To counterbalance this wonderful success, it is necessary to record a remarkable failure. “Variety is the spice of life.” It is this variety which gives agricultural pursuits their principal zest; no two attempts in planting bring about the same results. There may be the same circumstances of time, place, and weather, but the conclusion will be altogether dissimilar. All honest farmers must confess—and farmers are, like lawyers, without exception, upright and truthful—that the return from no two years has been alike. One year the potatoes fail, another leaves us without corn, a third is too much for the wheat; then the fruit rots, or the turnips will not grow, or the sweet potatoes run entirely to vine, or the oats to straw. Something never comes out right, or does what was expected of it, and often behaves in a shabby manner. Of coarse, my horticulture could be no exception, but the eccentricities of Flushing soil are rather extravagant, although the editor of the Agriculturist lives in the neighborhood, and does all he can to keep it in order. I have mentioned some peculiarities of my hot-house experience. I will give certain facts, quite as strange, relative to out-of-door gardening.
There were some hardy perennials which I had raised with great care, and among them a fine specimen of crimson flax, or what I had satisfied myself was crimson flax. My seeds had fallen into a little confusion in consequence of the names getting washed off the labels by the rains; but, as the plant bore a crimson flower, and did not resemble any thing else in particular, I had made up my mind it was crimson flax; if it were not, there must have been a defect in Thorburn’s seeds, which is not to be presumed, for nothing else of that description came up. Perennials are not generally satisfactory during their first season; they make a poor growth of it, showing a feebleness that is extremely painful to a fond and devoted gardener. They are not easily distinguished from weeds at best, and, as they grow far slower than the latter, are often lost entirely among them. For this reason I was especially proud of my crimson flax. It grew thriftily, spread into a good-sized bush, and covered itself with delicate flowers.
This had occurred during the previous season, and when fall came I was careful to mark the spot where it was with several large stakes, in order to warn Patrick against digging it up. Patrick was rather an enthusiast with a spade, and somewhat zealous in weeding; he was fond of digging up the garden to “meliorate” it, as he expressed the idea, and to prepare it for spring planting; and if he had not the flowers very distinctly and plainly marked, he would, in the excitement of the operation, dig them up ruthlessly. So also, in weeding, he had to be warned and watched, for more than once was my blood frozen with horror at beholding Patrick weeding up a valuable plant, and twice he weeded all the young sprouts off a flowering shrub so effectually that the shrub never recovered from the shock. With this fear before my eyes, and a question about the perfect reliability of my own memory, I marked the spot where my crimson flax was located with great care, surrounding it on all sides with stakes plainly lettered. Thus fortified, I waited confidently till the winter should be over, having put my own weaknesses and Patrick’s at defiance.
True to my confident expectations, with the first few warm suns my crimson flax reappeared amid its palisade of stakes. It grew far more strongly than before, spreading rapidly into a large bush, and requiring the assistance of supports and strings to keep it in shape. There was an odd singularity about it, however, which struck me as remarkable. The leaf seemed different from what it had been before—it was longer and narrower; but this probably was one of those changes which perennials undergo ere they get firmly established, and, among the many curious things I had experienced, did not surprise me particularly. The plant was on the exact place where it had been the year previous; it was growing luxuriantly, and bid fair to be a magnificent ornament to the garden, for it had a prominent situation. I did not boast of it, however. Boasting is not natural to me. I did not even call Weeville’s attention to it. He had disappointed me so often that I resolved he should be disappointed himself. I was determined to say nothing until it should be covered with its crimson gems.
It grew remarkably. If it had done well the previous year, it bid fair to surpass itself this season. As its time for flowering approached I became quite nervous and excited. Slowly the buds formed, being almost innumerable, and covering each spray; they filled and distended, and finally burst. But what was my astonishment when I discovered that they had changed their color. Instead of the rich crimson flowers that were expected, I found the bush one morning covered with strange-looking blossoms of a dull yellow. The most remarkable transformation ever known had taken place—crimson flax had lost its natural hue under careful cultivation, and assumed the appearance of a cross between an orange blossom and a dandelion; if any thing, it was rather more like the dandelion. It was no longer crimson—had, in fact, no shade of crimson. It was a pure yellow, and not altogether a handsome one. To describe the disgust that this unexpected change wrought in my usually placid temper is impossible. I began to hate that plant. The more it blossomed the more furious I felt, until finally, when it had covered itself with these wretched straw-colored abortions, my feelings overcame me, and I pulled it up by the roots.
This burst of passion has caused me much regret. By a moment’s indulgence of anger I destroyed the chance of raising a new species of plant, a changeable crimson flax—crimson one year and yellow the next. Weeville, when subsequently informed of my indiscretion, attempted to console me by endeavoring to make out that it was a weed which had smothered the original flower. He even doubted whether there ever had been any crimson flax in my garden, and pretended dissatisfaction with my description of that plant. He said he was not aware that crimson flax was a perennial, and thought that the designation in the catalogue was an error, ridiculous as such a supposition was to my mind. He undertook to show me numerous weeds by the road-side—for weeds are quite abundant in Flushing—which bore yellow blossoms, and which he felt confident were the same as the one I had raised. They did resemble it in many points; but, as I had marked my plant carefully, had seen it blossom the year previous, and knew whereof I spoke, I utterly disdained his explanation. I must still feel that the loss of my new flax was serious, and must regret the outburst that led to it. Even a flower convertible into a weed, or changing biennially from one to the other, would be rare and curious.
Moreover, although we did raise several garden weeds, this was like none of them. They were most deceptive things, and imitated the appearance of plants wonderfully. One grew quite tall, and seemed to be on the point of flowering all the while, but never did so. Another spread into quite a large tuft, something between a daisy and a violet, and imposed upon Patrick, even, so thoroughly that he never dug it up in a single instance, notwithstanding his readiness to extirpate whatever was of doubtful authenticity. It spread rapidly, until it was quite a labor to pull it up. Another of these troublesome members of the vegetable kingdom attained almost the dimensions of a shrub, and had a thick, solid stalk, and actually flowered; but the blossoms were the minutest things possible, and bore a ludicrous disproportion with the size of the bush; while the snap-dragon obtained a hold in the beds which it is probable I never shall eradicate, by an error of appreciation continued through a few months. In fact, the weeds performed such strange antics, and behaved in so unexpected a way, that the question arose in my mind as to what was a weed. The author of “Ten Acres Enough” says that it is a flower out of place. The latter half of his explanation may be well enough; but as to its being a flower, most of those that came up in my garden had no flowers whatever. Without entering too far upon a religious disquisition, it may do merely to suggest that it struck me that weeds were original sin, springing up to trouble us every where, and calling for that sweat of the brow which is ordained as the lot of the human kind for the first great crime of Mother Eve.
The nature of weeds is exceedingly perverse. They seem to have been sent to torment man, sprouting up continually without apparently ever becoming exhausted, causing an immense deal of unnecessary annoyance. As an evidence of their innate perversity, it is only necessary to refer to the manner in which they behaved toward my portulaca splendens. This showy plant had been thriving admirably, and as its seeds, when allowed to sow themselves, naturally reappear in augmented splendor the following year, I had founded great expectations upon the anticipated result. It is true that the portulaca did sow itself, and did come up finely the present spring; but, unfortunately, weeds come up without any sowing. They originate or “come of themselves,” as my brother farmers lucidly express it, and they appeared with the portulaca, and grew twice as rapidly.
The end of it was, that, although the flower was there, and even matured, it was hidden so effectually that there was no way of getting a sight at a blossom except by pulling up a yard square of weeds. My conclusion from this—and valuable it is to the cause of agriculture—was that our scientific men had not paid sufficient attention to weeds; that they had taught us how to make things grow, but had not told us how to prevent their growing; that an anti-fertilizer was more important than a fertilizer. There is twice as much labor expended in rooting weeds out as in putting vegetables in. We have our phosphates and superphosphates, our guano, marl, bone-dust, lime, and a dozen other species of manures, but not a single invention to prevent undesirable growth. The present necessity is a drug or acid, or some sort of medicament, that will kill all the weeds and the germs of weeds in the ground, but which will soon lose its power, so that the ground will perform its proper functions when seed is planted. Until this discovery is made, farming will be laborious, and I hope our learned men will devote their attention to it promptly. I shall only claim the honor of originating the idea, and leave the entire profits to the inventor.