I do not mean to discourage grape-growing; on the contrary, I would have every farmer, even so far north as Vermont and Wisconsin, experiment cautiously with a dozen of the most promising varieties, including always the more hardy, in the hope of finding some one or more adapted to his soil, and capable of enduring his climate. Even in France, the land of the vine, one farm will produce a grape which the very next will not: no man can satisfactorily say why. The farmer, who has tried half a dozen grapes and failed with all, should not be deterred from further experiments, for the very next may prove a success. I would only say, Be moderate in your expectations and careful in your experiments; and never risk even $100 on a vineyard, till you have ascertained, at a cost of $5 or under, whether the species you are testing will thrive and bear on your soil.
In my own case, my upland mainly sloping to the west, with a hill rising directly south of it, I have had no luck with Grapes, and I have wasted little time or means upon them. I have done enough to show that they can be grown, even in such a locality, but not to profit or satisfaction.
I would advise the farmer who proposes to grow Pear, Peaches, and Quinces, for home use only or mainly, to select a piece of dry, gravelly or sandy loam, underdrain it thoroughly, plow or trench it very deeply, and fertilize it generously, in good part with ashes and with leaf-mold from his woods. Locate the pig-pen on one side of it, fence it strongly, and let the pigs have the run of it for a good portion of each year. In this plat or yard, plant half a dozen Cherry and as many Pear trees of choice varieties, the Bartlett foremost among them; keep clear of all dwarfs, and let your choicest trees have a chance to run under the pig-pen if they will. Plant here also, if your climate does not forbid, a dozen well-chosen Peach-trees, and two each year thereafter to replace those that will soon be dying out; and give half a dozen Quinces moist and rich locations by the side of your fences; surrounding each tree with stakes or pickets that will preclude too great familiarity on the part of the swine, and will not prevent a sharp scrutiny for borers in their season. Do not forget that a fruit-tree is like a cow tied to an immovable stake, from which you cannot continue to draw a pail of milk per day unless you carry her a liberal supply of food; and every Fall cart in half a dozen loads of muck from some convenient swamp or pond for your pigs to turn over: Should they leave any weeds, cut them with a scythe as often as they seem to need it; never allowing one to ripen seed. There may be easier and surer ways to obtain choice fruits; but this one commends itself to my judgment as not surpassed by any other. I think few have grown fruits to profit but those who make this a specialty; and I feel that disappointment in fruit-culture is by no means near the end. You can grow Plums, or Grapes, or Peaches, outside of the climate most congenial to them, but this is a work wherein success is likely to cost more than its worth. Try it first on a small scale, if you will try it; and be sure you do it thoroughly.
XXVIII.
GRAIN-GROWING—EAST AND WEST.
I disclaim all pretensions to ability to teach Western farmers how to grow Indian Corn abundantly and profitably, while I cheerfully admit that they have taught me somewhat thoroughly worth knowing. In my boyhood, I hoed Corn diligently for weeks at a time, drawing the earth from between the rows up about the stalks to a depth of three or four inches; thus forming hills which the West has since taught me to be of no use, but rather a detriment, embarrassing the efforts of the growing, hungry plants to throw out their roots extensively in every direction, and subjecting them to needless injury from drouth. I am thoroughly convinced that Corn, properly planted, will, like Wheat and all other grains, root itself just deep enough in the ground, and that to keep down all weeds and leave the surface of the corn-field open, mellow and perfectly flat, is the best as well as the cheapest way to cultivate Corn. And I do not believe that so much human food, with so little labor, is produced elsewhere on earth as in the spacious fields of Wheat and Corn in our grand Mississippi valley.
And yet I have seen in that valley many ample stretches covered with Corn, whereof the tillage seemed susceptible of improvement. Riding between these great corn-fields in October, after everything standing thereon had been killed by frost, it seemed to my observation that, while the corn-crop was fair, the weed-crop was far more luxuriant; so that, if everything had been cut clean from the ground, and the corn and the weeds placed in opposite scales, the latter would have weighed down the former. I cannot doubt that the cultivation, or lack of cultivation, which produces or permits such results, is not merely slovenly, but unthrifty.
The West is for the present, as for a generation she has been, the granary of the East. In my judgment, she will not long be content to remain so. Fifty years ago, the Genesee valley supplied most of the wheat and flour imported into New-England; ten years later, Northern Ohio was our principal resource; ten years later still, Michigan, Indiana, northern Illinois, and eastern Wisconsin, had been added to our grain-growing territory. Another decade, and our flour manufacturers had crossed the Mississippi, laying Iowa and Minnesota under liberal contributions, while western New-York had ceased to grow even her own breadstuffs, and Ohio to produce one bushel more than she needed for home consumption. Can we doubt that this steady recession of our Egypt, our Hungary, is destined to continue? Twenty-three years ago, when I first rode out from the then rising village of Chicago to see the Illinois prairies, nearly every wagon I met was loaded with wheat, going into Chicago, to be sold for about fifty cents per bushel, and the proceeds loaded back in the form of lumber, groceries, and almost everything else, grain excepted, needed by the pioneers, then dotting, thinly and irregularly, that whole region with their cabins. Now, I presume the district I then traversed produces hardly more grain than it consumes; taking Illinois altogether, I doubt that she will grow her own breadstuffs after 1880; not that she will be unable to produce a large surplus, but that her farmers will have decided that they can use their lands otherwise to greater advantage. Iowa and Minnesota will continue to export grain for perhaps twenty years longer; but even their time will come for saying, "New-York and New-England (not to speak of Old England) are too far away to furnish profitable markets for such bulky products; the cost of transportation absorbs the larger part of the cargo. We must export instead Wool, Meat, Lard, Butter, Cheese, Hops, and various Manufactures, whereof the freight will range from 2 up to not more than 25 per cent. of the value." They thus save their soil from the tremendous exaction made by taking grain-crop after grain-crop persistently, which long ago exhausted most of New-England and eastern New-York of wheat-forming material, and has since wrought the same deplorable result in our rich Genesee valley; while eastern Pennsylvania, though settled nearly two centuries ago, having pursued a more rational and provident system of husbandry, grows excellent wheat-crops to this day.