CHAPTER XXVII
WORK ON THE HOME FORTY
April and May made amends for the rudeness of March, and the ploughs were early afield. Thompson, Zeb, Johnson, and sometimes Anderson, followed the furrows, first in 10 and 11, and lastly in 13. Number 9 had a fair clover sod, and was not disturbed. We ploughed in all about 114 acres, but we did not subsoil. We spent twenty days ploughing and as many more in fitting the ground for seed. The weather was unusually warm for the season, and there was plenty of rain. By the middle of May, oats were showing green in Nos. 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13,—sixty-two acres. The corn was well planted in 15 and the west three-quarters of 14,—eighty-two acres. The other ten acres in the young orchard was planted to fodder corn, sown in drills so that it could be cultivated in one direction.
The ten-acre orchard on the south side of the home lot was used for potatoes, sugar beets, cabbages, turnips, etc., to furnish a winter supply of vegetables for the stock.
The outlook for alfalfa was not bright. In the early spring we fertilized it again, using five hundred pounds to the acre, though it seemed like a conspicuous waste. The warm rains and days of April and May brought a fine crop of weeds; and about the middle of May I turned Anderson loose in the fields with a scythe, and he mowed down everything in sight.
After that things soon began to look better in the alfalfa fields. As the season was favorable, we were able to cut a crop of over a ton to the acre early in July, and nearly as much in the latter part of August. We cut forty tons from these twenty acres within a year from seeding, but I suspect that was unusual luck. I had used thirteen hundred pounds of commercial fertilizer to the acre, and the season was very favorable for the growth of the plant. I have since cut these fields three times each year, with an average yield of five tons to the acre for the whole crop.
I like alfalfa, both as green and as dry forage. When we use it green, we let it lie in swath for twenty-four hours, that it may wilt thoroughly before feeding. It is then fit food for hens, hogs, and, in limited quantities, for cows, and is much relished. When used dry, it is always cut fine and mixed with ground grains. In this shape it is fed liberally to hens and hogs, and also to milch cows; for the latter it forms half of the cut-food ration.
While the crops are growing, we will find time to note the changes on the home lot. Nearly in front of the farm-house, and fifty yards distant, was a space well fitted for the kitchen garden. We marked off a plat two hundred feet by three hundred, about one and a half acres, carted a lot of manure on it, and ploughed it as deep as the subsoiler would reach. This was done as soon as the frost permitted. We expected this garden to supply vegetables and small fruits for the whole colony at Four Oaks. An acre and a half can be made exceedingly productive if properly managed.
Along the sides of this garden we planted two rows of currant and gooseberry bushes, six feet between rows, and the plants four feet apart in the rows. The ends of the plat were left open for convenience in horse cultivation. Ten feet outside these rows of bush fruit was planted a line of quince trees, thirty on each side, and twenty feet beyond these a row of cherry trees, twenty in each row.
Near the west boundary of the home lot, and north of the lane that enters it, I planted two acres of dwarf pear trees—Bartlett and Duchess,—three hundred trees to the acre. I also planted six hundred plum trees—Abundance, Wickson, and Gold—in the chicken runs on lot 4. After May 1, when he was relieved from his farm duties, Johnson had charge of the planting and also of the gardening, and he took up his special work with energy and pleasure.