if all the rag-weed, for instance, had vegetated the first season of my experience, they would assuredly have been killed. But multitudes remained dormant in the earth, as if thus stored up for the purpose of repairing, another year, the casualties which their forerunners had encountered during the present one. Thus no one weed can be extirpated in a single season; neither do we have the whole catalogue to attack at the same time.

My warfare against the enemy continued unabated. As the time came for each new variety to show itself, so we took it in hand with hoe and weeder. Dick and his horse made such admirable progress, that I cannot refrain from recommending this most efficient tool to the notice of every cultivator. With one man and a horse it will do the work of six men, cutting off the weeds just below the ground and leaving them to wilt on the surface. It costs but six dollars, and can be had in all the cities. It would have cost me a hundred dollars to do the same amount of work with the hoe, which this implement did within four weeks.

Thus aided, our labors extended clear into November. In the intervals between the different growths of weeds, we looked after the other crops. But when the winter closed in upon us, the whole ground was so thoroughly cleaned of them as to be the admiration of the jeerers and croakers who, early in the season, had pitied my enthusiasm or ridiculed my anticipations. Even Dick was somewhat subdued and doubtful. I do not think a single weed escaped our notice, and went to seed that season.

I saw this year a beautiful illustration of the idea that there are specific manures for certain plants. I can hardly doubt that each has its specific favorite, and that if cultivators could discover what that favorite is, our crops might be indefinitely increased. On a piece of ground which had been sowed with turnips, on which guano had previously been sprinkled during a gentle rain, there sprang up the most marvellous growth of purslane that ever met one’s eyes. The whole ground was covered with the rankest growth of this weed that could be imagined. Every turnip was smothered out. It seemed as if the dormant purslane-seed had been instantly called into life by the touch of the guano. It was singular, too, that we had noticed no purslane growing on that particular spot previous to the application of this rapidly-acting fertilizer.

I confess the sight of a dense carpet of purslane instead of a crop of turnips, almost staggered me as to the correctness of my theory that the number of seeds in the ground, yet to vegetate, must somewhere have a limit. Here were evidently millions of a kind which, up to this time, had not even showed themselves. After allowing the purslane to grow two weeks, Dick cut it off with his horse-weeder, raked it up, and carried it to the pigs, who consumed it with avidity. We then recultivated the ground and sowed again with turnips; but the yield was very poor. Either the purslane had appropriated the whole energy of the guano, or the sowing was too late in the season.

But this little incident will illustrate the value of observation to a farmer. Book-farming is a good thing in its place, but observation is equally instructive. The former is not sufficient, of itself, to make good tillers of the soil. It will not answer in place of attentive observation. It forms, indeed, but the poorest kind of a substitute for that habit which every farmer should cultivate, of going all over his premises daily during the growing season, and noticing the peculiarities of particular plants; the habits of destructive animals or insects; the depredations as well as the services of birds; the when, the how, and the apparent wherefore of the germination of seeds; the growth of the stem, the vine, or the stalk that proceeds from them, and the formation, growth, and ripening of the fruit which they bear. Let no farmer, fruit-grower, or gardener, neglect observation for an exclusive reliance on book-farming.

It would be a most erroneous conclusion for the reader to suppose that all this long-continued labor in keeping the ground clear of weeds was so much labor thrown away. On the contrary, even apart from ridding the soil of so many nuisances, so many robbers of the nourishment provided for useful plants, it kept the land in the most admirable condition. The good conferred upon the garden by hoeing and raking, was re-enacted here. Every thing I had planted grew with surprising luxuriance. I do think it was an illustration of the value of thorough culture, made so manifest that no one could fail to observe it. It abundantly repaid me for all my watchfulness and care. Dick was forced to acknowledge that he had seen no such clean work done in that part of New Jersey.

My nurseryman came along at the end of the season, to see how I had fared, and walked deliberately over the ground with me, examining the peach-trees. He said he had never seen young trees grow more vigorously. Not one of them had died. The raspberries had not grown so much as he expected, but the strawberry-rows were now filled with plants. As runners were thrown out, I had carefully trained them in line with the parent stools, not permitting them to sprawl right and left over a great surface, forming a mass that could not be weeded, even by hand. This he did not approve of. He said by letting them spread out right and left the crop of fruit would be much greater, but admitted that the size of the berries would be much smaller. But he contended that quantity was what the public wanted, and that they did not care so much for quality. Yet he could not explain the damaging fact that the largest sized fruit was always the most eagerly sought after, and invariably commanded the highest price. Though he did not approve of my mode of cultivation, yet he could not convince me that I had made a mistake.