"You did nobly for a Swede, Mr. Gustavus Adolphus, but I would give ten tenners to have had your place and your shillalah,—a Swede for a match-lock, but an Irishman for a stick."
Jack had hardly recovered when he was waited on by a committee from the mine with a request that he would make another speech. He was asked to make good his offer of bonding the property, and also to formulate a plan of cooperation for the guidance of the men. Jack had the plans for a cooperative mining village well digested, and was anxious to get them before the miners. As soon as he was fit he went to Gordonville to try to organize the work. Jarvis of course went with him, and Bill Jackson and Sir Tom would not be denied; they did not say so, but they looked as if they thought some diversion might be found. In spite of the influence of strong whiskey, however, the meeting passed off peacefully. The results that grew from this effort at reformation were so great and so far-reaching that they deserve a book for their narration.
CHAPTER XLIV
DEEP WATERS
For sharp contrasts give me the dull country. The unexpected is the usual in small and in great things alike as they happen on a farm, and I make no apology to the reader for entering them in my narrative. I only ask him, if he be a city man, to take my word for the truth as to the general facts. To some elaboration and embellishment I plead guilty, but the groundwork is truth, and the facts stated are as real as the foundations of my buildings or the cows in my stalls. If the fortunate reader be a country man, he will need no assurance from me, for his eyes have seen and his ears have heard the strange and startling episodes with which the quiet country-side is filled. I do not dare record all the adventures which clustered around us at Four Oaks. People who know only the monotonous life of cities would not believe the half if told, and I do not wish to invite discredit upon my story of the making of the factory farm.
The incidents I have given of the strike at Gordon's mine are substantially correct, and I would love to follow them to their sequel,—the coöperative mine; but as that is a story by itself, I cannot do it now. I promise myself, however, the pleasure of writing a history of this innovation in coal-mining at an early date. It is worth the world's knowing that a copartnership can exist between three hundred equal partners without serious friction, and that community in business interests on a large scale can be successfully managed without any effort to control personal liberty, either domestic, social, or religious. Indeed, I believe the success of this experiment is due largely to the absence of any attempt to superintend the private interests of its members,—the only bond being a common financial one, and the one requisite to membership, ability to save a portion of the wages earned.
But to go back to farm matters. In August the ground was stirred for the second time around the young trees. To do this, the mulch was turned back and the surface for a space of three feet all around the tree was loosened by hoe or mattock, and the mulch was then returned. The trees were vigorous, and their leaves had the polish of health, in spite of the dry July and August. The mulching must receive the credit for much of this thrift, for it protected the soil from the rays of the sun and invited the deep moisture to rise toward the surface. Few people realize the amount of water that enters into the daily consumption of a tree. It is said that the four acres of leaf surface of a large elm will transpire or yield to evaporation eight tons of water in a day, and that it takes more than five hundred tons of water to produce one ton of hay, wheat, oats, or other crop. This seems enormous; but an inch of rain on an acre of ground means more than a hundred tons of water, and precipitation in our part of the country is about thirty-six inches per annum, so that we can count on over thirty-six hundred tons of water per acre to supply this tremendous evaporation of plant life.
Water-pot and hose look foolish in the face of these figures; indeed, they are poor makeshifts to keep life in plants during pinching times. A much more effective method is to keep the soil loose under a heavy mulch, for then the deep waters will rise. In our climate the tree's growth for the year is practically completed by July 15, and fortunately dry times rarely occur so early. We are, therefore, pretty certain to get the wood growth, no matter how dry the year, since it would take several years of unusual drought to prevent it. Of course the wood is not all that we wish for in fruit trees; the fruit is the main thing, and to secure the best development of it an abundant rainfall is needed after the wood is grown. If the rain doesn't come in July and August, heavy mulching must be the fruit-grower's reliance, and a good one it will prove if the drought doesn't continue more than one year. After July the new wood hardens and gets ready for the trying winter. If July and August are very wet, growth may continue until too late for the wood to harden, and it consequently goes into winter poorly prepared to resist its rigors. The result is a killing back of the soft wood, but usually no serious loss to the trees. The effort to stimulate late summer growth by cultivation and fertilization is all wrong; use manures and fertilizers freely from March until early June, but not later. The fall mulch of manure, if used, is more for warmth than for fertility; it is a blanket for the roots, but much of its value is leached away by the suns and rains of winter.
I felt that I had made a mistake in not sowing a cover crop in my orchard the previous year. There are many excellent reasons for the cover crop and not one against it. The first reason is that it protects the land from the rough usage and wash of winter storms; the second, that it adds humus to the soil; and the third, if one of the legumes is used, that it collects nitrogen from the air, stores it in each knuckle and joint, and holds it there until it is liberated by the decay of the plant. As nitrogen is the most precious of plant foods, and as the nitrate beds and deposits are rapidly becoming exhausted, we must look to the useful legumes to help us out until the scientists shall be able to fix the unlimited but volatile supply which the atmosphere contains, and thus to remove the certain, though remote, danger of a nitrogen famine. That this will be done in the near future by electric forces, and with such economy as to make the product available for agricultural purposes, is reasonably sure. In the meantime we must use the vetches, peas, beans, and clovers which are such willing workers.