Needle and Garden: The Story of a Seamstress Who Laid Down Her Needle and Became a Strawberry-Girl

WRITTEN BY HERSELF.

CHAPTER IX.

IT must be remembered that we were on the same street with our neighbors, the Tetchy family, and that multitudes of their customers passed our gate on their way to the old established strawberry-garden. When a company of new customers came along in search of the Tetchys, some of them would stop at our gate, and, looking through the open lattice-work, would see the strawberries, and, thinking this the right place, would often come into the house and call for a saucer of fruit. Some of these did so while I was engaged in picking, even pushing through into the garden where I was at work. This publicity was a great annoyance to me, especially as my mother increased it by insisting on supplying all the fruit thus called for. Hence the same parties made repeated visits. My mother thought it as important to cultivate customers as to cultivate strawberries. They called for cream, — as all people must have the best of everything ; but having no cow, she bought milk as required, and though no doubt extensively diluted before it reached us, yet it seemed to go down with entire satisfaction.

Thus, without ever anticipating it, we fell heirs to a sprinkling of the profitable business which the Tetchys were carrying on : for, as part of the unintended legacy, my mother appropriated their high prices also. She took such interest in this mode of selling our fruit that I began to fear she would really convert our premises into another strawberrygarden. I confess the temptation was strong, because she thereby secured three times the profit that we could obtain at the market. As it was, she realized thirty dollars during the season from these unexpected customers. But not one of us would listen to the project of a strawberry-garden. Jane was, in fact, too proud to entertain the idea of waiting on the crowd of impudent, loafing young men who frequent such places as openings for getting rid of their money ; while Fred declared that his sisters should never come down to the condition of waiters at any table but their own. So my mother was overruled, though she insisted that her little experience with a few customers had fully satisfied her that our ill-natured neighbors were making great profits out of the immense retail trade they were doing.

But if our little household was thus harmonious on the strawberry question, the Tetchys were very far from being on good terms with us. They had as great a run that season as ever. Indeed, we heard that their customers had so increased as to oblige them to purchase fruit in order to supply the demand. How they managed about more cream I never learned, — whether they got a new cow, or whether that with the iron tail was required to do extra duty, was a mystery which the neighbors were never permitted to penetrate. Their customers must have been equally ignorant, as we never heard of their complaining ; but I have little doubt that Mrs. Tetchy could tell, to a drop, how much water a quart of milk would bear without the cheat being detected.

It may seem uncharitable to speak thus of one’s neighbors, but the Tetchys showed themselves unfriendly to us just in proportion as we gave evidence of beginning to succeed. They might have aided us materially, without injuring themselves in the least. But they had become possessed with the absurd fear, that we, on a single acre and a half, were about raising strawberries enough to ruin their business. Then my mother’s having entertained a dozen or two of transient customers was well known to them, for they watched us with unsleeping jealousy ; and they were sure we intended to set up another garden. So, although they saw they had a demand for more than their grounds produced, a demand, moreover, that was actually increasing, and this without any abatement in price, yet they preferred procuring their extra supplies from others a great way off to purchasing from us who were close at hand. Such purchases would be just so much encouragement to what they regarded as a rival establishment, which they desired to see suppressed. Hence all intercourse between the families ceased, and we heard nothing but the illnatured remarks they made about our doings, which other neighbors were kind enough to repeat to us, — the carrying of such things to and fro being considered by some an indispensable part of true neighborly kindness. It is quite probable, however, that these were all pretty well amplified on their way, as I have often noticed that an ill-natured speech, like a bouncing lie, generally grows by repetition.

But vexatious as all this certainly was, these people were greatly to be pitied. As regarded intelligent horticulture they were altogether in the dark. They took no agricultural papers, and books on gardening were equally unknown upon their table,—the entire literature of the household consisting of the penny newspaper, with piles of sensation novels which the daughters had accumulated. How, from such a dearth of reading suitable to their vocation, could they be expected to be better informed than they were ? or, with the peculiar caustic temper that ran through the family, to make friends who might be instructive companions ? In agricultural knowledge I was really their superior, having an exhaustless fund of information in the miscellaneous collection I had picked up at the grocer’s, of the diversified contents of which there had never been a more painstaking student. By reference to such a source, they would have learned how absurd was their selfish idea that it was possible for me, or even a hundred like me, to overdo the business of raising strawberries, no matter where established, but especially when the fruit was consumed on the very spot where it was produced. I know that this apprehension of producing too much fruit is a mistake of many persons about embarking in the business. But further knowledge invariably corrects it ; there is never an over-supply. If, at the beginning of my inquiries, the fear crossed my own mind, it was dissipated by a single conversation with the widow in the market-house.

The horticulturist of this progressive age must not rest satisfied with what he learns on his own ground. There is a vast outside world, full of busy, intelligent minds, not content with things as they find them, but searching, investigating, experimenting, and so successfully, that the horticultural art is largely indebted to them for the amazing progress it has of late years made toward perfection. These great unfolders of some of Nature’s profoundest secrets do not hide their lights under a bushel. There is a perpetual interchange among them, by pen, by tongue, and through the press, of the experiences and discoveries of each, the common repositories of all which are the agricultural journals. There collected as in a reservoir, they become fountains of instruction, not only to the pioneer in horticulture, but even to the veteran, and those who refuse to drink thereat will ever continue in the rear of a great army whose march is unceasingly onward. No petty jealousy comes in to mar the harmony of the true votaries of horticulture. There is emulation, but not contention. The heart of such a man enlarges as he pursues his labors, his tastes become refined, his sympathies embrace all others having kindred aspirations ; and the successes he may have achieved, with the processes by which they are to be secured, become the common property of all who are wise enough to appreciate them. Our neighbors were born with no such tastes or impulses as these. That it was so proved almost as unfortunate for us as it was for themselves.

Our first season’s profits did not make us rich, as the whole income was only a hundred and sixty dollars. But it showed conclusively that we were able to accomplish something handsome in an entirely new field. The cost of plants and of preparing the ground was a little rising thirty dollars. All that remained over these two items was so much in payment of our own labor, and for this we had never before had a market, as it was the contribution of odd times, except an occasional half-day lost from the factory; but as our earnings there were small, this loss was not of much account. Here, then, was more than a hundred dollars made out of almost nothing. This was equal to the wages of both Jane and myself for a quarter of the year. If a half-acre of strawberries, not yet in full bearing, could do this, it was clear that a whole acre of well-established plants would go very far toward enabling us to abandon our factory-life entirely. This was what we were aiming at : we were willing to work, but preferred working at home. Of course it was simply a question of how much we could make on an acre. My mother was sure there could be no doubt about the matter, if she could be allowed to open a strawberry-garden. She seemed to have given up her longcherished preference for the needle, and now began to realize that there might be something better. Not one of us, however, would hear to the garden, though we now clearly understood how extremely profitable must be that mode of bringing the producer and the consumer together.

Practice in any art is a wonderful enlightener of the understanding. It thus became quite clear to us that the Tetchy family were living handsomely on the strawberries raised on one acre of land, and cream manufactured principally at the kitchen pump. As usual on such occasions, Fred undertook to prove by his figures how much it was they were earning. I think he made it out about a thousand dollars a year; but as his previous calculations touching our own crop had proved rather deceptive, I did not trust implicitly to his conclusions. But he insisted that it must be so, as figures never lied. I suggested, that, though the figures themselves might not lie, yet that instances had been known of their leading to great lies by others, — not meaning, however, to refer to him.

These were among the new changes of the old topic that now formed the staple of our family discussions. As we had done pretty well with a half-acre, we must have more ground planted. It may appear singular that so small a profit, realized only after a whole year of waiting, should prove so powerful a stimulus to further effort. But I well knew that wealth is not suddenly acquired by agriculture of any kind. The great element of value which distinguishes this over other occupations is that of safety,— slow, but sure. If our profit should appear small to others, it was a great affair to us, and we felt reasonably certain that we could make it four times as large. It was therefore determined to have the remaining halfacre broken up and set out with strawberries that fall.

But no one must suppose that our summer occupation was ended when our crop had been marketed and the profit ascertained. All this was accomplished as July was coming in. Immediately after the vines had borne their fruit, they developed new energies in the puttingout of a multitude of runners. But meantime the ground had been taken possession of by a fresh crop of weeds, all of which must be removed, and the surface forked up into mellowness, before the runners would take hold and establish themselves into strong, vigorous plants. We therefore entered on a new campaign against these troublesome interlopers, though our hoes were so heavy and clumsy that their unwieldiness fatigued us more than the work itself.

“ There goes ten thousand at a pull ! ” said I to Fred, one day, as he caught hold of a huge thistle with his rake and dragged it out by the roots.

Fred was astounded at this piece of information. He had seen weeds in abundance, but had never gone over the pages of the “ Country Gentleman ” and the “New England Farmer ” as carefully as I had, and hence the thought had never occurred to him that in pulling up a single thistle he was really saving some one else the trouble of getting rid of thousands more.

The subject of this astonishing increase from a single plant thus became a topic for subsequent conversation and research. It being in Fred’s line, he looked up several articles about weeds, undertook to extend the calculation, and arrived at results that almost frightened me. A single thistle would produce twenty-four thousand the first year, and five hundred and seventy-six millions the second ! and we found that botanists had discovered in all other weeds an approximation to the same amazing power of reproduction. It must not be supposed, however, that every seed will vegetate. Animals and birds consume myriads of them, and other myriads perish under the extreme heat of summer and the equally destructive cold of winter. To some extent Nature thus confines the multiplication of weeds within limits. Botanists assert that these limits are prescribed, and that they cannot be passed. If it were not so, the seed of a single thistle would reproduce itself so rapidly as in a few years to cover with its progeny the entire surface of our planet.

Our ground was singularly troubled with the rag-weed, which we found was immensely prolific. There were numerous other kinds also that came up all over the field, and it appeared to me that those which produced the most seeds threw up the rankest growth. What was greatly to their discredit, none of them produced a flower. So far as I could discover, they performed no other office than that of perfecting a crop of seeds for the sole purpose of next year producing another that would be many thousand times larger. Their stalks and foliage were rejected by cattle, and never came to much as fertilizers. It is probable they have some medicinal virtues, however, as the herbdoctors use them pretty freely. But I could regard them in no other light than nuisances in a strawberry-bed.

So universally are weeds regarded as injurious to agriculture, that laws have been enacted to insure their destruction. In this country it has been made a finable offence to permit the Canada thistle to perfect its seeds. France imposes a heavy penalty on all who are in like manner neglectful of the common thistle. Every man in Denmark who fails to destroy the corn - marigold is severely punished. In the early history of Scotland, whoever “poisoned the king’s lands with weeds, introducing thereby a host of enemies,” was denounced as a traitor. Unhappily, with us there has been an abundant yield of both. As such instances show how these pests have been regarded by the agricultural world, one would think that it was now time for us to hear of their diminishing in number. But no such diminution can be asserted.

The history of the migration of seeds is full of the most curious statistics. The reviewer of a recent publication makes the following interesting statement.

“ The lonely island of St. Helena, for example, at the time of its discovery in 1501, produced about sixty vegetable species. Its flora now comprises seven hundred and fifty species. The faculty of spontaneous reproduction supposes a greater power of accommodation than we find in most domesticated plants. Although every wild species affects a habitat of a particular character, it will grow under conditions extremely unlike those of its birthplace. The seven hundred new species which have found their way to St. Helena within three centuries and a half were probably not in very large proportion designedly introduced there by human art. As a general rule, it may be assumed that man has intentionally transferred fewer plants than he has accidentally into countries foreign to them. Tares follow the wheat. The weeds that grow among the cereal grains, and form the pest of the kitchen-garden, are the same in America as in Europe. Some years ago, the author made a collection of weeds in the wheat-fields of Upper Egypt, and another in the gardens on the Bosphorus. Nearly all the plants were identical with those that grow under the same conditions in New England. The change from one locality to another is effected by a thousand casual circumstances. The upsetting of the wagon of an emigrant in his journey across the Western plains may scatter upon the ground the seeds he designed for his garden. The herbs which fill so important a place in the rustic materia medica of the Eastern States spring up along the prairie-paths just opened by the caravan of the settler. The hortus siccus of a botanist may accidentally sow seeds from the foot of the Himalayas on the plains that skirt the Alps. It is a tact frequently observed, that exotics transplanted to foreign climates suited to their growth escape from the flower-garden, and naturalize themselves among the spontaneous vegetation of the pastures. The straw and grass employed in packing the sculptures of Thorwaldsen were scattered in the court-yard of the museum in Copenhagen, where they are deposited, and the next season there sprang from the seeds no less than twenty-five species of plants belonging to the Roman Campagna. In the campaign of 1814, the Russian troops brought in the stuffing of their saddles seeds from the banks of the Dnieper to the valley of the Rhine, and even introduced the plants of the Steppes into the environs of Paris. The Turkish armies in their incursions into Europe brought Eastern vegetables in their train, and left the seeds of Oriental wall-plants to grow upon the ramparts of Buda and Vienna. The Canada thistle is said to have sprung up in Europe two hundred years ago from a seed which dropped out of the stuffed skin of a bird.”

As I had never studied the botanical peculiarities of weeds, and, indeed, had no time for scientific study, having both needle and garden on my hands, I regarded their luxuriant growth in my strawberry-ground only in a strictly practical light. The soil was full of nutriment, as my father had left it very rich. If this nutriment were appropriated by the weeds, it would obviously be so much taken from the strawberries. The latter, moreover, when the fruit was swelling to full size, preparatory to changing color, required all the moisture they could obtain. Now weeds are powerful leeches. Whatever they might suck up would consequently be robbery of the strawberries. Thus as nutriment and moisture would fail the strawberries in exact proportion to the growth of the weeds, the fruit would be small in size and inferior in quality, with a corresponding diminution of the market price. In a dry season these effects would be particularly disastrous. These conditions of successful strawberry-culture I had learned from books, from reflection, and from actual experience. Hence my beds were made scrupulously clean and mellow when the plants were beginning to put forth runners. It was a troublesome matter, for some weeks, to keep them in complete order, requiring an hour or two of hoeing daily ; but then I found the labor of weeding lasted only during August, as after that month the growth had so fallen off as to be of little consequence. Scarcely any that started subsequently would find the season long enough to mature the seeds. I frequently managed to obtain a glimpse of what our neighbors were doing, to see how my strawberry-culture compared with theirs. Though the whole family had little else to do than to look after their acre, yet I was quite satisfied with the result of my survey. They had quite as many weeds as myself, with the important difference that they did not seem to mind much about getting rid of them. I presume their uniform success had made them careless and lazy. Their hopes had been fulfilled, while the consummation of mine was yet in the future.

The runner of a strawberry, when projected a certain distance, develops at its extremity a tuft of leaves, and having done so, is impatient to throw out roots immediately below the newly formed tuft. To promote the formation of these, the surface of the ground should be made perfectly loose and mellow, so that the rootlets may enter and descend with facility, thenceforward to ramble in search of nourishment and moisture. Thus cared for, and especially if sunk a little below the surface, and held there with a spoonful of earth, the runners will put forth a mass of snow-white roots with incredible rapidity. In a moist soil, or after a shower of rain, they fasten themselves immediately ; and thus ceasjng to be drains upon the parent plant, by living and growing from their own daily enlarging roots, they will acquire a size and vigor to insure an abundant crop the following season. The first joint being securely rooted, the runner will go on lengthening into a succession of new ones ; and if each be promptly anchored like the first, they will become contemporaneous bearers. As one plant will send forth many runners, the careful cultivator can thus cover his ground with a profusion of the thriftiest vines. But when the surface is permitted to remain hard and compact, baked under the sun or trodden under foot, the delicate rootlets are unable to penetrate the unfriendly mass. They are blown about by the wind, useless exhausters of the parent plant; they change color by exposure to the sun and air, and lose their power of extension. Even under the softening influence of rain, which may enable them to secure some feeble holdingground, they rarely become vigorous plants, while their multiplication is materially limited. If the surface be overgrown with grass or weeds, the runners can gain no hold ; and hence, there being no new plants established, the succeeding crop will be smaller than it might otherwise have been. The vigor of the plant thus created from a runner is altogether dependent on the condition of the surface over which it is first projected, and the promptness with which it is enabled to throw out and tasten its roots in a congenial soil. Nature performs wonders for the strawberry; but human care and skill can multiply its capabilities to an extent which even yet is undetermined.

Acting upon these hints, for which I was again indebted to my invaluable agricultural treasury, I took care that every runner, as soon as it threw out a perfect tuft of leaves, should be let down into a little cavity scooped out by a garden-trowel, and sprinkled with earth enough to keep it down. The instinct of the plant was so nice and active, that, as soon as it came in contact with the moist ground below, it threw out roots and took a fast hold. These nourished it into an independent plant, enabling it to project a new joint, which, being similarly covered, formed another plant. Thus attending to them every day, I not only obtained more than were needed for the yet unoccupied half-acre, but secured plants of so vigorous a growth as to insure a good ctop the coming season. The ground was broken up and put in nice order in October. Then, after every rainy day, but especially in damp and drizzly weather, a man who understood the business was employed to transfer the young plants to their new location. It was too great an undertaking for me, though I assisted in the operation. My new bed I made an extension of the old one, and began with those plants which had grown from the runners nearest to the parent. As these had been longest in growing, they were the most thrifty and the best. Taking them up carefully on a trowel, with a ball of earth to each, I carried them one by one to the places previously prepared for them by the gardener, being simple excavations about a foot apart, into which we slipped them directly from the trowel, and then drew the loose earth up around the ball, so as to leave no portion of the roots exposed. By making holes for them, the plants were let down quite level with the surface, just as they had stood before transplanting: for strawberries must never be set on a ridge ; since, when thus set, the roots, having two surfaces laid open to the action of the sun and drying winds, become parched by exposure, and the plants will frequently perish in consequence. Moisture is the vital principle of the strawberry. Practically speaking, it may be said to be the only manure it ever requires.

This job cost me some ten dollars for hired help, but the gain was worth all that. Not a single plant showed the slightest sign of wilting. Indeed, there was clear evidence that the whole collection was quite unconscious of any change of place. The first rain closed up all cavities around them, thus effectually repairing damages, and their growth having experienced no check, many of them threw out new runners, as if thinking that I wanted them.

It was not an unfeminine occupation, this setting out a strawberry-bed. Neither did I consider it hard work. We could have done it ourselves, if we could have spared the time. So any family of girls can accomplish the same feat, or even a much greater one, when the masculine portion of the labor, putting the ground in order, has been performed for them. I know it soils one’s hands to set out plants in the wet ground ; but if one could make choice of the kind of dirt she is to handle, I am sure that this sort is preferable to that set free in washing a pile of greasy dishes, or in standing a whole day over a wash-tub. These being established feminine employments, no one thinks of objecting to them ; in fact, the sex seems born to them. But strawberryplanting by a young girl like me is a novelty that some may think requires an apology. Yet so far no one had seemed to consider any apology necessary in my case, except our neighbors, the Tetchys.

Long before we had taken up half the plants required for the new bed, I discovered that there were three or four times as many as we needed. My reading had taught me that one of the mistakes of strawberry-growing was that of crowding too many on the ground. The effect would be to make it impossible to get at the weeds and grass with a hoe. A bed in this condition could not be kept clean. In the end, the interlopers would take complete possession and smother out the strawberries, compelling the owner to plough all in together and start with a new planting. I was puzzled to know what was the best course to adopt. I thought at one time of hoeing up the greater portion of the multitude of plants we had so carefully propagated, treating them as so many weeds, so as to be sure of having a fair chance at the remainder. But they were all so vigorous and healthy that I could not bring my mind to have such extensive waste committed. Fred objected to it most strenuously. He said it was impossible for us to have too much of a good thing, and, as usual, came to the rescue with his arithmetic. He made it out that we had so many thousand fine plants that I wanted grubbed up. Then he showed that these, if allowed to produce fruit, would yield us so much money, and that this money would enable us to hire a man to keep the ground in the best order. Besides, he said there was no knowing but we might be able to sell a quantity of them. Fred’s figuring — always done on paper—had often disappointed us. But it continued to have some weight with me, notwithstanding. It is probable my reluctance to parting with these fine plants was the real turning-point in this dilemma. I had no hope of finding purchasers for them, though it had once been so difficult for me to find sellers. Nevertheless I followed Fred’s advice, thinking this time there might be something in it, and let the plants remain.

All these little matters are the result of personal experience : not, of course, acquired in a single season ; for even after the strawberry-grower has planted one bed and harvested one crop, he will discover that he is still only on the threshold of this branch of horticulture. Many of them are the fruit of subsequent experience, while much of all I ever learned is the result of careful study of as many authorities as I was able to consult. Study combined with practice and close observation, together with a passionate determination to learn, and hope ever stimulating to perseverance, has been with me the secret of success. I was now at the close of my first year’s experiment. My whole acre was in the best condition. The plants set out the first year were certain to produce twice the former yield, such being the universal experience with the strawberry ; while now, with double the extent of ground, and the first half-acre stocked with many times the number of plants originally set, the promise was highly encouraging. I could think of no possible chance of disappointment but a pinching frost that might destroy the blossoms, or a parching drought that might blast the fruit. No work that I had been required to perform had been too hard for me. Most of it had been recreation, while all had been healthful to the body and grateful to the mind. It is true that now and then my hands had been a little roughened by wielding the heavy garden-tools ; but we had already determined that our next year’s profits should furnish us with new and lighter ones. Thus, satisfied with myself, and buoyant with hope, the winter came upon us ; but I passed through it without impatience or anxiety, both my sister and myself continuing the while steadily at the factory.