The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor Work
By
Mary Rogers Miller
Photograph by Helen W. Cooke.
Harvesting Nature's Crops
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgment is due to the expert writers of United States government and state experiment station bulletins from which much practical information has been gained by the author; to the boys and girls who wrote for this book the stories of their success in several kinds of outdoor industry; to Dr. Burton N. Gates, State Inspector of Apiaries in Massachusetts, and Prof. James E. Rice of the Department of Poultry Husbandry at Cornell University for reading the chapters on their specialties and for numerous suggestions which make those chapters valuable; and to many others from whom helpful ideas have come in letters.
A WORD TO PARENTS
There are two sovereign cures for the ills of modern life: Work and outdoors. It is the purpose of this book on "Outdoor Work for Young People" to teach the gospel of these two remedies, not in lessons nor sermons, but in the form of confidential talks, which are intended to be both practical and inspiring.
The guiding principles in the preparation of this book are three: 1, to help young people to earn money; 2, to help them build character; 3, to help them make better citizens.
1. The most obvious reason why children wish to work is that they "want to earn money," to spend as they like. Here is a great opportunity and a considerable danger. The opportunities are to help support the family, to learn self-reliance, to gain in efficiency, to appreciate the sacrifices made by parents, to purchase innocent pleasures, and to save toward a college education. The dangers are that children may become too commercially minded, grasping, even dishonest, make dull playmates, and become stunted in character for lack of play and wholesome stimulus to the imagination. If you will analyze these dangers you will find that they are all the results of overdoing good things. The old rule of the Greeks, "Nothing too much" is the golden rule to measure perfect commercial relations between parents and children.
2. But far more important than money making is character making. And therefore one of the principles of this book is to suggest in a thousand ways that money making may go too far. For example, I would encourage boys to gather and sell nuts, but not to take nuts from a neighbour's trees without permission nor destroy young trees whose future crops belong to a future generation of boys. I encourage trapping but urge the use of humane traps to avoid cruelty. I encourage the gathering and selling certain wild flowers, if abundant, but warn against the danger of exterminating species, or of robbing the public of pleasure. I have gone over all of the things that children do out of doors and have tried to select the best occupations. I have studied the worst things they do and have suggested their opposites—constructive work that earns money, develops character, or preserves public property. For example, instead of collecting birds' eggs I suggest methods of attracting birds, building houses for them, and providing food and protection from enemies.
3. The book is addressed to the citizens of nineteen hundred and twenty. Will not busy boys and girls make better citizens than idle ones? Practical patriotism becomes second nature to children who learn early to regard the rights of others, to respect the laws, and to protect public property. The boy who raises wild fowl and liberates them or refrains from mutilating for purely selfish ends a fine tree is doing his share in the great work of conservation.
But the young workers cannot do it all. You will be disappointed if you give this book to a child for a birthday or Christmas present and expect him to "do the rest," without further help. There is no substitute for affectionate parental interest. This book will surely fail you if you do not thoroughly believe in the dignity of manual labour and experience the uplift that rewards work with your own hands. Although in theory we may all believe in the dignity of labour (for other people), many of us make mental reservations to suit our own cases and persist in regarding certain forms of labour as distinctly beneath our dignity. Children see through that attitude every time. When I used to be acquainted with the citizens of the George Junior Republic, they had a saying that even the President and the Judge could not maintain standing with the others unless they took their turn now and then working in the ditch. And so I say, work with your children, with common tools, out in the dirt. The scratches will heal and the dirt will wash off, but the sense of kinship with workers will stay.
Have a "You and I" club, with you and the children for members. Meet once a week to discuss schemes for earning money to buy what the children want. It is easier to go out and earn the money and give it to them to spend, but where do they come in? Read parts of this book aloud when outside information or suggestion is needed. Make a list of your children's occupations; consider whether they are the best ones. If you know any better ones than I have put into this book please tell me, for I, too, have children and I wish them to have the very best works and plays that children in this world can have.
I. THE BEST WAYS OF EARNING MONEY
Couldn't you use more money if you had it? There are several million American boys and girls just like you. They want a lot of things, a lot of good things. Wouldn't you like a half dollar once a year for a circus ticket, a quarter now and then for a box of candy, or ten dollars for a new dress or some music lessons? You'd be glad to buy your own clothes, and select them too, if you had the cash. That would be a big help in thousands of families. Parents sometimes wish that their children could "leave out" in new clothes in spring, like the trees.
If you could begin to earn money at twelve you could save toward a college education, too. Lots of boys and girls are earning their way. You can. You can earn money between twelve and twenty years of age without interfering with your schooling.
What kind of stories do you like best? Isn't it inspiring to read about the boyhood of our great men. Do you remember young Abe Lincoln splitting rails? Garfield drove mules on a tow path. The men and women who are doing great things now started as boys and girls with work to do. They washed dishes and split kindlings and fed chickens and milked cows and dug potatoes. Now they are tunnelling mountains, building bridges, helping make the world better in all sorts of courageous ways.
Don't you like to hear engineers, miners, sailors, inventors, animal trainers, cowboys, foresters, and other workers talk about their work? The only really happy people are the ones who have found the work they love best. I have put some stories in this book. These are told by real boys and girls who were successful in earning money. Can you beat them at their own game? Will you try?
There are thousands of ways for young people in their teens to earn money. I believe the best are the outdoor ways. I have suggested a list of occupations, the best I can think of. Of course, no one person could try them all. Circumstances must decide. You will succeed best with the work which you like best. You must not let outside work interfere with your studies. You must not undertake work that is too hard for your strength or unsuited to your disposition. Maybe this list will help you choose.
OCCUPATIONS SUITED TO THE FOUR SEASONS AND SOME THAT GO THROUGH THE YEAR
Summer.—Gathering berries, tree seeds, bulbs and roots, wild flowers and ferns, balsam leaves, medicinal plants, pine cones, making collections, mowing lawns, marking tennis courts, sawing wood, cleaning rugs, drying herbs, corn and fruits, raising queen bees, collecting bait, rearing butterflies for museum specimens, gathering clam shells for button factories, shocking grain, "toting" water.
Fall.—Gathering fruit, nuts, making corn husk mats and baskets, shelling corn, making leaf mould, clearing a field of stones, making stone fence, making grape juice and cider vinegar, collecting bayberries, painting barns and outbuildings, packing fruit, cleaning farm implements, gathering faggots, collecting cocoons, collecting insect homes for nature study.
Winter.—Gathering spruce gum, collecting Christmas greens, shovelling snow, pruning shrubs, vines and trees, trapping, tanning skins, making candles, selecting seed corn, pruning and tying grapevines, transplanting trees and shrubs, feeding birds.
Spring.—Cutting seed potatoes, budding, grafting, cutting dandelions from lawns, killing weeds, oiling ponds and ditches to kill mosquitoes, shelling corn, starting silkworms, trout, frog and toad culture, attracting birds, fighting flies.
Year-Round Occupations.—Keeping bees, raising goldfish, training animals, raising colts, sheep, pigs, goats, dogs, chickens and other poultry, rabbits and other pets, collecting wood for kindling, turning grindstone, milking, taming wild creatures, raising prize corn, potatoes, or cotton.
THINGS WORTH THINKING ABOUT
Don't think only of the money you can earn. There's no use talking, the work you do and the way you do it is going to have an influence on your character. Do a good job! If you slight your work you cheat your employer. You know it, if he doesn't. You cheat yourself, too. And when you are working for yourself, you are the one who is doubly cheated by slack methods. That's plain.
Don't choose an occupation you are doubtful about. Most occupations are perfectly honourable. Dishonesty comes in methods. The grown-up grafters, ten to one, were cheaters at games, and sneaks about work.
When in doubt, ask advice. Don't you like to be asked for your opinion? Everybody does. Ask your parents' advice about the work you think of undertaking, and the methods of carrying on the business side. What will please them more than to know that you have a keen sense of honour?
This is my word of encouragement and inspiration to the boys and girls who read this book. There are a hundred perfectly good reasons why you should have more money of your own. And there are a thousand ways to earn it. Every one of you can earn a college education. Choose the best work for you, and do it with enthusiasm. If you want my advice about your work or any information I can get for you, nothing would please me more than to hear from you.
II. HARVESTING NATURE'S CROPS
PICKING BERRIES
The berry picking season begins "'long about knee-deep in June" with the first wild strawberries. It does not end till the last cranberry is harvested on the eve of Thanksgiving Day at the end of the drowsy Indian summer. There is money to be earned at this occupation wherever there is ambition to overcome difficulties and force of character enough to step aside from the beaten paths. Fortunately berries are ripe in vacation time. For some people berry picking has almost if not quite the fascination of fishing. It lacks the objectionable features of hunting, fishing and trapping. Guns, tackle, and traps are unnecessary in this gentler sport. No costly tools are required. A light pail, flaring somewhat at the top, is a good receptacle. A wire bent into an S-shaped hook is handy to swing the pail over the forearm while the ambidextrous picker almost doubles the day's harvest if the fruit is extra plentiful.
There is hardly a state in the Union which has not plenty of wild fruits. The young citizens of each state should know these fruits and make the most of them. Some states or regions have fruits peculiar to themselves. Wouldn't it be worth while for the domestic science or cookery teacher in a country school to show her pupils how to utilize these home products? We hear talk about the cost of materials for use in classes in cookery. To let our wild fruits go to waste is poor economy whichever way we look at it. Wouldn't you, if you live in northern Michigan, like to exchange a pot of thimbleberry jam for one made in North Carolina from persimmons? Or if you live in Montana would you exchange buffalo berry marmalade with a Florida friend for guava jelly or preserved cumquats?
WILD RASPBERRIES
Just the other day a girl from the shore of Lake Superior told me of a camping trip on a part of the lake shore inaccessible except by water. A storm on the lake kept them from going home when they had expected so they gathered raspberries and canned and jammed them till their sugar gave out, then until every available cooking utensil, even the coffee pot, was full and the supply of berries was as unlimited as ever. These great, luscious fruits, she said, were as big as the end of her thumb, and fairly falling off the bushes with the weight of juice.
Doesn't it make your mouth water? The pickers who live near the woods up there bring berries to town in milk pails. The fruit box may be more elegant, but there is a bountiful sound about the milk pail that takes my fancy. Of course, one gets scratched while berry-picking; but in what a good cause. Is there something wrong about boys and girls who prefer boxed berries and smooth hands to wild fruits and scratches? There are thousands of dollars wasted every year that might be working on some boy's or girl's schooling, just because nature's crop of raspberries isn't half harvested.
Wild raspberries should be canned, jellied, or jammed by the regulation methods. With a good oil stove all the work can be done in the open air.
THIMBLEBERRY
Do you know the thimbleberry? Some call it the flowering raspberry. You will know by its shape and general look that it is a cousin to the black raspberry although it is flatter, seedier, and more sharply acid. It grows on a bush or shrub somewhat like a raspberry, but its leaves are broad, like grape leaves. Instead of thorns its twigs are clothed with sticky hairs. The colour of the fruit is pinkish purple.
Thimbleberries grow often along woods margins, just back of the fringe of wild red raspberries. You are lucky if you get two cupfuls of the thimbleberries while your companion is picking two quarts of the raspberries. Yours pack more closely and the fruit is not so abundant.
The number of people who have tasted thimbleberry jam is small. I am told by one who has made it that you can get any price you ask for tiny glasses of it, even a dollar a glass, from people who "must have it." Made just as one does other jams, equal parts of fruit and sugar, there is nothing tastes quite like it.
BLUEBERRIES
Blueberry pie was a staple and justly popular dessert in a certain college dining-room, where I first made its acquaintance. It was, of course, made of canned blueberries, and we used to wonder where they all came from. We certainly never saw them growing in the Mississippi Valley. The blueberry belt is a wide one and includes all the eastern and central states. I first saw them growing on Cape Ann, and later on the New Hampshire hills. The women and children used to bring them in small pails to sell at the doors of their less enterprising neighbours. But the price was always high and the berries not first class, unless we gathered them ourselves. It takes a lot of picking to get two quarts. One gets an entirely wrong impression of the blueberry business from these experiences.
The great canning factories do not depend on a haphazard crop. In New England and the eastern states there are thousands of acres of waste land, shorn of its forest, where blueberries grow in greatest abundance. It is not possible to estimate with any accuracy the value of this wild crop. Pickers get from one and one-half to three cents a quart, and the boxes sell in retail market at from twelve and one-half cents to eighteen cents a box. Northern Michigan shipped five thousand bushels one year. They ship better than softer fruits, but the price is always high and the supply small because the canning factories are near the fields, and shipping is expensive. One large factory uses seven hundred bushels a day. The total product of the Maine canneries ten years ago was worth over one hundred thousand dollars. That must be where our college cook got her supply.
Huckleberry and blueberry are the names used most commonly and you will meet people who know one from the other. But as both are blue and there are high bush and low bush huckleberries, as well as high and low bush blueberries, it is useless to discuss the names. Both are right and a huckleberry in Ohio may be a blueberry in Maine.
A sort of rake to gather blueberries is used for the low bushes. But hand picking is best. The rake tears the bushes so, and the berries have to be put through a fanning mill twice to free them from leaves and rubbish. This process fits them for the canners who are not as particular as we wish they were.
The blueberry bush is a kind of Indian. It does not take kindly to gardens and other civilized places. It thrives and yields abundantly if given a chance on its native hillsides, and comes up by the million wherever the cutting of the timber lets in the light. By burning over the blueberry land in very early spring while the ground is wet, those in charge can keep down the alder, poplars, birches, and other non-money-making growths, and this is taken by the blueberries as their chance. They come right up, and deliver a tremendous crop the first year after the burning.
WILD GRAPES
We used to gather wild grapes along the river bottoms in the middle West when we went nutting. Sometimes our nutting excursion turned out to be a grape harvest. These grapes were small, almost black under their thin coat of bloom, in clusters like miniature garden grapes. Oh, but they were puckery when green, but the frost sweetened them. The vines grew tremendously, way to the tops of the trees, their stems like great ropes, which we used for swings. The grapes were really mostly seed and skin, but there was juice enough to stain our aprons, and give the teeth and tongue an unmistakable telltale hue. There was juice enough for a kind of jelly which I believe had the peculiarity of never "jelling" properly. It is good, though, and they were well worth the sugar to make them edible.
I was surprised at their size when I first saw the big summer grapes of the eastern hedge-rows and banks. But their flavour is no great improvement over that of the frost grape. There is more pulp, though. My barberry gathering friend, who admits that she is "fond of all sorts of woodland flavours," gathers these grapes in August before they begin to change colour. She makes the only really green grape jelly I have seen. This is her receipt:
Wash the stemmed grapes very carefully to rid them of dust and possible taint from poison ivy, with which they often associate. Put them into a preserving kettle with a very little boiling water, cover and let them steam till tender. (No boiling here.) Strain to get rid of seeds and skins. (Work fast at this point, because delay may cause the change of colour we wish to avoid.) Weigh the juice and an equal amount of white sugar. Heat sugar and juice separately, without scorching. Stir the hot sugar into the boiling juice, let boil up, skim, and put into dry, hot glasses. If it boils a long time it loses the green colour, and its flavour of the wild out-of-doors.
Green grape jelly that is really green is a triumph. It would bring a price.
ELDERBERRIES
Elderberries have almost gone out of fashion in these days of refrigerator cars and cold storage, when fruits from all parts of the world are brought to our doors. But I am antiquated enough to like the rather flat, seedy things, and the "runny" jelly is of a wonderful colour and flavour. Best of all is the fun of gathering the broad, flat clusters, always seeing a finer one just a few steps farther on or just over the fence. The golden-rod is brilliant in the September sunshine, the asters like star stuff sifted in every fence corner, while the fox grapes clambering over stray trees along the line fence fill the air with fragrance. Perhaps I could get on without the elderberries, but the New England conscience requires some practical excuse for traipsing off over the fields when there is useful work to be done indoors. Elderberries canned in a thin syrup, one cup of water, two of sugar, and all the berries the jar will hold, are excellent for steamed pudding. Drain off the juice, and stir the berries into the batter just as you would blueberries, mulberries, or any other fruit. The colour of the pudding will be awe-inspiring but with the juice for sauce it is good, really.
BARBERRIES
Our Westchester County hostess always took a basket on her arm when she went for a walk. She had an unusual taste for wild flavours of all sorts and her guests were always sure of some delightful surprise at her table. In September there is a choice of wild fruits, and everybody recognized the necessity for a basket. I wondered, though, when we passed, unnoticed, bushels of elderberries, and rods of browning grapes, and headed for a group of dogwood trees. But although the berries were thicker than I ever saw on the dogwood, they were only admired and left for the sun to burnish. High on a bare hilltop we sat where the view was panoramic. The lady with the basket betook herself to a fringe of tall, ruddy bushes on the brow of the hill, and I found her busily filling her basket with barberries. She did not wait to pick them singly but snipped off the laden twigs with scissors, avoiding thus the angry thorns.
"What are they good for?" I asked, as I tasted again the sharp, astringent flavour and felt that indescribable pucker on tongue and lips that goes with it. The barberry had long been a favourite with me; the bush for its wayward grace and its cunning flowers, the berries for their exquisite bloom and for tasting so unlike any cultivated thing. But I had never dreamed of making jelly of them.
"Jelly," said our hostess. "It's particularly good with game."
Of course it would be good with game, but can you imagine eating barberry jelly with corn-fed pork or with fat mutton?
The berries should be gathered before they are fully ripe and treated like currants, although the yield of juice is meagre. Add a little water and heat slowly. Strain and add "pound for pound" of sugar. Put in tiny glasses. Any one in search for a unique Christmas gift for an epicurean uncle would find barberry jelly fills the bill.
In Salem, Mass., I saw barberries for sale in the market. They looked mightily out of place along with pineapples, watermelons, grapes, peaches, Japanese plums, and other conventional market fruits.
BAYBERRIES
Two friends of mine, summering on Cape Ann, discovered there to their delight, a low shrub, growing in great profusion on the rocky hills. The foliage was of a rich green colour, of a leathery texture, and was possessed of an aromatic odour at once delightful and wholesome to their senses. They were seized with a great desire to take home with them a quantity of this plentiful foliage to make into pillows or to feed the fire on the hearth that they might inhale its fragrance, and be reminded of Cape Ann and the summer sea.
So they procured huge gunny sacks which they were at some pains to stuff to their utmost capacity. They have a snapshot of themselves, bent double under the weight of the great sacks. With the help of a friendly native they succeeded in transporting the burdens to the express office, and addressed them home. We cheerfully paid the expressman's charges at the home end, having been advised that the bags were coming, and carried them to the attic floor where they were to be spread to cure. But when the contents came tumbling out, its pent-up fragrance was familiar. Then was it possible those blessed geese had been spending their precious vacation days gathering bay berry leaves? It was even so, and we had paid nearly two dollars express on the bags—and our woods were full of it! What a laugh we had at their expense when they came to reimburse us.
The bayberry shrub is also called wax myrtle and it is easy to see why, when you find the berries in October. They are gray, almost white, and you see that each one is covered with tiny drops of wax that has oozed out of the berry and dried on its surface.
Bayberry is called candleberry, too, because of the use our great-grandmothers made of the wax. Bayberry dips have come into fashion again and people who make them skilfully find a ready sale for their product.
MAKING BAYBERRY DIPS
To make bayberry candles you must first gather the wax-covered berries. Get them early, for, as cold weather comes on, the pellets of wax drop off. Two quarts make only a little ball of wax, so you must gather an enormous quantity of the berries. Put them into water and bring it to a boil, stirring well to be sure that all the wax is melting. Being lighter than water the wax will rise to the surface. When you think all the berries are bare, take them from the fire. As the water cools, the wax hardens on top. If the berries do not all go to the bottom you will have to melt the wax again over a slow fire or in a double boiler until the wax rises clean at the top; all dirt and refuse on its lower surface can be scraped off. Do not let the wax burn. Smoke is a sure sign that it is too hot. In a double boiler there is no danger.
To make the dips, take regular candle wicking, a soft, white, loosely twisted cord, cut it twice the desired length for the candle. Double it and twist enough to hold it together. The loop at one end is convenient to hold it by. Dip into the hot wax and then as it cools draw the wick down with finger and thumb so that it hangs straight and kinkless. A second dip adds a little to the diameter of the candle, the third another layer and so on till your first bayberry dip is finished. If the first effort is not a good shape and has to go back into the pot you needn't be discouraged. Didn't the first chocolate cream you ever made look like a chestnut gone wrong? But with patience it is possible for even a beginner to produce very shapely candles. They do not need to be absolutely regular. Paraffin or tallow candles, moulded just alike by the hundred thousand dozen, may be as round and perfect as machinery can make them. Part of the charm of the bayberry dips is in these slight irregularities of shape and size.
WILD CRAB APPLES
Thickets of small trees, bearing little solid green apples are a feature of almost every farm in the prairie states. They are common also on the hilly pastures of Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and New York. The South, too, has its native crab apple. School children the country over loved in my day to fill their pockets with the hard, sour, little fruits and nibble at them surreptitiously under cover of a broad geography. But perhaps children's tastes have changed since that far time.
Modern geography must be different, anyhow. I saw one the other day shaped just like a fifth reader or history or any other. It just looked like any book, not one bit like a g'ography.
The little crabs were made into sauce or "butter," by pioneers of the prairie states. We washed, quartered, and cut out the wormy places, stewed them till soft with a little water, then put them through a coarse sieve to take out seeds, cores, and skin. The pulp was then sweetened with sorghum molasses and boiled; stirring is necessary to prevent burning. The appetites of those days did not demand dainty fare. Well do I remember a small visitor to whom our cookery was new whose demand for crab-apple-sauce-if-you-please was hard to satisfy. I believe crab apple jelly would be regarded a great delicacy by people of good taste, if once they had a try at it.
PERSIMMONS
The children of the persimmon belt, which includes a much larger part of the eastern half of the United States than many suppose, all know that the fruit of some trees is better than that of others. The 'possum knows, too, and lucky is he who finds both "fruits" on the same tree. There is a market for persimmons if they are gathered after frost, and a greater demand may be created. Seeing an unfamiliar fruit in the market is very likely to awaken the interest. Whether the buyer will want a second basket or not depends entirely upon the cleverness of the person that supplies the demand. The thoroughly ripe fruit is, according to an experienced traveller, "entirely without bitterness or astringency, sweet, rich, and juicy." What more can you say about watermelon or strawberries? But if you who gather the fruits persist in hurrying them green into market you may expect that the prejudice against persimmons will grow stronger.
HAWS
Is there any good reason why some of the people who used to be boys should never have a chance to taste any thorn apples now that they are older? Perhaps these grown-up boys deserve to be punished for deserting the old haunts, but give them a taste of what the open road has to offer and maybe they will be tempted back to a simpler life.
The fruit of the May haw or apple haw of the far South is sold in the markets of some cities and is made into preserves and jelly. The Washington thorn which grows wild in Virginia and the other states not far from the capital city is also cultivated in many gardens farther north. It has run wild from these gardens and ranges over New York, Pennsylvania and neighbouring states. Though usually small, its berries are a beautifully shining scarlet and very numerous. It is worth risking a pound or so of sugar just to see what jelly they would make. The pear haw has a thick, juicy flesh, and some of the yellow ones are equally good.
WILD PLUMS
The wild plums of the East did not strike the early settlers as very much worth while. They were almost all seed and skin and the rest was "pucker." Quite naturally the plums of the mother country were preferred and sprouts were brought over and set in the gardens of our forefathers. These plum emigrants did so well in the new country that they escaped from the gardens into the pastures and roadsides, coming up wherever seeds were dropped. In such places they still flourish and are thought of as wild plums. They are gathered for market, but compare unfavourably, except with very old-fashioned people, with the garden-grown fruits of the same or similar varieties.
The pioneers of the middle West, however, found very fine plums growing wild in plentiful thickets. We used to gather these native plums in the Mississippi Valley, in great tubfuls. We not only appreciated the crop nature provided for us every year, but were far-sighted enough to realize that the time would come when the march of civilization would tramp out the plum thickets. So we planted them in orchards and gardens, taking those trees that had given us the best crops of the biggest, finest fruit. In fact, the pioneers did just what we ought to be doing all over our country with other wild fruits and with nuts. The wild goose plum is a native which has founded a race of which there are many named varieties, much bigger and finer than the little, old, wild grandmother of the plum thicket, but they all have still that same tart tang, just under the skin, that gave to our wild plum "jell" its incomparable flavour.
Are the wild plums all forgotten? Must all fruit come out of boxes and have that stale taste of the town? Must it lose its characteristic aroma and give off only that general "markety" smell? Is "goin' plummin'" entirely out of fashion, even in the prairie states? I don't believe it is as bad as that. Do you believe that moving pictures or shoot the shoots or merry-go-rounds can begin to compare with such simple pleasures as plumming, graping, berrying, and nutting? I have tried both, and give me the old, homely pleasures every time.
The following extract from "The Tree Book" so well describes an annual outing of pioneer children that it is quoted in full:
"'Do you calculate to go a-plummin' this fall?' The question was quietly put in father's judicial tones, but it sent an electric thrill from head to toes of every youngster. Mother's reply sent an answering current, and the enthusiasm of the moment burst all bounds. 'Well, you better go this afternoon. I can spare the team and wagon, and I guess John is big enough to drive. There's no use goin' at all if you don't go right off.'
"So mother and the children rode out of the yard, she sitting with her young driver on the spring seat, the rest on boards laid across the wagon box behind. What a jouncing they got when the wheels struck a stone in a rut! But who cared for a trifle like that? John's reckless driving but brought nearer the goal of their heart's desire.
"A lurid colour lightened the plum thicket as it came in sight. The yellow leaves were falling and the fruit glowed on the bending twigs. Close up the wagon is drawn; then all hands pile out, and the fun really begins. How large and sweet they are this year! Mother knows how to avoid the puckery, thick skin in eating plums. The youngsters try to chew two or three at once and their faces are drawn into knots. But they soon get used to that.
"Now the small folks with pails are sent to pick up ripe plums under the trees, and warned against eating too many. 'Remember last year,' says mother, and they do remember. The larger boys spread strips of burlap and rag carpet under the fullest trees, in turn, and give their branches a good beating that showers the plums down. With difficulty the boys and girls make their way into the thicket; but torn jackets and aprons and scratched hands can be mended—such accidents are overlooked in the excitement of filling the grain sacks with ripe fruit. How fine 'plum butter' will taste on the bread and butter of the noon lunch when winter comes and school begins. (The Pennsylvanian's love for 'spreads' on his bread leavened the West completely.)
"Other neighbours have come, and started in with a vim. It seems unreasonable to take any more. The bags are full, and there are some poured loose into the wagon box. Besides, everybody is tired, and John shouts that the hazel-nuts are ripe on the other side of the log road.
"A great grape vine, loaded with purple clusters, claims mother's attention. There will probably be no better chance for grapes this fall, and the sun is still an hour high. John chops down the little tree that supports it and the girls eagerly help to fill the pails with the fruit of the prostrate vine, while John goes back to command the hazel-nut brigade and sees that no eager youngster strays too far.
"Mother's voice gives the final summons, and the children gather at the wagon, tired but regretful for the filled husks that they must leave behind on the hazel bushes. A loaded branch of the grape vine is cut off bodily, and lifted into the wagon. The team is hitched on, and the happy passengers in the wagon turn their faces homeward."
Such was the poetry of pioneer life. Pleasures were simple, primitive, hearty—like the work—closely interlinked with the fight against starvation. There was nothing dull or uninteresting about either. The plums and grapes were sweetened with molasses made from sorghum cane. Each farmer grew a little strip, and one of them had a mill to which every one hauled his cane to be ground "on the shares."
Who will say that this "long sweetenin'" was poor stuff, that the quality of the spiced grapes suffered for lack of sugar, or that any modern preserves have a more excellent flavour than those of the old days made out of the wild plums gathered in the woods? And this is also true: There is no more exhilarating holiday conceivable than those half days when mother took the children and "went a-plummin'."
NUTS
The wild nuts gathered in this country for sale or home use in the North are chestnuts, hickory nuts, black walnuts, butternut, hazel-nut, beechnut; in the South, the pecan and the chinquapin; in the far West, the pine nut. The least known of these in eastern markets are the pine nuts, which form a very staple article of food for many tribes of Indians in the Great Basin. John Muir says that there are tens of thousands of acres covered with nut pines. An industrious Indian family can gather fifty or sixty bushels in a month if the snow does not catch them. The little cones are beaten off with poles as the trees are not high, and are heated till they open and the nuts fall out from under the scales. I have eaten pine nuts in Turkish restaurants. They came as a surprise in a dish of eggplant stuffed with chopped meat, raisins, nuts, bread crumbs, and I know not what all else.
The native chestnut, though smaller, is far sweeter than the popular Spanish one. But it looks as if some foreigner must take the place of our native chestnuts in the woods as well as in the market. The chestnut disease which has driven the trees out of the parks and wood lots near New York City is baffling the scientists. Every year the deadline moves westward and southward and northward from its center. Perhaps a cure will be found before all the chestnuts are gone. If any region has a few trees which seem to withstand the disease while all the rest die, those trees should be preserved and used to propagate a race of chestnuts which would be immune. It may be that the Spanish and Japanese chestnuts will prove hardier than our own. These are being grown quite extensively in some Eastern states. They bear when remarkably young. Japanese chestnuts begin to bear, according to the nurserymen, "at three years of age, bear from three to seven nuts in a bur, each nut measuring from four to five inches in circumference." Trees five years old bear two or three quarts each and the yield increases rapidly from year to year. These bring fancy prices in city markets and are eaten either raw or cooked.
In growing chestnuts it is the practice first to cut down the old native trees. As in all likelihood these would be dead in a few years anyhow, this is economical. Dead lumber is not as valuable as live lumber. The first year after a chestnut is cut, a crop of young suckers come up around the stump. These shoots are grafted with scions of a desired variety. There is a good story of a lad of twelve years of age who asked his father to graft a chestnut tree. Although the man was grafting apple trees at the time he laughed at the boy's idea. The lad did not forget and years after he put his idea into practice and now owns a chestnut grove which brings him an income of thousands of dollars. His chestnut groves are on waste land unfit for ordinary farm purposes. If one farm boy in every county would take an interest in growing the nuts that belong to his region, think how the value of the nut crop would increase. Every boy knows that the hickory nuts on one particular shell-bark are bigger and sweeter than on every other one he knows of. He and his friends try to get there first, before the "other gang" do, and make sure of their share. But does he ever plant any big sweet nuts along a fence row and take care of the young trees till they are big enough to take care of themselves? In the seventeenth century there was a law in certain European countries that every young man should plant a certain number of walnut trees. Unless he could prove that he had complied with the law, he couldn't marry. What a good idea! With such a law we might have more fine trees and fewer hasty marriages.
CHINQUAPINS
A coloured girl brought me a pint of chinquapins from her home in Ca'line County, Virginia; I sampled them eagerly, taking great pleasure in their diminutive prettiness, tidy shape, and rich, dark colouring. I kept a handful securely tied in the little salt bag in which they had made the journey and took them to my native state to show to the children, who had never seen a chestnut tree of any kind.
When I took the bag from the trunk, there was a dustiness about the feel of it that aroused my suspicions. I emptied the contents into a flat dish. There were my nuts, their glossy brown shells as smooth as ever, but empty. Rolling about amongst them were a lot of the plumpest little white grubs, fairly bent double with corpulency. There must have been one for each nut, for not a sound kernel was left.
I learn from chestnut-wise people that these weevils are another great enemy of chestnut culture, no remedy having been found.
The chinquapin is the Southern child's chestnut. It is sometimes a tree, but more often a low shrub. The bur is round and has only one nut in it. A good many are marketed, especially in Southern cities, and bring a good price when fresh. The weevils enter the nuts before they are mature and it is difficult to find the bad nuts till too late to prevent a disagreeable impression. This interferes with the popularity of the chinquapin as a dessert nut.
HAZEL-NUTS
The American hazel-nut flourishes over the eastern half of the United States. It is a sweet little nut, much more to my taste than the bigger filbert, which is so popular in our markets. We used to gather hazel-nuts in the edge of woods which fringe the little rivers of the Mississippi Valley. The bushes grew in thickets and while the big brothers and sisters gathered the nuts from among the closely interlaced branches that grew scarcely higher than their heads, the smaller fry crept in underneath and getting about on the floor of the woods searched for nuts that had ripened early and dropped from the browning husk.
There is no progress in simply going out in the fall and taking what nature furnishes. Unaided, the good mother goes on producing the same small nuts, caring just as patiently for the inferior ones and even encouraging the nut weevils to prey upon them. But I wonder if some boy or girl who thinks there isn't any interesting work to be done on the farm, could not make some experiments in hazel-nut culture.
The bushes grow readily from seed, but seedlings do not always produce as fine nuts as those that were planted. For this reason one can save time by selecting the bushes that bear the largest crop of fine nuts and propagating those. They grow in any well drained, fairly rich soil and I know of hundreds of miles of fence rows answering these requirements, which now produce poison ivy, cat brier and other harmful crops. Hazel bushes make a beautiful fence row, and yield a salable crop. Hazel bushes propagate naturally by suckers and layers. By manuring well in summer long shoots for layering will be forced. "These should be staked down in winter or spring and covered with earth. They may be removed to nursery rows or orchard at the end of the first season." So says W. A. Taylor in the "Cyclopædia of American Horticulture." The same writer gives directions for pruning as follows: Strong shoots should be headed back to promote spur formation (the nuts are borne on short side shoots) and old wood that has borne fruit should be removed annually. Suckers should be kept down unless wanted for propagation. March or April is the best time to prune as they blossom very early and one must avoid cutting off either the young nuts or the pollen-bearing flowers. The nuts should be gathered when the husk begins to brown at the edges. If left longer, as is most often done, in the case of wild nuts, a large proportion of the crop falls to the ground and is lost. Beside, the dried hulled nuts do not bring as high a price as the fresh unhusked ones. If kept long in the husk they will mould, unless dried thoroughly. The nuts, however, will keep through the season in a cool place.
WALNUTS
The fruit of the black walnut is enclosed in a globe-shaped husk. All country boys and girls know how that husk smells and how it stains the fingers. The nuts are very oily and must be treated carefully. They should be dried, preferably on the garret floor, hulled and stored in a cool, dry place. If for market, they should be sold immediately. They are very likely to grow rancid if kept. Billy, in the "Limberlost" story, had a piece of heavy plank with a hole in it, just big enough to let the husked nut through. He put an unhulled nut over the hole, then with a wooden mallet, he drove it through the hole. It came through clean.
The butternut or oilnut is from a tree closely related to the black walnut. It is called also white walnut. The husk is not so thick as that of the black walnut and adheres stubbornly to the nut if left to dry. The nuts get rancid if kept warm and should be marketed as soon as dry or kept stored in the cold and eaten before spring.
Pickled walnuts are a highly prized delicacy in households where "culturine" has not taken the place of old-fashioned household arts. The nuts are gathered when green, before the shell has hardened. If a knitting needle can be pushed clear through the nut, it is not too old for pickling. You will be fortunate if you can get a receipt from some housewife who has time for real culture as well as for making pickles.
Receipt for Pickled Walnuts.—(From my great aunt's cook-book.) Ingredients: One hundred walnuts, salt and water, one gallon of vinegar, two ounces of whole black pepper, half an ounce of cloves, one ounce of allspice, one ounce of root ginger sliced, one ounce of mace.
Gather the nuts in July when they are full grown. They should be soft enough to be pierced all through with a needle. Prick them all well through. Let them remain nine days in brine (four pounds of salt to each gallon of water), changing the brine every third day. Drain them, and let them remain in the sun two or three days until they become black. Put them into jars, not quite filling them. Boil the vinegar and spices together ten minutes, and pour the liquid over the walnuts. They will be fit for use in a month, and will keep for years.
BEECHNUTS
The boys of your neighbourhood may not know that the smooth, gray-barked trees with very long, slender, pointed buds are beeches. They may never have noticed the wonderful gray-green colour nor delicate texture of the newly opened leaves, nor the soft, silky flower head that bears the pollen. Too many boys think these preliminaries are of no importance. The chances are strong that when October ripens the nuts, nobody has any difficulty in locating beech trees, if there are any in the vicinity. Usually, in the wild woods, they grow in large groups of various sizes; the big trees sheltering the little ones until they are strong enough to live in the full sunlight. Do boys and girls find the beeches by instinct just as the mice, the blue jays, the squirrels, and the foraging hogs do?
Do you know why it takes so much longer to gather a pint of beechnuts than the same amount of hazel-nuts? They are pretty small; yes, but there's another reason. If you were to count your beechnuts, you would find it takes many more of them by count to make a pint than of the round nuts, because of their triangular shape. They fit so snugly that your pint measure of beechnuts is almost solid nuts. They are about the sweetest of the wild nuts. They are very rich in fat too, and in olden times an oil for table use was made from beechnuts. Olive oil takes its place now and costs less. There is a market for all the beechnuts you can gather. Dealers in tree seeds often have difficulty in filling orders. As the nuts do not germinate till April they may be gathered at any time during the winter, unless the wild folks have gathered them all. The chances are that to get any you would have to go early and search sharply. Once or so in a lifetime the burrow of a white-footed mouse is discovered near beech woods. Are you hard hearted enough not only to break and enter, but also to burgle his hoard? Rather admire the little creature's industry and resolve to go and do likewise.
HICKORY NUTS
America is the only country that has native hickory nuts. Of these the best nut producers are the shagbarks and the pecans. These two nuts are increasingly popular. People are planting these nuts and experimenting with new varieties, with grafting and cultivation, as never before. Pecan orchards are being planted in many regions and hickory nuts are being studied with a view to improving the kernel and reducing the hardness of the shell. The value of hickory wood in the making of tools and for fuel has made the lumber more profitable than the nuts. But with improved varieties this may not be true. The poor quality of the wood of the pecan has saved these native trees from destruction.
Hickory nuts have a husk as every country child knows; but the husk has a good-natured habit of splitting neatly into four equal parts which fall away from the nut when dry. There are several kinds of hickory which produce sweet, edible nuts, but the nuts of the true shagbark are the best. They grow on low hills near streams or swamps in good soil in the Eastern and Middle states as far south as Florida, and as far west as Kansas. The king nuts of the Mississippi are bigger, but not so good, although the price you get for them is good and the baskets fill faster than with the little shagbarks.
PECANS
This nut tree grows in the South, and as the wood is too brittle to be very valuable nobody has cut it for lumber. Tremendous interest has been aroused during the past ten years in pecan growing. Pecan orchards are being planted in all sorts of soil, good, bad, and indifferent. The wisest planters have gone to nature to learn what kind of conditions the pecan requires. By cultivation and fertilizing and otherwise improving good natural conditions, many growers are succeeding. By planting nuts from trees that produce fine ones abundantlyevery year, and by budding these trees with scions from still finer specimen trees great improvement has been made. I have a picture of a pecan tree in Georgia, sixteen years old, which is nearly fifty feet high. It has borne already three hundred and fifty pounds of nuts and this year's crop will be over a hundred pounds. This tree has never had to fight weeds, has always had plenty to eat and drink, was protected in winter while young, and now it is ready to foot all its own bills and give a fine profit. How many of us are ready to do that at sixteen years? The cultivation of pecans is only just begun. Very little of the annual crop of these nuts is harvested in orchards. In "The Tree Book" the author says that ninety-five per cent. of the crop is still gathered in the woods. The annual crop is tremendous, and the pickers get only three to ten cents a pound for the ungraded nuts. For the very best nuts, mainly sold for seed, the retail price is from fifty cents to a dollar a pound, which is from one to two cents per nut.
Who picks all these nuts in the woods? Surely, the boys and girls of the pecan belt do their share. Do they do it in a primitive way or are their methods worthy of the up-to-date American youngster? Professor Hume of the Florida Agriculture Experiment Station (Bulletin No. 85, 1906) gives suggestions for gathering the pecan crop in the orchard which ought to be useful to the "wild picker." The nuts ought to be gathered as soon as the most of the burs have opened. In orchards, the pickers use ladders for young trees and climb the big ones and gather the nuts by hand into sacks. Beating and shaking the trees is only resorted to for the nuts that are entirely out of reach. If allowed to fall on the ground so many of the nuts are lost that the profits are materially lessened. If practicable a large sheet should be placed under the tree to save this loss.
The nuts should be spread under some sort of roof to cure, which requires ten days or two weeks.
Have you ever tried the experiment of sorting and grading the nuts you gather? The fruits of wild trees vary greatly in their size and general appearance. The wholesale dealer who buys nuts undoubtedly grades them and gets a fancy price for the big ones. Why should you not benefit by this?
Pecans are graded by sifting them through screens, the mesh of which lets only those of small size through. You might build up a private trade in wild nuts by packing your best nuts in attractive pasteboard boxes and charging a good retail rate for them. The inferior nuts you could well afford to sell at the lowest wholesale price as your average would be higher than the wholesaler would pay for unsorted nuts.
Your fancy nuts would have to be polished in order to compete with the nuts sold in city markets. The polishing does not make the meat any sweeter, but it does make a more attractive dessert nut, especially now that folks are used to seeing them polished. This is done by putting some dry sand into a barrel with the nuts and rolling the barrel about till the nuts are polished. If you have a worn out barrel or box churn, as we once had, that would be just the thing. Fancy packages of five to ten pounds would be very much in demand at Christmas. The big cities are well supplied with this sort of thing, but in the smaller cities and larger towns there are always some people who know a good thing when they see it and to whom the local markets often fail to supply these little luxuries.
NUT GROWING
In Bulletin No. 125 of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station published in 1908 you may read: "The young and middle-aged should not only plant nut trees themselves, but should encourage the children to do likewise. Every farm boy ought to have a small nut nursery and be taught to plant and care for nut trees. Nothing more creditable could be done in the schools than to interest the boys and girls in the possibilities of nut production and to celebrate Arbor Day with the planting of nut trees."
Doesn't that read like sound advice? Think of the land on your father's farm to-day that is not working. Or if there isn't any idle land can you not persuade him to lend you an acre or so for experimental purposes? The chances are that he will encourage and help you because he wants you to be interested in the farm. But you may say to yourself: "Not much! I don't mean to stay on the farm. I'm going to work hard and get an education. I want to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a banker." Nevertheless, you take the Maryland man's advice and set out some nut trees. Let us say you start your nut orchard at age fourteen when you have three years yet in the high school. Your trees will be set so far apart that some other crops will be grown between them; corn, potatoes, melons, or anything that requires good cultivation and fertilization. When you finish the high school your nut trees will not look very big, but promising. You go on to college and in four years you will see a big change. No crop is in sight yet but you are only twenty-one and ready to go to work. You may forget all about those nut trees for a few years but they are not forgetting their business. They will bear a few nuts some year, as if to try their hand at a new enterprise. Some day when you are needing a sum of money to start in business for yourself, and you are wondering who will lend you that much, you will get word from the folks at home that they have harvested your first crop of pecans or English walnuts or Spanish chestnuts and have deposited a thousand dollars in the bank in your name as the net profits. Will you try it?
Before planting nut trees it is important to learn all you can by reading and by correspondence with your Experiment Station experts about the kinds that will do best in your region and on your soil. If more boys used a little forethought we should have fewer young college men struggling along on small salaries in work they dislike, just for lack of a tidy sum of ready money to set them on their feet at the critical time.
There are good reasons for this greater interest in nut growing in the United States. The use of nuts is more common than formerly but they are still a luxury. Wild nuts are scarcer, owing to the destruction of the trees for lumber. The food value of nuts is better understood than formerly, and many articles of food are manufactured now from nuts. Nuts as meat substitutes have come into prominence within a few years. This creates a demand which will increase. There is no danger of over-production. Now is the time to get into the nut business.
TREE SEEDS
In his book on "Forestry" Professor Gifford says: "Collection of tree seeds should yield good returns if properly conducted." That is good news, for if ever a crop was allowed to go to waste it is this crop of tree seeds. Any one who has seen a forest of young maples cut down by lawn mowers in the helplessness of their seed-leaf stage realizes that with any sort of forethought those seeds might have been made a source of income.
Professor Gifford says a little farther on that many of the seeds of our native trees can be more easily obtained in Europe than in America. We may learn many lessons in economy from our neighbours over there.
But who is going to harvest the tree seeds? A mechanic who earns a good wage cannot afford to gather tree seeds; neither can a bank clerk unless he does the work in his vacation. But our boys and girls are often at a loss to find ways of earning money. Here is a crop they can gather without danger of trespassing. There is a market for this harvest. Some tree seeds are difficult to get and expensive; red pine for instance. Spruce trees produce seed only once in seven years. This keeps the supply short. In a spruce seed year every seed should be gathered. Pecks of hard maple seeds are swept up by street cleaners every year on our home street. They are worth a lot of money, yet the boys on the street never have all the cash they want to buy baseball gloves and circus tickets and bicycles. No enterprising reader of this book need ever lack for pocket money.
Remember, Professor Gifford said, "Collection of tree seeds should yield good returns if properly conducted." Every business to be successful must be conducted properly. There are some simple principles. You need not be an expert forester but the more you know about trees the better. If a dealer buys six quarts of red maple seeds of you he will be disappointed if you send him silver maple, discouraged if you send him sugar maple, and disgruntled if you send him ash. Furthermore, he will not send you the money nor any orders for more. If there is a maple tree with a peck of seed on it in your yard, in five minutes or less time you can find out what kind it is with "The Tree Book." Before the seeds are ripe write to a several seed men and tell them what you have; ask if they want any, at what price, and on what date. Some trees ripen their seeds in the spring, shake them off, and let the wind scatter them. In the case of some kinds, the seeds sprout within a few days after they reach the ground. These should be gathered as soon as ripe, spread out to dry for a few days, and planted within a few weeks at latest. Seeds of other kinds do not grow till the following spring. None of these should be allowed to dry too thoroughly. Nuts and acorns for seed should not be allowed to get dry over winter. These should be packed in moist sand and kept cool but not frozen. Cherry, plum and peach pits are better for being frozen.
The supply of white pine seed is never equal to the demand. The market price is said to vary from two dollars fifty cents to four dollars fifty cents per pound. You get a little over a pound of seeds from a bushel of unopened cones. White pine trees require two years to mature their cones and they set seed only once in every four or five years. But every year there will be some trees bearing seed. Nineteen hundred and four was a big "on" year in the New York white pine forests. You can tell when the tiny cones first appear that a crop is coming. The cones should be watched as August wanes and gathered before they open. September is the month as a general thing. Boys can earn thirty cents or so a bushel gathering the full cones. But I should not be satisfied to let the other fellow get all the profits just because he knows how to cure and market the seed. That is easy. Spread the cones out in the barn to dry. Slat trays are best to get free circulation of air. You can make these at odd times before the crop is ready. A fanning mill comes in handy to thrash and free them from rubbish and imperfect seed. Market them immediately to avoid loss. If you are to keep the seed for home consumption, mix with dry sand and store in a cool but not too dry place. If allowed to dry or freeze and thaw they lose their vitality. Tree seeds need pretty careful handling.
Any one interested in gathering tree seeds should get information from books and bulletins on forestry. He should write to firms who make a specialty of selling tree seeds and they will help him by giving directions about the treatment of seeds.
Did you ever wonder where the nursery men get the thousands of apple trees they sell every year? Go a step back of the budding or grafting that is done in the nursery. Where did the little tree come from whose top was cut off after the first bud was set? It came from a seed; just any apple seed. And where do apple seeds come from? From apples? Yes, just any apples. Did you ever make cider on your farm? You put in whole apples, skin, core, stem, seeds, and all; shovelled them into the hopper. The pulp was squeezed dry and thrown away, wasn't it, at your cider mill? That is proof of the wastefulness of some good farmers. If the pulp were washed in tubs, the seeds would find the bottom (or the top) and they would bring a good price per pound.
COLLECTING CHRISTMAS GREENS
Once upon a time everybody who wanted Christmas greens had the fun of gathering his own. That was in the generation when all the grandmothers lived in the country and only the plain fathers and mothers and children lived in the cities. But now we children have grown up and our children want to go to grandmother's house for Christmas just as we did. Can't you imagine how surprised and disappointed they are to find their grandmothers living in city houses, even in flats? Didn't we tell them about going out to gather holly and mistletoe and ground pine and hemlock and even how we used to cut the Christmas tree
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Publisher: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Publication Date: 03-17-2014
ISBN: 978-3-7309-9294-4
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