Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

I have cleaned hedge-rows and stony spots on my place in the following thorough manner: A man commences with pick and shovel on one side of the land and turns it steadily and completely over by hand to the depth of fourteen to eighteen inches, throwing on the surface behind him all the roots, stumps and stones, and stopping occasionally to blast when the rocks are too large to be pried out. This, of course, is expensive, and cannot be largely indulged in; but, when accomplished, the work is done for all time, and I have obtained at once by this method some splendid soil, in which the plow sinks to the beam. A drought must be severe, indeed, that can injure such land.

There is a great difference in men in the performance of this work. I have one who, within a reasonable time, would trench a farm. Indeed, in his power to obey the primal command to "subdue the earth," my man, Abraham, is a hero—although, I imagine, he scarcely knows what the word means and would as soon think of himself as a hippopotamus. His fortunes would often seem as dark as himself to those who "take thought for the morrow;" and that is saying much, for Abraham is "colored" as far as man can be.

I doubt whether his foresight often reaches further than bedtime, and to that hour he comes with an honest right to rest. He is a family man, and has six or seven children, under eight years of age, whom he shelters in a wretched little house that appears tired of standing up. But to and from this abode Abraham passes daily, with a face as serene as a May morning. In that weary old hovel I am satisfied that he and his swarming little brood have found what no architect can build—a home. Thither he carries his diurnal dollar, when he can get it, and on it they all manage to live and grow fat. He loses time occasionally, it is true, through illness, but no such trifling misfortune can induce him, seemingly, to take a long, anxious look into the future. Only once—it was last winter—have I seen him dismayed by the frowning fates. The doctor thought his wife would die, and they had nothing to eat in the house. When Abraham appeared before me at that time, "his countenance was fallen," as the quaint, strong language of Scripture expresses it. He made no complaints, however, and indulged in no Byronic allusions to destiny. Indeed, he said very little, but merely drooped and cowered, as if the wolf at the door and the shadow of death within it were rather more than he could face at one and the same time. It soon became evident, however, that his wife would "pull through," as he said, and then the wolf didn't trouble him a mite. He installed himself as cook, nurse, and house man-of-all-work, finding also abundant leisure to smoke his pipe with infinite content. One morning he was seen baking buckwheat cakes for the children; each one in turn received an allowance on a tin plate, and squatted here and there on the floor to devour it; and, from the master of ceremonies down, there was not an indication that all was not just as it should be. A few days later I met him coming back to his work with his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and the old confident twinkle in his eye as he said, "Mornin', Bossie." Now, Abraham carries his peculiar characteristics into grubbing. If I should set him at a hundred-acre field full of stumps and stones, and tell him to clear it to the depth of two feet, he would begin without any apparent misgiving, and with no more thought for the magnitude of his task than he has for the tangled and stubborn mysteries of life in general, or the dubious question of "what shall be on the morrow" in his own experience. He would see only the little strip that he proposed to clear up that day, and would go to work in a way all his own.

Although not talkative to other people, he is very social with himself, and, in the early days of our acquaintance, I was constantly misled into the belief that somebody was with him, and that he was a man of words rather than work. As soon, however, as I reached a point from which I could see him, there he would be, alone, bending to his task with the steady persistence that makes his labor so effective; but, at the same time, until he saw me he would continue discussing with equal vigor whatever subject might be uppermost in his mind. I suppose he scarcely ever takes out a stone or root without apostrophizing, adjuring, and berating it in tones and vernacular so queer that one might imagine he hoped to remove the refractory object by magic rather than by muscle. When the sun is setting, however, and Abraham has complacently advised himself, "Better quit, for de day's done gone, and de ole woman is arter me, afeared I've kivered myself up a-grubbin'," one thing is always evident—a great many stones and roots are "unkivered," and Abraham has earned anew his right to the title of champion grubber.

But, as most men handle the pick and shovel, the fruit grower must be chary in his attempts to subdue the earth with those old-time implements. It is too much like making war with the ancient Roman short sword in an age of rifled guns. I agree with that practical horticulturist, Peter Henderson, that there are no implements equal to the plow and subsoiler, and, in our broad and half-occupied country, we should be rather shy of land where these cannot be used.

The cultivator whose deep moist loam is covered by sod only, instead of rocks, brush, and trees, may feel like congratulating himself on the easy task before him; and, indeed, where the sod is light, strawberries, and especially the larger small fruits, are often planted on it at once with fair success. I do not recommend the practice; for, unless the subsequent culture is very thorough and frequent, the grass roots will continue to grow and may become so intertwined with those of the strawberry that they cannot be separated. Corn is probably the best hoed crop to precede the strawberry. Potatoes too closely resemble this fruit in their demand for potash, and exhaust the soil of one of the most needed elements. A dressing of wood ashes, however, will make good the loss. Buckwheat is one of the most effective means of subduing and cleaning land, and two crops can be plowed under in a single summer. Last spring I had some very stiff marsh sod turned over and sown with buckwheat, which, in our hurry, was not plowed under until considerable of the seed ripened and fell. A second crop from this came up at once, and was plowed under when coming into blossom, as the first should have been. The straw, in its succulent state, decayed in a few days, and by autumn my rough marsh sod was light, rich, and mellow as a garden, ready for anything.

If it should happen that the land designed for strawberries was in clover, it would make an admirable fertilizer if turned under while still green, and I think its use for this purpose would pay better than cutting it for hay, even though there is no better. Indeed, were I about to put any sod land, that was not very stiff and unsubdued, into small fruits, I would wait till whatever herbage covered the ground was just coming into flower, and then turn it under. The earlier growth that precedes the formation of seed does not tax the soil much, but draws its substance largely from the atmosphere, and when returned to the earth while full of juices, is valuable. In our latitude this can usually be done by the middle of June, and if on this sod buckwheat is sown at once, it will hasten the decay, loosen and lighten the soil in its growth, and in a few weeks be ready itself to increase the fertility of the field by being plowed under. In regions where farmyard manure and other fertilizers are scarce and high, this plowing under of green crops is one of the most effective ways both of enriching and preparing the land; and if the reader has no severer labors to perform than this, he may well congratulate himself.

But let him not be premature in his self-felicitation, for he may find in his sod ground, especially if it be old meadow land, an obstacle worse than stumps and stones—the Lachnosterna fusca.

This portentous name may well inspire dread, for the thing itself can realize one's worst fears. The deep, moist loam which we are considering is the favorite haunt of this hateful little monster, and he who does not find it lying in wait when turning up land that has been long in sod, may deem himself lucky. The reader need not draw a sigh of relief when I tell him that I mean merely the "white grub," the larva of the May-beetle or June-bug, that so disturbs our slumbers in early summer by its sonorous hum and aimless bumping against the wall. This white grub, which the farmers often call the "potato worm," is, in this region, the strawberry's most formidable foe, and, by devouring the roots, will often destroy acres of plants. If the plow turns up these ugly customers in large numbers, the only recourse is to cultivate the land with some other crop until they turn into beetles and fly away. This enemy will receive fuller attention in a later chapter.

It is said that this pest rarely lays its eggs in plowed land, preferring sod ground, where its larvae will be protected from the birds, and will find plenty of grass roots on which to feed. Nature sees to it that white grubs are taken care of, but our Monarch strawberries need our best skill and help in their unequal fight; and if "Lachnos" and tribe should turn out in force, Alexander himself would be vanquished.