When two-fields adjoined the dividing space, or ground that ran between them, we called maạdupatska´; it was always about four feet wide.
The word really means, I think, a raised ridge of earth. We still use the word in this sense. Down by the government school house at Independence, our agent has run a road; and the earth dug out of the roadway has been piled along the side in a low ridge to get rid of it. This ridge, running along the side of the road, we call maạdupatska´.
But the maạdupatska´ dividing two gardens in old times was never raised in a ridge. It was nothing but a four-foot-wide dividing line. Nothing grew on it. Each gardener hoed her half of the maạdupatska´ to keep it clean of grass and weeds. We were particular about this; we did not want to have any weeds in our gardens.
I do not mean that I, for example, was accustomed to hoe exactly one half of the maạdupatska´ that bordered my garden, leaving exactly the other half to my neighbor. I merely hoed as needed, and my neighbor did likewise; but the work was pretty equally divided, each woman recognizing that she should do her share.
Sometimes, however, the owner of a garden would come to her next neighbor and say, “I do not want you to have any hard feelings, nor speak against me; but I want to plant the maạdupatska´ that divides our gardens, in squash;” or instead of squash, she might want to plant it in sunflowers or beans.
Permission being given, she would plant as she had requested; and thereafter, of course, she would hoe all the maạdupatska´, because she had a crop standing on it. But even then the ground would not be hers, and her neighbor might refuse the permission asked.
I have said that it might be asked to plant squash, or beans, or sunflowers. A gardener never asked to plant corn on the maạdupatska´ that bordered her field. Rows of corn hills should be about four feet apart; and as this was the width of the maạdupatska´, even a single row of hills would have crowded the corn; but beans or squashes or sunflowers planted on the maạdupatska´ did not do so.
Fallowing, Ownership of Gardens
The first crop on new ground was always the best, though the second was nearly as good. The third year’s crop was not so good; and after that, each year, the crop grew less, until in some seasons, especially in a dry summer, hardly anything was produced.
The owners then stopped cultivating the garden and let it lie for two years; the third year they again planted the garden and found it would yield a good crop as before. During the two years their garden lay fallow, the family owning it would plant their season’s crop elsewhere.