Agrarian Nation

FEBRUARY-1825, 1834, 1839, 1840, 1845 & 1849-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2012-03-05T05:36:00.001-05:00

#92

-1825-

If you detest slavery, preserve your sugar maples, keep them in good order, and attend seasonably with the fittest apparatus, to the making of your year’s sugar. Your cattle and cows require the curry-comb, as well as your horses, and will equally benefit by its use.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]
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-1834-

As the winter is gone and the spring has commenced, it is time for the farmer to look about him and see that all things are in readiness for spring’s work. In this month the following business should be attended to, viz., getting out flax, cutting and splitting firewood, preparing fencing stuff; and, as soon as the weather is warm enough, making maple sugar. This last business is as pleasant as it is profitable, and should not be neglected by any who have the conveniences and can spare the time.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
.
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-1839-

Farmers must think; they are not born to move without mental activity; and their chances are great for profitable reflection. The vast scenes of nature are all around us; and here is man, the tiller, the cultivator of this great globe, placed in the midst of all this vast creation, to improve it, to adorn it, to live by it, and to enjoy it. “Here,” says a sensible writer, “pleasure looks, methinks, like a beautiful, constant, and modest wife; here we walk in the light and open ways of divine bounty; here our senses are feasted with the clear and genuine taste of their objects; and here is plenty, harmless and cheap.” All very true.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
.

-1840-

There is a little word in a farmer’s vocabulary which has much meaning. It would be well to keep its page open; ay, write it down in large capitals, and nail it upon the lintels of your doors, so that, as often as you enter the house or barn, you may have it in full view. It will seem to say—”come, shake hands with Economy, the ever safe and sure friend of the farmer. I will teach you the art of rightly spending and tending and lending and mending. The very capsheaf of management for your business.”
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
.

-1845-

This is about the period, if not precisely the time, to cut scions for grafting. They should be taken off just as the buds begin to swell, and placed with their lower ends in the ground, in some dry part of the cellar till wanted. They should be cut from the extremities of the branches of the most thrifty and the best bearing trees, of the last year’s growth.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]
.

-1849-

Spring! Sweet, lovely spring, is ushering in upon us its smiling and toiling days; and will slowly shake off the frosty garb of winter, and put on its own vernal mantle, cheering our eyes and our minds with the sweet green of earth’s quickening vegetation. The farmer, and indeed all, should learn from this lesson of nature, to throw off the cloak of indolence that a long winter may have wrapped around us.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

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That comment about "If you detest slavery" in the 1825 almanac excerpt was referring to the fact that cane sugar was raised on slave-labor plantations in the West Indies, and as a protest against slavery, there was a movement in the New England states to boycott cane sugar.

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The 1840 excerpt is one of my favorites. "Come, shake hands with Economy, the ever safe and sure friend of the farmer."

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—1825—Sugar Maple Trees

2012-02-27T05:39:00.001-05:00

#91

Collecting Maple Sap in 1906 (photo link for historical information)

If the farmer wish to save his sugar-maple trees he ought not to tap them in the common way; but, instead of this, bore a hole two or three inches into the tree, out of which the sap can be drawn; and plug it up after the sap has done running. Cleanliness should be observed in the vessels in which the sap is gathered. Old troughs which have lain for years exposed to the weather, are improper receptacles for the sap if regard be had to the cleanliness of the sugar, and of course to its value. Some make use of vessels in the form of pails, which they keep for the purpose, and this is certainly at least more cleanly. The vessels can be laid up every year. after the time of using them is past, and be preserved many years. In clearing pasture lands which abound with sugar-maple, it would be well to preserve these trees, as they do no injury to the pasture; but the difficulty is, that as soon as they become more exposed to the winds they are blown down. But let all the small maples in such grounds be left, and in a few years these will grow up to sufficient strength of root to withstand the winds, and become an article of profit, as well as ornamental to the farm. They may also be very easily be dug up while young,and transplanted into such pastures. This is a piece of economy which the farmer would do well to observe, if he wish his farm to yield due supplies of sugar, when the article shall have become scarcer.

This picture would probably be from the early 1900s. Long after today's excerpt (it's real hard to find photographs from 1825)

Twenty trees to an acre would do little or no injury to the pasture; and ten acres of such a maple orchard would, in a few years, yield no inconsiderable quantity of sugar. By boring the trees as before directed, no essential injury is done to them; so that they might be increasing in growth for fifty years, or perhaps twice that length of time.

Collecting Maple Sap in 1893: (photo link, with historical information) Note the shoulder yoke being used to carry buckets of sap. Such yokes were an important tool on farmsteads of the 1800s, before electricity and engines arrived on the scene.

The sugar may be grained, by pouring it out, when boiled down to a proper consistency, into flat pans made for the purpose, and gently stirring it while it is cooling; or it may be done in the vessel in which the sap is boiled, if it be not too large for the purpose. To render it drier and whiter, it may be put into a screw-press, and there severely pressed; by this operation the molasses is forced out, leaving the remainder almost as white as lump sugar. The molasses may again be boiled down, and converted into sugar as before, or it may be kept for use as it is.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

Stirring Maple Sugar in a Wooden Trough: Wagner's Maple Sugar Camp, located in southern Somerset County, Pennsylvania, was purchased in 1882 by William Wagner, great grandfather of the present owner. Appreciating the stand of many maple sugars on his land, William started the sugar camp. Many of those original sugar maples remain and some are over 200 years old. Being a cooper (craftsman) by trade, William made wooden spiles, keelers (wooden buckets), hauling casks, storage tanks, sugar troughs, sugar molds, sugar storage chests, shipping crates and barrels, mauls, paddles, and many other items used in the production of maple syrup. His handmade kettle crane (in the picture above) for lifting the iron kettles of syrup off the fire still remains in the original camp.

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365 days a year, I start my mornings with maple syrup. It is my custom to have a single cup of coffee each morning, and I sweeten it with maple syrup. I also have maple syrup on my almost-daily bowl of oatmeal. Have you ever had homemade whipped cream made with maple syrup (instead of sugar) on fresh-picked strawberries? It's divine. Sometimes I just sip maple syrup from the canning jars we store it in. Oh yeah, I love homemade maple syrup!

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This is the time of the year that my family is either making maple syrup or getting ready to do so. But we made so much last year, and I am so busy this year with other projects, that we have decided to wait until next year to replenish our supply. If you would like to see and learn about our low-tech backyard maple syrup operation, Start With This Essay.

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What I find so endearing about today's 1825 essay it the idea of planting maple trees in a pasture with the intention of one day, in the future, tapping them to make maple sugar and syrup. As today's excerpt indicates, the old-timers were multi-generational thinkers. It would be decades before a maple tree planted this year would be ready for tapping.

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Finally.... I found an actual photograph from 1825!

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FEBRUARY-1854, 1855, 1856, 1857 & 1868-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2012-02-20T08:37:00.000-05:00

#90

(photo link)

-1854-

Come, boys, with the axes! Yoke up Cherry and Golding; hitch up Dobbin, and away to the woods with your team! Make an effort to have a woodpile sufficient for the year, and thus prevent burning up the fence in summer, to cook your porridge. Many a wrinkle will it save, too, friend Darby, in the brow of your good wife Joan. The farmer that leads a good life (and why should any lead a bad one?) is he that takes pleasure in pleasing and obliging his wife. And now, my good madam, if you love music, as I presume you do, why not string up the old spinning-wheel, and set it agoing, to the well-known ditty that our foremothers used to practice so often, namely, Stocking Yarn? Nothing like music to take out the wrinkles.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1855-

What farmer ever grew fat by going to law? Our spunk, as it is called, sometimes costs us too much. We had better trim up scrub-oaks than enter into litigation. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” O, what a noble principle!
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1856-

Ay, no scowling, Caleb. This looking awry, and turning up your nose at being called upon to bring in a basket of chips, or to feed the pigs, or, perhaps to carry a little milk to the Widow Wadman’s, is by no means to your credit, as an obliging lad. It is a cold, bitter day, indeed; but what of that? Spring round and show that you have a warm heart. To shrink and curl at the breeze, like a sensitive-plant at a touch, will never do for a farmer boy.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1857-

Avoid carelessness in all affairs. Remember the rhyme of the olden time:—’Half of the corn and half of the hay, must still be in store, on Candlemas day;’ shun every approach to extravagance and wastefulness.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

-1857-

Take care that you do not visit the grog-shop as an idler. If you have business there, do it and away. You may contract a habit of lounging, and next a habit of sipping, and then, my friend, you are gone! “Our good or bad fortune depends greatly on the choice we make of our friends.” I never knew Sir Richard Rum’s friendship worth preserving. He is warm and very cordial at first, but he is sure to lead you into difficulty in the end.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1868-

A clear, cold, bracing air sharpens the appetite. Nothing like it. Cattle can therefore get along and do well on a little poorer quality of feed now than they can later in the season. I mean store cattle, dry cows, and young stock. There is no economy in scrimping cows that are in milk, now or at any other time. If you have swale hay that must be consumed, now is the time to feed it out. Didn’t you ever notice that a bit of good cheese makes a slice of poor bread go a little better over the palate? Just so, a few roots make poor hay a little more endurable, and the stock will relish a basket of roots now and then. It will be an agreeable change from the monotony of swale hay and cornstalks, and I tell you it pays. Daniel Webster used to say that an animal would fatten on salt hay and turnips; and if it won’t fatten on swale hay and turnips, it will keep in good condition on them, and it is all you can expect of store cattle this month. You may keep store hogs in good condition on raw mangolds alone, from November to March, with nothing else.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

—1872—Cabbage As A Field Crop

2012-02-13T05:45:00.000-05:00

#89

Most farmers have been accustomed to cultivate cabbages in a small way in the garden and for family use. The methods of raising them are, therefore, well known. Now the great want of New England, and of any country where the winter is long, and the necessity for stall feeding so imperative, is an abundance of food for stock. With more food we can keep more stock, with more stock we obtain more manure, with more manure we can increase the fertility of our land.

The farmer’s chief study ought to be to see by what means he can increase his supply of animal food in the cheapest and most economical manner. His success as a farmer turns very much upon this. His grass lands should be kept in the best condition; but that is not enough. He should raise a liberal supply of root crops; and even with them most farmers who are aiming at the higher point of excellence, will still want something more.

There are certain crops that are very convenient to use in the late fall, and serve not only to prevent a too early encroachment upon the haymow, but to break the too sudden change from green and succulent grass to dry hay. Such are pumpkins in October and November, as they come from the field; round turnips in December, when they may be fed freely and to great advantage. After these follow ruta bagas through January and February, and then mangolds still later. Cabbages are conveniently fed out late in the season, about the time that pumpkins come into use, and they not only increase the milk of cows, but are nutritive and greatly relished by all kinds of stock. Cabbages contain a large percentage of flesh-forming substances as compared with most other articles of food.

For a field crop the late varieties are preferable. The seed is sown about the first of May, in beds, and by the tenth or middle of June the plants will be sufficiently large and strong to be transplanted. A piece of sod land well ploughed will answer very well, and a light clover sod is the best. The liberal supply of manure may be partly spread and ploughed under, and partly spread on the furrow and harrowed in. It is best to select wet weather, if possible, for transplanting. A smart man can easily set out five thousand plants a day. The market gardeners can set six thousand five hundred. The plants may wilt a little during the first week if the weather is dry and warm, but as soon as they get hold of the soil and hold their heads up, run a cultivator through them, to keep down the weeds and stir the soil. If the plants are set two feet by two and a half, this operation is easily performed. At those distances the number of plants will be eight thousand nine hundred to the acre. Of these it will be fair to expect six thousand heads. Some will fail to head, and others may be destroyed by disease or insects after it is too late to replace them. They will be worth, to feed out to dairy cows, say from thirty to forty dollars a thousand. The amount of feeding material on an acre of well-grown cabbages is something enormous.

The culture of this plant, for the purposes proposed, is worthy of a careful trial by every farmer. Try it under favorable circumstances, and estimate the cost of the crop as compared with the other farm crops, and then report your experience for the benefit of other farmers. Farmers ought to remember that noble old precept, “Do good and communicate.” It is a grand rule to follow.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

Agrarian Nation Changes...

2012-02-10T06:12:00.002-05:00

Dateline: 10 February 2012

There will be no regularly-scheduled excerpt from the old agrarian writings today. I have decided to make a change from posting here twice a week (Friday and Monday) to once a week, on Monday mornings. I am making this change to free up more time for myself, and it is a permanent change.

Those of you who read my blog, The Deliberate Agrarian, know that I am working on a new book. I have put a few hundred hours into the book already. I still have a long way to go, and spring is coming. I really want to get it done, or as done as I possibly can, before the good weather of spring arrives. Also, this is a slow time of the year for my Planet Whizbang mail-order business, and it will get much busier come May and June.

The book's working title is, The Planet Whizbang Idea Book For Gardeners. I can tell you there isn't another book like it on the market, at least that I know of. What makes the book unique is the blend of old and new ideas for gardeners. Much of the old will be in the form or excerpts related to gardening from the old farm almanacs. Such excerpts will not be a major focus of the book but they will be interspersed throughout.

The most time consuming part of the book for me is the many illustrations and the page layout, which I started working on last weekend. After four long days of focused work, I have ten book pages completely done. I expect the book to be over 200 pages, so I have a long way to go. And I have a regular job that I work at three days a week.

Please check back here Monday for the next Agrarian Nation excerpt, and every Monday thereafter.

Best wishes,
.

Herrick Kimball
Editor, Agrarian Nation

FEBRUARY-1849, 1850 & 1852-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2012-02-06T06:08:00.000-05:00

#88

-1849-

I tell you what, my fair ones, a good farmer’s wife is beyond price. She will draw an even yoke with her husband.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1850-

The Spinning Wheel: I suppose this good old-fashioned machine must be given up, since every working girl has posted off to Lowell. So Aunt Celia says. Every working girl, did I say? Is there none then to join the mother in her domestic duties? Poh! girls, think again on this matter, and think better. No one will despise you for knowing and practicing the business of housewifery. What better accomplishments would you, or could you, have, than to be able to manage well the affairs of a family? Yet some are so illy informed in these duties, that they can hardly cook a potato. Give me a girl that knows how to do up the dough and the dough-nuts, the pudding and the pot-luck. Our grandmothers were up to all these things. They never scowled at having something to do, but, keeping good temper on their side, carried on, with steady hand, the whole process of boiling and baking, turning the spinning wheel and rocking the cradle, in one forenoon. I suppose now your father and the boys are hard at it in the thirty-acre lot, wood-cutting. Well, girls, suppose, on their return, you try your best, and cook them something warm and good.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

Girl in a Lowell Mill

-1852-

HONESTY, DILIGENCE, USEFULNESS. Write these down in capitals, and let them stand, as a title-page of your whole life. A fig for all your endeavors, if these form no part of your character.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1854-

Come, boys, with the axes! Yoke up Cherry and Golding; hitch up Dobbin, and away to the woods with your team! Make an effort to have a woodpile sufficient for the year, and thus prevent burning up the fence in summer, to cook your porridge. Many a wrinkle will it save, too, friend Darby, in the brow of your good wife Joan. The farmer that leads a good life (and why should any lead a bad one?) is he that takes pleasure in pleasing and obliging his wife. And now, my good madam, if you love music, as I presume you do, why not string up the old spinning-wheel, and set it agoing, to the well-known ditty that our foremothers used to practice so often, namely, Stocking Yarn? Nothing like music to take out the wrinkles.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

Farm girls as young as 12 went to work in the Lowell Mills

FEBRUARY-1832, 1835 & 1839-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2012-02-03T05:58:00.001-05:00

#87

-1832-

Have a care now, Mr. Checker-player, that you do not pass away too much time to no purpose. Has a farmer nothing to do in winter? I am afraid that your cattle suffer not a little, while you are pushing on so fast for the king row. Stop! No betting! Another game, sir, and you are gone! This is called an innocent diversion, but I call it not so, when it calls you from the necessary attention to your affairs at home. Have you no hemp nor flax to dress? Have you a sufficient quantity of wood at the door? How much fencing stuff have you on hand? Are there not very many matters that require to be seen to in preparation for spring? Come away, come away, I say, from this tempting catchall. Go with me to your habitation, and we will have a tete-a-tete upon the best method for a farmer to pass his winter hours.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1835-

It is about time to look ahead, and see how you are coming out about the hay. There is Capt. Slouchy, he lets his hogs waste nearly half he cuts. Go to the barn when you will, and you will find that the cattle sleep upon the fodder. The Captain is a very social man, and had rather talk politics than attend to his barnhold affairs. I would not give a snap for such farmers. A man must be engaged in his calling, or what is he good for?
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1839-

Who is more happy than honest Tom Clover, so oft the subject of our verse? He lives by what he obtains by industry from the earth, and not by what he can catch by craft from other men. He lives, like his own fat kine, by the allowances of nature, and not, like wolves and foxes, by rapine. Tom Clover is, beyond a question, of all men, the most quiet, and least apt to be engaged in tumult and the disturbance of the commonwealth. His manner of life inclines him to a love of peace; and, though ready to bear a soldier’s armor in defense of his country, war he deprecates as the curse of a nation.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
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—1871—Farmer's Plans

2012-01-30T05:46:00.007-05:00

#86

Haying in the Agrarian Nation

(click the picture to see enlarged view)

A live farmer, always awake to the spirit of improvement, will have his farm, at the end of ten years, in a vastly better condition in respect to attractiveness and real value than it was at the beginning, while another will plod on, work quite as hard, perhaps, and find his farm no better, and probably worse, than it was in the beginning.

The difference will be found in the planning, the brain work, of the two men. One has an idea in his brain that he means to attain, and by degrees it is developed into actual results; the other merely plods on from day to day, always hesitating about undertaking anything out of the ordinary routine of farm labor, working hard enough with his hands, but little with his brain. If there is a waste place in his lot, an ugly eyesore, he is slow to begin its improvement. if there is a rock in the way of the scythe or the plough, it lies there year after year, though an hour’s work might remove it.

The true way to progress on the farm is to do something, be it more or less, every year. It may not amount to a radical change in any one year, but in the aggregate the improvement will be apparent, and the real money value of the farm enhanced.

If the profits of farming are less apparent than those of mercantile pursuits at certain times, it should be borne in mind that neither are the wear and tear of mind and body, nor the labor and risks so great. The chances of a happy and comfortable life are greater upon the farm than in any other calling, and if the spirit of improvement exists in the mind, the sources of real and permanent happiness are inexhaustible.

We hope to see the time when our young men will incline to the culture of the land, rather than to dissipate their intellect and their energies in our villages and cities. To hasten this time, we must increase their intelligence, their sense of the true dignity of agriculture, adopt new methods of farming, apply more science and more knowledge to the details of this calling, make farming attractive, agreeable, and productive, and this is to be accomplished by the system, the forethought, and the plans of the human brain.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
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JANUARY-1873, 1874, 1877 & 1878-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2012-01-27T06:14:00.001-05:00

#85

-1873-

If the farm cannot be turned into an Arcadia of new milk, strawberries and cream, and elegant leisure, as some city people fancy, it can be made a home so agreeable that boys and girls will not be eager to leave it for close, dirty mills and factories, and noisy shops.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

-1873-

Father’s fall from the loft, last month, would have killed most men, but his life, thank God, is still spared to us. Only his lame arm wont let him write. Son John must do that, he says; so “Son John” herewith begins.

The new Year is always a busy time with me; I don’t know how it is with other farmers, but I like to take an inventory of stock, etc., at the beginning of the year. It seems to me just as important in our line of business as in any other. For a farm has its incomes and out-goes; and if we fail to have a definite knowledge of our prospects, financial embarrassments will ensue, just as real, if not as great, as those on Wall Street.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1874-

Sheep like to be free to go in when it storms, or stay out. Give them a chance to stay out if they want to, and they do all the better for it. If clear and cold, they will choose to stay out in the open air. Don’t crowd them. Give them a variety of food, for they like it, plenty of pure water, and time to drink it. Colts must have a warm place, good hay, and some grain. Give hens an airy, dry, and warm place, where they can have the sun, and be free from cold draughts of air.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
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Haycocks in The Apple Orchard

-1877-

A note-book in the pocket is a handy thing. Strict farm accounts, with each lot under its own head, tell a plain and true story. Jot down a new thought on the spot; it saves a heap of time.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
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-1878-

If you can pay off all debts, so as to start with a clean bill, you can let the world wag. Debt is the load that drags so many people down. No man will be apt to fail if he takes care not to run into debt.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1878-

The condition of the farmers during the past year has been much envied by many mechanics and others who depend upon some trade for a living in the cities. They are beginning to see that those who depend upon the bounty of Mother Earth are safer and surer to come out the better in the end. People who have hitherto thought farming an unworthy occupation are finding themselves mistaken and are beginning to wish themselves as well situated as the average farmers. Truly farmers have suffered from reduced prices, but they are not in the danger of despair and starvation which mechanics and laborers find themselves, when thrown out of employment or obliged to live upon reduced wages, when they could not keep out of debt before. Many young men have sought in the South and West employment at their trades, but have found those places already filled.
Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

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Today's images from the Agrarian Nation

were taken by Albert Henry Barnes.

(click on each picture to see an enlarged view)

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—1881—Ensilage

2012-01-23T05:48:00.003-05:00

#84

A Lovely Old Silo

We have all heard, for the last year or two, a great deal about ensilage, or the packing of green fodder crops in silos, for preservation and use for the winter feeding of cattle. The word, therefore, has become familiar; but doubtless there are many who do not fully comprehend its meaning and its significance. A silo is a close pit, usually built in masonry, with brick or concrete walls, and calculated to exclude air. The most convenient form is thought to be rectangular, the width about one-third of the length, and the depth about two-fifths of the length. It is to be filled from the top, and hence will save labor if sunk wholly or mostly beneath the surface. The material to be used in filling is any green forage crop, rye, millet, sorghum, or green fodder-corn, taken in the blossom, and cut by a fodder-cutter into little pieces less than half an inch in length. This fine material is packed down as tightly as possible, the top covered with plank, and heavily weighted, to drive out and keep out the external air. In this way it is preserved in very much its original freshness and condition for months, to be fed out to stock as it is wanted from day to day. The fodder kept in this way is called ensilage.

Ensilage cutter & blower

This method of storing and preserving green feeding substances for stock has been known in France for many years, though nowhere generally adopted. It has been tried, to a limited extent, in this country, and with apparently great satisfaction and economy.

Every farmer knows that the amount of fodder-corn that can be grown on an acre of well-cultivated land is something enormous. Forty or fifty tons, as it comes from the field, is by no means unusual, and a far greater weight than that can easily be grown under favorable conditions, the plants being allowed to grow till they “tassel out,” or blossom, when the ears are just beginning to form. Taking it, therefore, for granted, that the amount of nutritive properties in forage plants is at its height at this stage of growth, the amount of nutritive feed in an acre of corn is something amazing; but the practical difficulty heretofore has been to cure and preserve it without a positive and large loss incident to drying and housing so bulky a product. The silo seems to solve the problem. It avoids the necessity of drying entirely, and keeps the material in very much its original condition. The ensilage, as it comes out of the silo, has undergone but a slight fermentation, but if allowed to lie on the barn-floor, or loose in a bin for a few hours, heating and fermentation set in, and a strong and very marked alcoholic smell is generate. Stock of all kinds are exceedingly fond of it, and will leave the best of hay to seize it with avidity. The process to which it has been subjected has rendered it more digestible, probably; and if so, the animal system will more completely utilize the actual nutrition which the plant contains when it its best condition.

We all know that dry hay, and dry fodder of any kind, will pass the animal only partially digested, very much of it appearing in the form of woody fibre in the excrements. If we feed oats, or any unground grain, to horses, we know very well that considerable portions of such food pass undigested, and very much of the actual nutriment which it contains will be lost. It has done far less good, no doubt, than if it had been finely ground, or more completely masticated. It has served some good purpose in distending the stomach, and so keeping up the healthy condition of the animal economy, and preventing a sensation of hunger, but its real elements of nutrition are by no means all assimilated so as to become incorporated, as it were, in a form to build up the animal system. It is apparent that there is some loss, more or less considerable, in proportion to the completeness of the process of assimilation. The reason why cattle appear to thrive better on an abundant supply of green grass, succulent forage of any kind, is, probably, that it is more easily, and so more completely digested. It is the natural form of food of most of our domesticated animals; and all forms of dried forage for winter feeding are artificial, and designed to form the best substitute we can get for the natural summer food of stock.
.

Corn stalks being fed into the ensilage cutter & blown up into the top of the silo.

Now, if we can preserve the forage in its natural and succulent condition, without loss of its succulency, as the silo appears to do, it certainly seems to be a great gain. More extended, complete, and satisfactory experiments are needed to prove conclusively that this system will effect this result, and it may prove to be good economy to supplement the feeding of ensilage by the addition of oil-meal to make a complete feeding substance; but so far as we can see now, the system bids fair to lead to the most important practical results.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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The 1881 almanac explains what ensilage is to the readers of 1888. Here is part of what Wikipedia says of it 131 years later...

Using the same technique as the process for making sauerkraut, green fodder was preserved for animals in parts of Germany since the start of the 19th century. This gained the attention of a French agriculturist, Auguste Goffart of Sologne, near Orléans, who published a book in 1877 which described the experiences of preserving green crops in silos. Goffart's experience attracted considerable attention. The conditions of dairy farming in the United States suited the ensiling of green maize fodder, and was soon adopted by New England farmers.

Ensilage creates a nutritious food for livestock. It can be substituted for root crops; it is easily digestible; milk produced by animals eating silage maintains its quality and taste; it can be provided irrespective of the weather; it provides grass all year round; and a larger number of livestock can be supported on a given area by the use of ensilage than is possible by the use of green crops.

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I have made sauerkraut, and I have been involved in the making of ensilage, and the same technique is not used for both. But it is similar in that a natural fermentation takes place.

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If you have never read my silo story, Click Here.

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Alas, but I have violated an unwritten rule of the Agrarian Nation blog with today's post. Can anyone tell what it is?

JANUARY-1859, 1861, 1862, 1871 & 1873-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2012-01-20T05:42:00.002-05:00

#83

(photo link)

-1859-

Stick to the farm! Bring head, heart and hand to the work, and you must succeed. Don’t leave the old homestead! In the year 1857, at the time of the great panic, when all business matters were in confusion, how the people in trade sighed for snug farms, free from debt and danger! Farming may be hard work, but farmers have excellent appetites, pleasant slumbers, and arise refreshed.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1861-

Now is the time to plan the operations for the coming year. Pay off old debts. Interest eats into your substance night and day. It grows while you are sleeping. Better drive a little closer to the wind, work a little harder, spend less, and “owe no man anything.”

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
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-1862-

Well, here we are, brother farmers, at the beginning of another New Year! Thank God for the infinite mercies of the past, but remember we are to act in the living present—to prepare for a happy future by filling every day and every hour with active duty. No matter what that duty may be, let the motive be good and noble, and the doing of it in the proper spirit will bring along some degree of satisfaction and happiness. But idleness and mental inactivity breed only discontent and remorse. Be industrious, be frugal, be honest, for these habits imply a whole train of noble virtues, which do much to insure happiness, not to ourselves alone, but to all about us.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1871-

New-Year’s day calls to mind that good old rule, “Pay as you go.” It’s good advice for a farmer to follow. Debt hangs like a cloud over the life of some men. It is not easy to shake it off. It is better to do without a thing till we are able to pay for it than to run in debt to others, as a general rule. So try and pay up those little bills now. If they can’t be paid off, don’t fail to have a reckoning, so as to know just where you stand. You will sleep all the better for it. Nothing like facing an evil. Look the lion straight in the face. Get your bearings, and then go ahead.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
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-1873-

Let us not wait for some nobler and higher work to do, but take hold of the duty that lies nearest. It is the humble work that makes life noble. Even the daily chores about the house, done with the right motive, will fill up and round out our lives.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

Jenne Farm, Reading, Vermont (Photo Link—click to see the same view in summer)

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Please note that I have added a new quote to the right side of this page. It is from Abraham Lincoln, and comes from a speech given to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society in 1859.

—1865—Fatten Hogs Early

2012-01-16T08:50:00.001-05:00

#82

From a correspondent of the Ohio Farmer. He first “hogged down” (in western parlance,) forty acres of corn, between the 10th of September and the 23rd of October. By hogs being weighed when they were turned in and when they were taken out, it was found that they paid forty cents per bushel for the corn, estimating the pork at four cents a pound and corn at forty bushels to the acre.

His next course was to take one hundred hogs, averaging two hundred pounds each, which were placed in nine covered pens, and fed all they could eat of corn and cob ground together, steamed, and given in allowances five times a day. In a week they were again weighed, when reckoning 70 pounds of corn and cob as equal to a bushel of corn, and the pork as before, the hogs paid 80 cents a bushel for the corn. the weather was warm for the season.

The experiment was tried again the first week in November, when the corn brought 62 cents, the weather being colder. the third week in November the corn brought only 40 cents, and the 4th week only 26 cents, the weather continuing to grow colder. Another lot of hogs were fed through December, which only gave 26 cents a bushel for the corn. A part of the time the thermometer was at zero, and then the hogs only gained enough to pay five cents a bushel for the corn, and afterwards, when the mercury went down to ten degrees below zero, the hogs only held their own.

The inference from these trials is, that in general it is not profitable to feed corn to hogs, after the middle of November. The difference gained is certainly surprising, and whether caused altogether by the difference in temperature or not, no person of observation can doubt that hogs gain much more in proportion to the feed consumed in mild than cold weather.

It seems that the hogs gained much less by helping themselves to corn in the field, than when the corn was ground and cooked, and fed to the animals in pens under equal advantages of weather.
[Leavitt’s Framer's Almanac]

—1862—Farming Business

2012-01-13T05:57:00.000-05:00

#81

The word agriculture is compounded of ager, a field, and culture, tilling. Agriculture is justly thought to be the most ancient art, and it is certainly the most useful. Even Adam in Paradise, practiced one branch of this art; he was put into the garden of Eden, to dress it. Though other employments are often more lucrative to individuals than husbandry, none is so advantageous to the world. If it be a slower way of gaining wealth than some others, it is perhaps the least hazardous of any. The farmer depends not on winds and waves, like the merchant and mariner, nor on the good will of his neighbors, like the mechanic, for employment and bread. Besides, the business of farming is adapted to promote the health of the body and the cheerfulness and contentment of the mind. In a philosophic view, says one, agriculture is great and extensive. In a political view it is important. As a possession, it strengthens the mind, without enervating the body. In morals, it tends to increase virtue, without introducing vice. In Religion it naturally inspires piety, devotion, and a dependence on Providence. It is a rational, agreeable amusement to the man of leisure, and a boundless source of wealth to the industrious.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

JANUARY-1855 & 1857-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2012-01-09T05:46:00.000-05:00

#80

-1855-

Now, it is my humble opinion that, to make a good farmer, it is needful to have a good wife. Yes, there are no two ways about it; the article is indispensable. I have always thought so.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1857-

If it were given to mortals to know the chain of everything in Nature, how great would be our admiration at the wisdom and goodness of its Author! But, however incapable we are of forming to ourselves an idea of the whole of His works, the little we understand of it gives us sufficient reason to acknowledge, that the government of God is infinitely wise and beneficent. Winter belongs to the plan He hath formed.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

-1857-

"Friends, countrymen, and lovers," lend me your attention another year. I come not to frown on nor flatter you. Business is the subject of my story; and as for my single self, I had as lief not exist at all, as to live dependent upon my neighbors for the common necessaries of life, when a little exertion only —yes, neighbor Warmshins, a few hours stirring of the stumps— would make me respectable, and my family happy. Now, give Economy a shake by the hand; take her with you to the barn; she will see that there is no waste of fodder; she will also see that everything is kept neat and clean; she will see that the horse and the oxen, and the cows, are all carded, and their stables swept.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

—1885—Poultry For Market

2012-01-06T05:50:00.001-05:00

#79

In Europe, where fowls are systematically fattened for market, they are fed on barley and oat meal, rice, Indian meal cooked and wet with milk, and sometimes mixed while hot with beef or mutton tallow. Chopped carrots and parsley roots and leaves, cabbages, celery leaves, etc., are given to them now and then, and regular doses of pepper corns or cayenne pepper to stimulate the appetite. Special pains are taken, by a process of cramming, to hasten the fattening, and two or at most three weeks are sufficient for this.

Fattening fowls ought not to have a large run, but should have a chance to stand in the sunshine, to dust themselves, and to scratch in the ground. Pure water must always be furnished, and pulverized charcoal should be mixed with their soft feed every two or three days, enough to blacken it partially. This charcoal ought to be of all sizes, from that of a kernel of wheat to dust. It is good for the digestion, prevents disease, and indirectly promotes fattening. The difference between a lot of fowls furnished with this charcoal and one deprived of it will be very striking.

Indian meal scalded is one of the best kinds of soft feeding, and it is better with small potatoes boiled and mashed while hot and mixed with it, together with some bran or shorts. Some mutton tallow or other cheap fat will add greatly to its fattening quality. Pork-scrap cake, soaked and pounded up, may be fed with it, but not too freely, no more than a pound to a dozen fowls every two or three days. Green cabbage leaves, beets, etc., are greatly relished.

Fowls put up to feed for market ought to be ready in three or four weeks in the early fall. It will take longer after cold weather sets in. If they are deprived of a free run they must be furnished with gravel every few days. A little salt mixed with the food now and then will improve it. A small quantity of it mixed with the soft food will usually stop any inclination to pluck each other’s feathers.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]
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JANUARY-1842, 1849 & 1850-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2012-01-02T07:51:00.003-05:00

#78

(Photo Link)

-1842-

“Jack’s Alive!” Hail, cheerful companions of the field and furrow. The Old Farmer’s Almanac again salutes its friends and patrons in good earnest and cordial welcoming. And why should it not, since the older it grows the more encouragement it realizes? A little dab of trashy oppugnation, now and then, does but fix it firmer in its holding. Prosperity to all honest endeavors and fair-dealing, I say. Ay, give me that husbandman for my neighbor who is upright and heart-whole, and not him who is likened to “chaff, which the wind driveth away.” I would choose a soil that produces good fruits; avoiding that which brings forth thorns, brambles, and hardhack.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1842-

Once more, gentle and urbane Reader, we make our annual appearance before thee, garnished with out agricultural axioms, epitomies of economy, maxims of morality, precepts of prudence, tenets of temperance, and such like dainty devices here garnered up for thine especial benefit and behoof now and for aye. We do not pretend to tell any new thing to a person of thine extensive reading, and accurate and comprehensive observation. But nobody in this sublunary stage of existence is so well qualified to “act well his part where all the honor lies,” but that he may sometimes need the service of a prompter, which is the highest office aimed at by our ambition.

[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

-1849-

Here we meet again, Beloved Readers and Friends, on this earth, the Footstool of our God; this speck on the far confines of Creation; where error and evil so sadly and widely prevail, that pain and misery have lodgings in almost every breast and mind; but it is a state of trial, and we should, therefore, be prepared to meet with patience and resignation whatever ills and afflictions, sorrows and corrections, may betide us. While we are thankful for our blessings, we ought not to receive chastenings with murmurs and frettings, and a complaining spirit. Be grateful, be contented; live cheerful, live pleasant.

[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

-1850-

Well, my friend Goodyear, I am glad to see you so nicely circumstanced in 1850. You are certainly in a comfortable way. A good fire, a tight house, and all things as they should be. How is the farm stock? Hints enough, perhaps, have been given heretofore, on this subject. A warm barn, in a snowstorm, shows that the owner has a warm heart, and cares for the comfort of his cattle. “A merciful man is merciful to his beast,” you know. See yonder Tom Hardhack's poor brindle; how she crimples to the wind, and curls her tail between her legs, as she turns over her mess of meadow hay and brambles!
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

—1877—Rules For MakingA Husband Happy

2011-12-30T05:53:00.001-05:00

#77

Rules For Making a Husband Happy

—Show that you are anxious to avoid waste, and to be faithful in your department of labor.

—Do not neglect neatness of person and surroundings.
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—Never speak slightingly or bitterly of or to your husband, especially in the presence of other people.

—When your feelings have been hurt, do not allow your thoughts to dwell upon the injury, but resolutely banish it from your mind, and do some kindness in return.
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—Speak gently always, and do not allow your voice to become sharp and loud. Control of the voice helps to control the temper.
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—Try to do not only what your husband wishes in household matters, but also when and how he wishes.
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[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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Rules For Making a Wife Happy

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—1857—Ten Fixed Factsin Agriculture

2011-12-26T09:21:00.002-05:00

#76

(photo link)

All permanent improvement of lands must look to lime as its basis.

2.

No lands can be preserved in a state of fertility unless clover and the grasses are cultivated in the course of rotation.

3.

Mould is indispensable in every soil, and a healthy supply can alone be preserved through the cultivation of clover and grasses, the turning in of green crops, or by the application of composts rich in the elements of mould.

4.

To manure or lime wet lands, is to throw manure, lime, and labor away.

5.

Periodical applications of ashes tend to keep up the integrity of soils, by supplying most, if not all, of the organic substances.

6.

Abundant crops cannot be grown for a succession of years unless care be taken to provide an equivalent for the substances carried off the land in the products grown thereon.

7.

All stiff clays are benefitted by fall and winter ploughings; but should never be ploughed when wet.

8.

To preserve meadows in their productiveness, it is necessary to harrow them every second autumn, apply top-dressing, and roll them up.

9.

Deep ploughing greatly improves the productive powers of every variety of soil that is not wet.

10.

All highly concentrated animal manures are increased in value, and their benefits prolonged, by admixture with plaster, salt, or with pulverized charcoal.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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DECEMBER-1867, 1868, 1870, 1873Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-12-23T03:39:00.000-05:00

#75

-1867-

The cold weather is now at hand, and it is time to think how the crops that you have been raising are to be fed out to the greatest profit and economy. It is best, in the long run, to sell the crops in the form of beef, mutton, or pork, or, in other words, on four legs. You are now to feed the hay, the roots, and perhaps the corn, or other grain, to stock of some kind, and the first requisite on the score of economy is proper shelter. You can’t feed animals to a profit if they are exposed to cold, driving winds, or stormy weather. The next in importance is strict regularity in point of time in feeding, so as to avoid any loss from fretting; and the next is to give them their food in a condition to go the farthest. Straw, and cornstalks, and coarse hay, for instance, may be cut short and moistened with hot water, if practicable. Grain should be ground fine for stock—the finer the better. The loss by feeding out coarse-ground meal to horned cattle and horses is enormous.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1868-

Sheep want good shelter, and plenty of hay and roots. They like a variety. An occasional feed of oats, meadow or swale hay, and coarse stuff of any kind, is relished as a change from the best upland hay. Take care and keep the chaff out of their fleeces. The market day is coming, and clean wool sells the best.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Alamanac]

-1870-

Sheep do not need quite so close housing as pigs and cattle. They like an open shed.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1873-

On an average, our flock of thirty hens gives us 715 eggs from Dec. 1 to Feb 1. The number would be larger if half our flock were not Bramahs which lay only every other day. Hens need moderate warmth, as Grandpa declared so energetically last winter. Wheat screenings, small yellow corn and buckwheat, half wheat to one-quarter each of buckwheat and corn, is the best staple food for them. Broken shell, constantly within reach, seems almost indispensable; and a little green food, in the way of clover hay is kept for them in one corner of the hen house. With such a diet, almost any breed of hens will do well in the matter of eggs, during the winter months.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1873-

All stock ought to be well bedded, kept clean, carded every day at his season of the year, and fed by the clock. Cattle are creatures of habit. An animal like the cow or ox, fully fed, will chew the cud, if left quiet to itself, for six hours, when all the rough food taken into the stomach will be ground over. You see it isn’t best to feed too often. Adopt a fixed system as to time, and then stick with it.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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—1874—The Interest Money

2011-12-19T05:58:00.002-05:00

#74

A Farmer & His Banker (note the difference in waistline girth between the two men)

My friends, I wish to give you my ideas of the interest money which so many of you are paying while you are spending time and money in many ways in foolishness, swapping horses, expensive living, and loafing.

There is no blister draws sharper than interest. Of all industries none is comparable to that of interest. It works all day and night, in fair weather and foul. It has no sound in its footsteps but travels fast. It gnaws at a man’s substance with invisible teeth. It binds industry with its webs. Debts roll a man over and over, binding hand and foot and letting him hang upon the fatal mesh until the long-legged interest devours him.

There is but one thing on a farm like it, and that is the Canada thistle, which swarms every time you break its roots, whose blossoms are prolific and every the father of a million seeds. Every leaf is an awl, every bristle a spear, and every plant like a platoon of bayonets, and a field of them like an armed host. The whole plant is a torment and a vegetable curse. And yet a farmer had better make his bed on Canada thistles than attempt to be at ease upon interest.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

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Attitudes about "Interest money" were changing in the 1800's, when the Agrarian Nation was declining and the Industrial Nation was ascending.

As the factories cranked out more and more new stuff that people never knew they needed before, these people (who became known as "consumers"), needed a way to afford what they could not really afford. So "easy" credit and personal debt increased.

Today we have come to the point that debt, credit and interest money is the lifeblood of the industrial system.

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I think it is interesting to note that interest on money was once referred to as usury and it was not an acceptable practice, as explained in this excerpt from the 1913 edition of Webster's dictionary:

The practice of requiring in repayment of money lent anything more than the amount lent, was formerly thought to be a great moral wrong, and the greater, the more was taken. Now it is not deemed more wrong to take pay for the use of money than for the use of a house, or a horse, or any other property. But the lingering influence of the former opinion, together with the fact that the nature of money makes it easier for the lender to oppress the borrower, has caused nearly all Christian nations to fix by law the rate of compensation for the use of money.

So it was that the definition of usury changed to mean excessive interest or illegal interest. This change of meaning happened over the course of hundreds of years (long before 1874). If you have an interest in this subject of interest, read This Essay on Usury at the Economic History Association web site.

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For another historical perspective on "interest money" and usury, consider Dante's, The Inferno, written in the 1300's. Dante places usurers (understood at that time as anyone who loaned money at interest) in the third ring of the seventh circle of hell, which, in Dante's hierarchy, is below (worse than) violent murderers.

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Eric Sloane Speaking AboutThe Agrarian Nation

2011-12-16T05:42:00.002-05:00

#73

Maple Sugaring, by Eric Sloane

Today I present to you four short excerpts from the book, American Yesterday, by Eric Sloane, first published in 1956.

For those of you who don't already know, Eric Sloane was an artist who authored and illustrated numerous books, most of which were about the American Agrarian Nation. As you might guess, I'm a big fan of this man's work, and have been since my teen years. I suspect that what I learned from Eric Sloane's books helped to shape and sharpen my early agrarian understandings, which have eventually led to the creation of this web site.

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It takes a thousand men to get a load of fuel oil from the raw material to your furnace and probably as many to deliver a load of coal. It takes only one man, however, to make a pile of cordwood. Unlike a mess of oil or a heap of coal, a stack of wood is a living and a gladdening thing to behold. It has long been the symbol of the double benefits of farm life, warming you twice—once when you cut it, another when you burn it. Actually there is a third warming which is hard to define; an old almanac says, ‘City homes are warmed by coal, but country hearths do warm the soul.’

Summer in Vermont, by Eric Sloane

Whether you were a banker or shoemaker in colonial times, you were always at the same time a farmer; whether your home was large or small, it was also a farmstead. Even princes and poets of the eighteenth century were ardent agriculturists or posed as farmers and rural philosophers. Not having a rural background and a farming philosophy in those times was perhaps as bad as not being a church member.

We think of George Washington as being a “gentleman farmer,” which now describes a hobbyist, but Mount Vernon followed the tradition of all homes of that time. The General had the exact knowledge of farming that every American enjoyed as part of his daily life. How strange and foreign to modern living is a notation from the diary of John Adams: “Rose at sunrise, unpitched a load of hay and translated two more ‘Leaves of Justinian.’”

Farming now is an occupational pursuit. Farmers raise stock to sell, but two centuries ago they farmed almost entirely for themselves. Instead of a pursuit, farming was then a way of life. The philosophy of farming, which was once a recognized American principle, was based on three beliefs.

1. That agriculture is the fundamental employment of man upon which all other economic activities are vitally dependent.

2. That the farmer enjoys economic independence.

3. That farm life is the natural life and, being natural, is therefore good (This belief implies that [a] completely [urban or metropolitan] life is necessarily a corrupt one).

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If you would like to read more about Eric Sloane I recommend a 2007 essay I wrote titled, The Christian-Agrarian "Awareness" of Eric Sloane.

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—1875—Connecticut Farming

2011-12-12T06:02:00.001-05:00

#72

Large farms are almost unknown in Connecticut, and the average-sized farm, which is not far from a hundred acres, is decreasing with every decade. If the welfare of society is considered, this tendency is not to be regretted.

Very large estates, thoroughly improved and worked mainly for economical results, employ a large force of laborers, content to sell their labor, and never looking forward to the possession of homes of their own. [But] our democratic institutions encourage every man to covet the possession of land for himself. As soon as he becomes intelligent and skillful, and makes himself profitable to his employer, he discovers that he can make his own labor pay better on his own land than on that of his neighbor; hence he improves the first opportunity to buy a few acres, or a run-down farm, and starts in business for himself.

This thirst for land, which runs in the blood of every Yankee, and which infects almost every European very soon after he lands upon our shores, operates very steadily against farming upon a large scale. The large land-holder finds it very difficult to secure good help at reasonable prices, and still more difficult to keep first-class workmen after he gets them. In a very few years they want to set up for themselves.

This is a very good thing for society, which wants the largest number of intelligent, prosperous freeholders, but not so good for the capitalist, who wants a thousand acres and twenty laborers the year round to furnish the sinews for his brain and purse.

So we find in this commonwealth a great division of the soil among a multitude of cultivators, and almost every variety of farming that is possible upon a small territory.

[The Cultivator & Country Gentleman—April 29, 1875]

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In the Agrarian Nation of 1875 it was understood that a large number of intelligent, prosperous freeholders was "a very good thing for society." That is to say, that having a majority of citizens living on their own small sections of land, and working to derive the bulk of their subsistence from their land, is a very good thing for society.

That pretty much defines what an Agrarian Nation is.
Though America has changed with the sweep of industrialism, the wisdom of this old excerpt is as sound as it ever was.

Which reminds me... if you have not yet read my NY Times editorial, titled The Jeffersonian Solution, please do so.
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DECEMBER-1858-Farmer's Calendar Excerpt

2011-12-09T05:42:00.004-05:00

#71

A popular Currier and Ives print from 1869 (click to see enlarged view)

Now, my good friends, as you no doubt like to see pictures, let me show you a Family Picture. It is a cold evening; the wind blows the snow about merrily, the sleigh-bells are jingling, and the creaking sound of the snow under the cutters shows, as we say, snapping cold weather. Presto! Just look in this glass and see Farmer Aimwell’s family! There are the father, the mother, the three sons and two daughters, either sitting at the table, or drawn up cozily around the good oak fire. The farmer has just put down his paper, and taken up his book. Everything betokens comfort, quiet, prosperity, and enjoyment. The storm may rage outside the house, but all is happiness here. And why should it not be so? Through the Spring, the Summer and the Autumn, each one put hands to the work with a will; everything necessary to be done about the farm was done well, and in its right time; and now, with full barns and cellars, all are enjoying the fruits—the reward of patiently bestowed labor and skill. I wish I could tell you more of these happy people; but—in one word—May their lot be yours
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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—1875—Castrating Rams

2011-12-05T05:48:00.001-05:00

#70

(photo link)

I noticed an inquiry a few weeks since as to the best time to castrate rams. My experience runs through fifty years. I have seen them castrated at all seasons of the year, with success in proportion to the heat or cold of the weather at the time of the operation. The colder the day the better. I once castrated an old ram when the thermometer was at 40° below zero; and an hour after and until healed, he paid no attention to it. In the operation I press the testes down, and cut the slit near the lower end, so that no blood can find lodgment; and just large enough to get the testis out; I then cut away the ligaments as usually done, and then draw the main cord out carefully, so as to pull it as far out as possible; the longer the cord is drawn out, the less bleeding. As I pull I wind it around my fingers and draw till it breaks. I never cut or tie the cord, and there is seldom more bleeding than just from the cutting of the skin. I never lost one in my life. —Peter M. Gideon
[The Cultivator & Country Gentleman / Vol. XL—No. 1155]

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Peter M. Gideon's method for castrating a ram lamb will surely work (who can argue with 50 years experience) but it so happens that a lot of sheep ranchers don't try to grasp the slippery testes with their hands—they use their teeth instead.

The following video illustrates this technique very well.

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Some readers might wonder why ram lambs need to be castrated. It is because the meat and the attitude of an uncastrated ram is not very good. Only a few (or one, depending on the size of the flock) "fully functional" rams are needed for breeding purposes.

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There is another way of "emasculating" a ram lamb. It involves a tight rubber band that is stretched around the animal's scrotum. The band restricts blood flow, and the whole scrotum eventually falls off. Tails are docked in the same manner.

I listened to an online speech by Mike Rowe, star of the above film clip, in which he explained that he went to the ranch in that episode of "Dirty Jobs" with the belief that they were going to castrate using the bands. He was shocked when he got there and the farmer was pulling the testes out with his teeth.

The farmer said he had some bands and they could use them. But it was evident to Rowe that the banded rams were under duress for some time after the banding, while the rams that were cut went off and were happily grazing on pasture. As bloody and unsavory as it was, Mike Rowe came to the conclusion that castrating and docking tails with a knife was more humane treatment of the animals.

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DECEMBER-1833, 1839, 1842, 1849, 1852, 1854-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-12-02T05:33:00.002-05:00

#69

Phineas Hazen Adams in 1878 (photo link)

-1833-

Take heed about your health; ‘tis the right hand of him that labors. If you lose it, its recovery will be attended with no little expense and much anxiety. To preserve it is cheap and easy—”Keep your feet warm, your head cool, your back straight.”
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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(photo link)

-1839-

In peaceful and pleasant journey jog we have kept along together thus far. The sun is now nigh setting, and night will mantle the cottage, and the farm, and the village, and plain, and woodlands, all in darkness! We know not if we shall meet again on the morrow of the year. It would be pleasant if such were our good fortune. Peradventure it may be; but, again, peradventure, it may not. Here then, honest John Ploughman, who art the Triptolemus of modern time, fed and nourished with the true milk of the healthful and comely Ceres, let me conjure thee to distribute of thy rich bounties to those that shall in truth most need them. O forget not the widow and the orphan, the sick and the lame, and all the sons and daughters of suffering. See thy plenteousness, and think of them. There are a thousand ways a farmer may do good if he will, and not injure himself. Need they be pointed out? “Do as you would be done by,” and you will find enough to do.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

(photo link)

-1842-

Farmers, friends, companions of the sod, we will not be sombrous and down-hearted, because, forsooth, it may hap that we now close the gates upon our pathway, and no more, after this, walk together in our pleasant companionship. Have we not, for a series of years, been social, good-tempered, obliging and cheerful together? Ay, and unitedly and cordially joined in the appropriate work of man, which heaven primevally designed for him? “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground.” We have ploughed, we have sowed, we have reapt, we have mowed; we have enjoyed the fruits of our industry, and relished the good things of life in health and thankfulness. We have ever been ready to lend a helping hand to the needy, and have not hoarded up our corn, and wine, and oil, and kept our garners closed against the cry of the hungry poor—yes, we have lived neighborly and in good correspondence, setting our horses together in peace, harmony, and well-meaning. Who will deny us this boon, my “bonny brown rustics and lords of the soil?” Let there be nothing morose and chilly in parting. As to—your humble servant—let me greet you all with an honest good-by. “Perhaps I may, laughing, come back,” and again hail you with a joyful “Jack’s alive!”
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

(photo link)

-1849-

Stop, friends; don’t go. I’ve a word or two more by way of advice. Deal justly with one another, and then you will have none of those little kicks of conscience, at the close, that, it is said, sometimes are apt to give disturbance. Love mercy, too, and practice it. Be kind, friendly, and helpful to the unfortunate poor. Turn them not away; for how many would be glad to gather the crumbs and waste pieces that are thrown away from many a farmer’s table! Who can carry with him, to the other world, any of those treasures to pile up, for which he has been scrambling so hard? Make such disposal of them here, as He who has helped you to them shall approve. Good luck attend ye, and prosperity be with ye. Good by, and may we meet happily again!
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

(photo link)

-1852-

Farmers, of all descriptions of men, it might be supposed, from the nature of their occupation, would have religious impressions and feelings. They are constantly, it would seem, looking up for a blessing from Him on whom, to be sure, we all depend for the fulfillment of every rational hope and expectation. A retrospective view of the last year’s doings cannot but be profitable. Well, then, has the cultivation of the soul, the heart, been neglected? Have we suffered foul and noxious weeds to spring up and flourish there? Say, have impiety, envy, jealousy, slander, vanity, profanity, &c., been any part and portion of our practice? Knock, and inquire at the door of your conscience. And have you trained up your children, or those under your care and guardianship, in the way they should go? For on this one thing depends, very much, the happiness of the community.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

(photo link)

-1854-

Thomas Ap-Morgan, the Welsh preacher, says: “We must look out for the deil;” for, if he finds any one idle, he will set him at work; and who wants to do the deil’s work? If you have “dealt justly, loved mercy and walked humbly,” you may consider yourself pretty safe. What employment tends more to make a rational man happy than husbandry? He need not be troubled with “duns at his gate,” if he lives within his means, as all should do.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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December has arrived in the Agrarian Nation. In this last month of the year the farm almanac editors would often use the Farmer's Calendar essay to say their yearly farewell. December was also a slower time on the farm—a time to pause and reflect, not only on the past year but on one's spiritual condition.

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—1877—Rules For Making A Wife Happy

2011-11-28T05:46:00.002-05:00

#68

Rules For Making a Wife Happy

—Treat your wife as politely and kindly as when you were wooing her.
.
—Never find fault with her in a cross tone and manner, and especially before other people.
.
—If your dinner does not suit you, do not spoil her appetite by scolding about it at the time, but give whatever suggestions are needed after dinner.
.
—Do not humiliate her by groaning over every item of household expense as if she was extravagent. Either retrench in superfluities, or pay for them without murmuring.
.
—Share your pleasures and your cares with her, and show that you value her society and her advice.
.
—Do not speak lightly of her caress and fatigues, but sympathize in her troubles, whether small or great.
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—Try to gratify her fancies, such as a flower garden, or conveniences about her work. She will be reminded of your consideration or neglect many times every day by these little things.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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I will post "Rules For Making a Husband Happy" from 1877 in an upcoming Agrarian Nation Excerpt.

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—1865—Greens in Winter

2011-11-25T07:34:00.001-05:00

#67

Turnip Greens

If any of our lady readers relish a nice dish of greens they can at any time have them, by taking a box (size to be governed by the quantity desired,) and putting into it some rich soil, then set some turnips in and cover lightly with soil, place the box in a warm or even moderately warm room, occasionally watering, and you soon will be gratified with a fine growth. To have them crispy and tender, keep them away from the sunlight as much as possible.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

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There were no supermarkets in the Agrarian Nation, so people who wanted fresh greens through the winter months grew their own by "forcing" roots indoors and harvesting the green sprouts, as explained in the above excerpt. I don't think that the greens from forced turnips will look as full and leafy as the picture above, but I'm sure they will taste very good, no matter what they look like, to a green-starved person in the midst of winter.

In his book, Four Season Harvest, Eliot Coleman tells how to force different roots. Here is an excerpt from the book:

We bring celeriac, beets, and parsley root up from the cellar and plant them in large pots of damp sand in a sunny window. You can also do this with turnips, onions and carrots. There is no need for darkness because you want the new growth to be green. Water the pots every few days to keep the sand damp. A normal room temperature of 60°F is ideal. The vigor of the roots themselves determines the quantity and quality of your production... The celeriac grows small, flavorful celery stalks; the beets grow beet greens; and the parsley roots produce a pretty good parsley. The turnips grow turnip greens, the onion tops can be used like green onions, and the ferny carrot tops make a nice nibble. Even the smallest shoots of sprouted greens are a flavorful garnish for a midwinter dish.

To add bulk to a salad, you may want to try another winter growing idea from the underground garden. When you harvest cabbages in the fall, remove the loose outer leaves and pull the cabbages—head, stem, and roots—from the soil. Store them upright on the cellar floor, leaning against the wall, with a little sand over their roots. They store very well that way. When you bring a cabbage up to the kitchen, cut the head off for eating, then plant the leftover roots and stem in an upright position in one of the damp sand pots in the window. Add water to keep the sand moist.

Within a few days, sprouts will begin to grow from the leaf nodes all along the stem. You will soon have a bushy mound of fresh green cabbage shoots, which are the foundation for many a fine winter salad, soup, or casserole.

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While researching this subject of forcing roots for winter greens, I happened upon an article about digging dandelion roots in the fall and forcing them indoors for greens in the winter....Forcing Dandelion Roots

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—1853—True Thanksgiving

2011-11-21T05:55:00.003-05:00

#66

Freedom From Want, by Norman Rockwell. This famous painting, made by Rockwell for the war effort in 1943, does not depict a 19th century family. But the grandparents featured at the head of the table would certainly have grown up in the late 1800s. And their parents would have remembered the Civil War era of the mid-1800s. And their grandparents would have remembered long before that. We need not go back very far in the generations to find people who were very familiar with the Agrarian Nation. If you are ever around Stockbridge, Massachusetts, make it a point to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum. My family was there a few years ago and enjoyed it immensely.

-1853-

This is the month in which the people of New England, in imitation of the their ancestors, are accustomed to keep a Thanksgiving festival, in grateful remembrance of the blessings of the year. “I will rejoice and be glad in thee, and celebrate the name of the Most High.” And have we not all reason to rejoice, and give thanks? “The husbandman now counts his sheaves, and reckons up his abundance. Do we not now live upon the gifts of summer and autumn? And with what activity has nature labored, in those delightful seasons, to accomplish the beneficent views of the Creator in favor of man!” We will be thankful, then, for all these signal blessings. Sing, ye farmers and husbandmen! Wake, wake into gratitude, and join in lauding Him who “makes the grass the mountains crown, and corn in valleys grow.”
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

J.C. Leyendecker's portrayal of a Pilgrim Forefather, with a gun in one hand and Bible in the other. That seems appropriate. But, as my wife said to me, "He looks a little too well fed." And though the Pilgrims were a serious people, I don't think it's fair to characterize them with an angry visage, as is on this man—unless, of course, someone was looking to take his gun or Bible.

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I greatly admire the Mayflower Pilgrims, and not just because my Grandmother Kimball told me I am a Pilgrim descendant. They were simple people of strong Christian faith who did something very difficult, and left a remarkable legacy. That said, I recommend an essay I posted to the internet several years ago, titled Pilgrims & The Christian-Agrarian Exodus of 1620

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I was pleased to discover a documentary about the Pilgrims that was on the History Channel. I don't watch television but someone posted it (a much-condensed version) to YouTube in three parts. It is well worth watching, perhaps even watching with your whole family. There is, of course, much more about the Pilgrim story than is in the short YouTube segments, but they do a decent job of providing a lot of perspective, and you can get something of a "feel" for what the Pilgrims went through in their crossing. I also happen to think the Pilgrim actors in the documentary look far more true to life than J.C. Leyendecker's painting (shown above).

The documentary is titled,Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower. Here are links to the three parts of the documentary on YouTube ...

Mayflower Story: Part 1 of 3

Mayflower Story: Part 2 of 3

Mayflower Story: Part 3 of 3

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The above documentary features comments by historian Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the excellent book, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War.

I reviewed the book in my Deliberate Agrarian Blogazine for January 2010 and ended by saying:

"Mayflower is certainly not a mythologizing eulogy to the Pilgrim era of American history. It is a gritty and human account of gritty and enigmatically human people struggling with circumstances like you and I will never know. It is worth noting that the story in Philbrick's Mayflower is one man's historical interpretation of events that took place some 350 years ago. Some of the story, like all such stories, is undoubtedly inaccurate and incomplete. Nevertheless, it is clear that the book was very well researched and, though Philbrick is a secular author, his account is probably as honest and fair-mined as you'll find. I recommend the book to you."

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Cousin Reginald Catches the Thanksgiving Turkey. The humor here is that Cousin Reginald is a city boy. Turkeys are big, surprisingly strong birds. They can be intimidating to those who are not familiar with them, especially when it comes time to ax off a head. I speak from experience.

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I wish all of you who read this a happy and blessed Thanksgiving 2011. May we all...

Wake, wake into gratitude, and join in lauding Him who “makes the grass the mountains crown, and corn in valleys grow.”

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NOVEMBER-1871 to 1888-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-11-18T03:57:00.006-05:00

#65

Thanksgiving will soon be here.

-1871-

The swedes should be harvested before the ground freezes, though they will stand more cold than mangolds. Pull and dry them in the sun before storing. Do not cut the tops too short.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1873-

We protect our young fruit trees from the mice, rabbits and sheep that seem possessed to gnaw their tender barks through the winter. To do this, we wrap coarse paper around the tree, tie it on with twine, apply a coat of pine tar to the paper, and no animal will touch the bark, nor will the tar injure the trees.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1875-

Cows ought to be put in the barn and well fed as the cold weather comes on, or they shrink in milk. Feed out the pumpkins now, and break the sudden change from grass to hay. Apples are good for stock. Do not fear to feed them freely, but it is safe to cut them to prevent the danger of choking. Trim grape vines after the leaves have fallen. They can be trimmed in winter, but now is the best time. Have a plan for everything and live up to it as near as you can. Make the most of Thanksgiving. It is one of our old landmarks that we must cling to, and hand down to our children.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1877-

House all farm tools, and get them all in order for winter. A thin coat of lard and rosin will keep the iron from rust, and it pays to put it on.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1878-

The grape-vines may now be pruned, and fruit-trees may be trimmed when the leaves are gone. A few choice grapes are worth ten times more than they cost, and it pays well to grow them. Let them run over the woodshed, and climb over the walls or up the sides of the house. Wherever there is a warm and sheltered spot, a grape-vine will not only delight the eye but gratify the palate.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1884-

Before the ground finally closes, if there are any large rocks to be moved for making wall, they should be taken from the ground and placed on trigs. These can be moved on a dray behind a sled when the first snows come, when a team can haul much larger loads than on bare ground. It pays to do a certain amount of rigging up for winter before the days become too cold for work.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1888-

I always like to plough all I can in the fall. It saves a lot of time in the spring when, if ever, time is money, and on many lands it kills a vast number of worms that will raise up to prey on the crops next year. To turn over the land just before it freezes up gives it the best chance to “weather,” as they say, so as to crumble down fine and mellow next May. For still soils, with more or less clay, this is worth a great deal. Jack Frost is as smart as a good breaking up plough, and he doesn’t charge much for his winter’s work. It is a good plan to give him a chance to try and see what he can do.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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The words on the old Thanksgiving card pictured above come from a poem by James Russell Lowell (1819—1891). Few people of today would recognize it but the words were common to people of the Agrarian Nation because "Ho! For The Bending Sheaves" was found in school books of the 19th century and was memorized by many children of that era. Here is the poem in its entirety:

Ho! For The Bending Sheaves

By: James Russell Lowell

Ho! for the bending sheaves,
Ho! for the crimson leaves
        Flaming in splendor!
Season of ripened gold,
Plenty in crib and fold,
Skies with depth untold,
        Liquid and tender.

Autumn is here again—
Banners on hill and plain,
        Blazing and flying,
Hail to the amber morn,
Hail to the heaped up corn,
Hail to the hunter’s horn,
        swelling and dying!

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—1872—The ParsnipAs A Field Crop

2011-11-14T05:37:00.001-05:00

#64

Parsnips (photo link with recipe)

It has always been a matter of surprise, that the parsnip is so little appreciated as a crop for feeding dairy stock. When fed to cows, it improves the quality of the milk, it produces a richer cream and a finer flavored butter than any other root, and all animals are very fond of it. It is also one of the best roots to feed to fattening stock. Moreover, it has the advantage of being perfectly hardy, and can be left in the ground without injury over winter, if anything prevents harvesting in November; or a part of the crop can be harvested in the fall, and the rest left through the winter to be dug in April, just when it is most wanted for cows and for ewes with lambs by their sides.

With these important advantages, it must certainly be regarded as one of the best on the list of root-crops for the dairy farm, and yet it is but little cultivated. This is owning, perhaps, in part o the fact that the seed must be fresh and new, and in part to the difficulty of pulling, the long tap root adhering with great tenacity to the soil. The former difficulty can be readied by raising the seed on the farm itself, the latter by running a subsoil plough under the rows, one at a time, as they are gathered, thus loosening the hold of the roots upon the ground. It is easy to raise them at the rate of from six to eight hundred bushels to the acre, and they are commonly worth about fifty cents per bushel in the market.

The parsnip requires a soil free from rocks,—a free, rich, mellow loam; and on such soil, the cost per acre is but little greater than that for the cultivation of ruta bagas. It is desirable to plough the ground in ridges in the fall, and to apply old and well-rotted manure, at the rate of thirty or forty horse cart-loads to the acre in spring, to be ploughed under. The seed is to be sown—as early in spring as it is possible to plough and work the land—in drills about two feet apart, to give space to go through with the cultivator or the horse-hoe.

The seed may be sown by a machine at the rate of four or five pounds to the acre. It is a good plan to put in a few radish seeds to mark the drills and to guide the cultivator before the plants are sufficiently grown in early spring. When two inches high, or so, the plants must be carefully thinned and weeded. They may stand about three inches apart in the drills. If the weeds are completely kept down till the plants get a good size, the long leaves will shade the ground, and the work will be less.

In harvesting, select a few of the best roots to set out in April for seed, which will ripen in July. The Long Smooth or Hollow Crown is the best variety. Use labor-saving implements as much as possible,m and the cost per acre need not exceed seventy dollars.
[Thomas’s Old Farmer's Almanac]

Harvesting Parsnips (photo link)

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—1898—A Shaker's Advice on Farming

2011-11-11T06:48:00.001-05:00

#63

This barn is in Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was built in 1826 and is a well-preserved agrarian treasure.

Richard Van Deusen, of Enfield, Ct., entertained the Institute most of the forenoon by reading a paper in which he made many shrewd and quaint comments. He said that the Shakers require all that join them to be fair and square with God and man as far as possible; so the first step for any farmer who wishes to start right is to find out where he stands. He counseled his brother farmers to look after their wood-piles in the leisure months and see that there was a good supply cut and housed for the rest of the year. The manure heaps should receive attention and not be allowed to waste under the eaves of the barn. As a rule the dealers in commercial fertilizers are growing rich, and the farmers who use them are growing poor. The cows should be kept in thrifty condition. A poor cow gives poor milk. Shaker cows get roots, meal and good hay daily, and they show it in their looks and products. A peck of yellow globe turnips, from their bin of 1,800 bushels, is given each animal daily, with four quarts of a mixture of meal and wheat shorts. He thought sheep raising was one of the best branches of farming for the hill-towns. Sheep give two returns of profit a year. He had known lambs in Lebanon, N.Y., sell for six dollars a head, and the dams shear from three to eight pounds of wool each. It is difficult to raise lambs from feeble sheep. He said the winter is a good time to put farm tools in order. One of the first spring exercises with some farmers is sowing oats, He would get a good kind, sow three bushels to an acre, and cover them two and a half inches deep with a seed drill. He had ploughed them in. They yield better when well covered. Oats that weigh 32 to 35 pounds to the bushel are alone fit to sow or feed, and the yield should not be less than 50 bushels an acre.

Potatoes should be planted early in order to get the benefit of the spring rains and a good market price. Turf land gives the best results, and he would plow the fall before. As soon as the tops show signs of decay, which is often early in July, he digs, barrels and covers them in his barns. The Blush variety had tops as large as a four-quart measure last year when the frost came, and though they were badly cut, he dug about 300 bushels an acre. Of corn, he would not raise less than 50 to 75 bushels an acre. We have not the 300-acre fields of corn found in Ohio, but in our little way we can raise more bushels to an acre and a better quality than they can in the west. All things considered, he thought hay was the most profitable crop, and with machinery he could cut, cure and cart it for $2 a ton. He would plow some grass lands, once in three or four years, put on 15 to 20 cart-loads of manure, or some phosphate, and seed with half a bushel of Timothy to the acre, harrowed and rolled in. In this way he expects three tons of hay from an acre, taking both crops. He once cut 22 tons of hay on six acres and sold it at $40 a ton. He would not pasture his meadows any more than he would run in debt. He thought that tools might be kept to let like horses in a livery-stable. Few farmers can afford to keep all the machinery they need. Labor is an important factor in farming, and hired help should receive fair wages when due; but too many give their help the cream, and consequently the farmer and his family have to put up with the skim-milk. Parents were exhorted to make home pleasant, and speak gently to the members of the family. Find out what the boys are adapted to before you overload them, and when they get into trouble help them out. A scar is not easily healed on man or a tree. He has a favorite horse that he speaks as gently to as to his mother or sister, and the horse knows it.

[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

A view inside the round barn at Hancock Shaker Village. Click Here to learn a little more about the barn.

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NOVEMBER-1857 to 1867-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-11-07T05:12:00.000-05:00

#62

Fall Ploughing

-1857-

Secure your potatoes from frost. Many potatoes were ruined last year for want of warm cellars. Thrash out your barley. Take in your cabbages. Rack off cider, and mind to have a clean cask to put it into, and don’t drink too much of it.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1858-

Chill November reminds us that Winter is creeping on. Well, never mind; we shall have pleasant evenings, and crisp, frosty mornings, and the young ones are all alert in anticipation of Thanksgiving. “It is an American day, and we love it. Not chiefly for the good-eating it brings; though our pleasantest memories of plum-puddings, chicken-pies, roast turkeys, and such like, are connected to the day.” Yes, it is a glad day to those in a green old age, as well as to the youthful. It brings back a thousand joyous memories, and together we thank God for putting it into the hearts of our forefathers to appoint it. Look to your premises, and see that everything is ready for Winter.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1859-

Those who have wood lots will find this a convenient season of the year to collect into piles what wood has been blown down by the winds, and the tips of trees that have been felled for timber since the last year. Wood is an article we cannot do without in this cold country, and economy requires that everything should be saved that is fit for fuel.
[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1861-

Now, let me tell you, the Farmer’s Club, simply organized and well kept up, will do much to help us pass the winter usefully and agreeably. I hope you will lend it the aid of your presence, and do all you can to make it a fixed “institution” in your town; and a lecture now and then, with farmers’ talk, and experiments for the summer following, will give variety to the course.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1862-

It is time to pull turnips, ruta bagas, mangolds and carrots, and to store them in the cellar. A feeding once a day of these roots, properly cut up, promotes the health and condition of all kinds of farm stock.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1866-

Finish harvesting the root crop. Collect all litter, leaves, and rubbish, and carry them to the hog-pen. See that by spring all the manure gets sufficient fermentation to kill the seeds of weeds mixed with it.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

-1866-

Fall ploughing may be pushed on till the ground freezes up. If land is tolerably level, so as not to wash too badly, it is best to plough in the fall. Many insects are destroyed by turning up the larvae and eggs to the frosts and snows of winter, and if you have a lot of daiseys and twitch-grass, it is a good plan to turn it up shallow, so the roots will suffer from the winter’s cold.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1867-

It is time now to be getting ready for winter. The turnips and ruta-bagas must be harvested early in the month. Get them in clean and dry, and put them on wooden racks in the cellar, so the air may have access to them. A good supply of roots is worth having to feed out in connection with the meadow hay and coarse fodder. Feed the English turnips first, then the swedes or ruta-bagas, and last the mangolds, that keep through the winter well, and till late into the spring. It is a good time to top-dress both the winter grains and the grass-lands with that great heap of fine compost that has been thrown over and so carefully prepared. It serves to protect the roots against the cold, and on new seeded lands gives a fine surface for the clover-seed, which you will want to sow in March or April. Use all the manure you can scrape up in the yard and about the premises. It will be worth about as much again on the grass now as it will be if kept till spring.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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-1849-NovemberFarmer's Calendar Excerpt(A Recipe For Easy Circumstances)

2011-11-04T05:07:00.000-04:00

#61

-1849-

Would you like to know how you can always be in easy circumstances? If so, here—take the recipe:

Subdue every unnecessary want or desire, and buy only such things as will add to your real comfort and convenience.

It is the extreme of folly to think you must buy every thing you see, or have everything that some of your rich neighbors have. If they have attained their wealth by their vices, their exhortations and rogueries, do not try to ape them, but despise alike their means and their ends. If they have acquired their riches by their virtues, their fairdealing and activity and honesty, in business, as only the truly self-made men, the great and excellent of the earth, ever do, they deserve your regard and esteem—they are to be honoured—they are worthy of their success—the community at large will benefit by their prosperity; you will not envy them, nor make vain and fruitless attempts to rival them in their establishments and equipages; but pursue the even tenor of your way in right-thinking and right-acting, as these noblemen of Nature’s fabric have done before you.

The frog, in trying to swell to the size of the ox, burst—a certain end to all artificial greatness. Whenever you find you can curtail your expenses, you must summon resolution to do it.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

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It is November in the Agrarian Nation. The crops are harvested. The farmer has some profit. And the Maine Farmer's Almanac has some sage advice... live within your means.

Now there is some wisdom as appropriate to today as it was 162 years ago.

Fathers and mothers, if you want to pass on wisdom to your children, may I suggest that you arm yourself with an arsenal of aphorisms, and use them often through the years, when the occasion warrants. Your children will grow up, and they will remember...

My momma always used to tell me...

"The frog, in trying to swell to the size of the ox, burst."

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I'm wondering, can you think of an aphorism that your father or mother or a grandparent used to say?

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A Short Break

2011-10-31T06:11:00.000-04:00

I missed posting an Agrarian Nation excerpt here on Friday (did anyone notice?) and am also not posting one today. But I will be back on track for the next installment this coming Friday. In the meantime, I invite you to read my monthly Deliberate Agrarian "blogazine" post for October, which I have put online just this morning. Here's the link: The Deliberate Agrarian: October 2011

—1861—Jerusalem Artichokes

2011-10-24T05:44:00.004-04:00

#60

Jerusalem Artichoke Tubers (photo link with article )

The following information comes to us from The Book of Household Management, by S.O. Beeton, published in 1861.

In the front of the book we find this tidbit of wisdom...

Nothing lovelier can be found

In Woman, than to study household good.

—Milton

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Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes (photo link with recipe)

The Jerusalem Artichoke

This plant is well known, being, for its tubers, cultivated not only as a garden vegetable, but also as an agricultural crop. By many it is much esteemed as an esculent, when cooked in various ways; and the domesticated animals eat both the fresh foliage, and the tubers with great relish. By some, they are not only considered nourishing, but even fattening.
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Uses of the Jerusalem Artichoke

This being a tuberous-rooted plant, with leafy stems from four to six feet high, it is alleged that its tops will afford as much fodder per acre as a crop of oats, or more, and its roots half as many tubers as an ordinary crop of potatoes. The tubers, being abundant in the market-gardens, are to be had at little more than the price of potatoes. The fibres of the stems may be separated by maceration, and manufactured into cordage or cloth; and this is said to be done in some parts of the north and west of France, as about Hagenau, where this plant, on the poor sandy soils, is an object of field culture.

Recipe For

Boiled Jerusalem Artichokes

Ingredients: To each 1 gallon of water allow 1 heaped tablespoonful of salt; artichokes.
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Mode: Wash, peel, and shape the artichokes in a round or oval form, and put them into a saucepan with sufficient cold water to cover them, salted in the above proportion. Let them boil gently until tender; take them up, drain them, and serve them in a napkin, or plain, whichever mode is preferred; send to table with them a tureen of melted butter or cream sauce, a little of which may be poured over the artichokes when they are not served in a napkin.
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Time: About 20 minutes after the water boils.
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Sufficient: 10 for a dish for 6 persons.
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Seasonable from September to June.
.

Recipe For
Mashed Jerusalem Artichokes

Ingredients: To each 1 gallon of water allow 1 oz. of salt; 15 or 16 artichokes, 1 oz. butter, pepper and salt to taste.
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Mode: Boil the artichokes as in the preceding recipe until tender; drain and press the water from them, and beat them up with a fork. When thoroughly mashed and free from lumps, put them into a saucepan with the butter and a seasoning of white pepper and salt; keep stirring over the fire until the artichokes are quite hot, and serve.
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Time: About 20 minutes.
.
Sufficient for 6 or 7 persons.
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Seasonable from September to June.

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Jerusalem Artichokes with Rosemary, Lemon & Pecans! (photo link and article)

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Jerusalem artichokes were a common food for man and beast in the Agrarian Nation, and for good reason—they were very easy to grow and store. Fact is, Jerusalem artichoke grows like a weed. Simply plant a few tubers in the spring and you will have an abundance of tubers in the fall.

Better yet, it so happens that the Jerusalem artichoke is a perennial. Once you establish a planting, it's there for the rest of your life. You can harvest the tubers you want, pick out the best for eating, then boil and feed the second best to your critters (I've fed them mixed with laying mash to my chickens).

I've grown Jerusalem artichokes for several years and they do well on poor soil, in partial shade, with no care. Bugs don't seem interested in them. Here's what the plant looks like...

A Bed of Jerusalem Artichokes

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—1900—Money-Making At Home (From Garden Produce)

2011-10-21T05:31:00.006-04:00

#59

The following excerpt was gleaned from the January 27, 1900 issue of The New England Homestead (pictured above). That date is 27 days beyond the 19th century, but I reckon it's close enough for our purposes here. This particular excerpt was sent to the magazine by Marion M'Conkey (no address was given).

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Money Making at Home

From Garden Produce

I sold $300 worth of produce last year. I had many difficulties to contend with, as I am a farmer's wife with six little ones, all under 19 years of age, and had to hire a young girl to stay with them while I went to the city three miles distant.

I sell mostly at hotels, boarding houses, restaurants and lunch rooms, with just a few private houses. Sometimes when I have more than I can sell I trade them to the carpet weaver for rag carpets. And I bought five that way, which when sold brought $35.

My account book shows: Vegetables $50, butter and pickles $50, miscellaneous $100.

In the spring I sold milk, lettuce, onions, rhubarb, eggs, asparagus, mushrooms, butter and broilers I hatched in an incubator at 16 cents per pound. I also sold early in May choice garden and flower plants, celery, cauliflower and mango plants and double petunia and fancy pinks and pansies. In early summer I sold bushels of beans, peas and tomatoes, gallons of small fruits and 10 bu of early green cooking apples. I sold a large amount of sweet milk for ice cream and a great deal of buttermilk. Often I would make two trips a day, with special orders. In fall I disposed of the surplus apples that were very cheap by having them made into butter, 40 gallons of which I sold at 50 cents per gallon. In the fall I made kraut and mixed pickles, besides a large amount of ketchup which brought good prices. Jellies, cider, beets, grapes, butter, plums, field corn on ear, for pickling and various other things I cannot remember. In the winter I made mincemeat, head cheese, sausage, besides selling ribs and backbones occasionally.

I sold 500 gal. lye hominy, making it in 10 gal lots, for which I receive 20 cents per gal. I gave good measure, and neatness and cleanliness are the most essential points. I enjoy the business as it gives me a few hour's freedom from the monotony of farm life and the extra pin money was not the least factor of the business. One need go to town but once each week, and by having the things engaged do nicely, and so many fruits and vegetables go to waste on the farm that could be turned into honest pennies to replenish the usually flat pocketbook (if she has one) of the farmer's wife.

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What? No sweet potatoes? Well, I guess Mrs. M'Conkey has a good excuse.... she wasn't able to read my recently-published Deliberate Agrarian Special Report, Growing Sweet Potatoes in My Northern Garden.

Headless Gardener Grows Giant Sweet Potato! (you can too).

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For some perspective on the remarkably productive and inspiring Mrs. M'Conkey's income, I checked with an online inflation calculator.... $300 in 1899 is equivalent to around $8,000 in today's dollars.

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There are some other similar excerpts in this money-making section of New England Homestead magazine. If you would like, I'll be glad to post them in future installments here.

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Oh, one more thing... I don't suppose Mrs. M'Conkey did this all on her own. It's a sure bet those six young'uns had a hand in helping their mother, and probably to some degree Mr. M'Conkey too. Thus we have ourselves a perfect example from the Agrarian Nation of a diversified home economy.
.

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OCTOBER-1849, 1851, 1856, 1857-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-10-17T05:40:00.002-04:00

#58

(Click to see a much enlarged view)

-1849-

Happy are they who are prepared for the Autumn of life—well laden with fruits of righteousness. The reaper Angels shall bind them in goodly sheaves for the Harvest-Home. Reader, would you be happy and prosperous? If so, be content with your situation. Whatever may be your occupation, make that your business; your home make the citadel of plenty, peace and love; and let all the ways of your household be managed with unceasing care.

[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

-1851-

Let’s now bestir ourselves, lest the frost overtake us while nodding. Nature’s blessing is what we’ve been in search of, and here it comes in full Scripture measure. Boys, bring the ladders and baskets! These winter apples, russets, greenings, baldwins, and what not, of ours, must every one be taken off the trees as carefully as if they were eggs. I know very well how Captain Thrasher gathers his; but his notions and mine differ. Now, if you love apple-dumplings, be careful how you pack apples. From much care and pains, may come great gains, as some wise-headed rhymester says. We will have everything in the cellar, also, as it should be, and right end foremost.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1856-

Now it gladdens the heart to fill up your garners, your storehouses and cellars, with such rich abundance! By and by will come the day of general Thanksgiving, when you will cheerfully join in a song of praise and gratitude to the Great “Author of every good and perfect gift,” who hath given you all these things richly to enjoy. Push on and make haste in your business, and load up the yellow maize, gather in the pumpkins, and “help yourselves to squash.” Delay not to dig the murphies, unless you are willing the frost shall nip your fingers. But why did you call in Jo Slack to assist you? He is but a lifeless lump of inactivity. He has hardly energy enough to gape or wink.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1857-

Stiff, hard, cloggy, arable land is best ploughed in autumn, that frost may assist in pulverizing it. Loose, sandy soil may be left to harden in the winter.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

-1857-

In dull weather plough fallows, so that they may be exposed to the frost. It will be of great benefit, when you have gathered your sauce, to throw your garden into ridges. Let your garden seeds be well dried before you put them up. Husking is now a business for all. If you make what some call a bee, it will be necessary to keep an eye on the boys, or you may have to husk over again the whole heap.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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I don't know about you, but when I read what the 1849 Maine farmer's almanac editor wrote about making one's home a "citadel of plenty, peace and love," I see that as something fundamentally necessary for the restoration of an Agrarian Nation and a republic of free and independent citizens.

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These old Farmer's Calendar excerpts (and so many others that I have yet to publish) for October and November of the year, reveal a great urgency about getting the crops harvested and food put away for the long winter to come. And there is also profound thankfulness, contentment and joy in the harvest.

Industrialism has "freed" the average Modern of today from the work of harvesting and putting food by for the winter, but in so doing, that thankfulness, joy and contentment of harvest time has been taken away.

Nevertheless, to the extent that we as individuals and families can once again fill our own garners and storehouses and cellars with our own homegrown food, we can also experience the intangible but powerfully satisfying emotions that come with such activity.

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I have posted a lot of old photos here at Agrarian Nation but my favorite thus far is the one at the top of today's installment. I encourage you to click on it to see the enlarged view, and drink in the image. The old man is shelling ears of corn by hand. The child is contentedly playing with the cobs. The room has sacks, and baskets, and barrels, and strings of food. Squashes are on the table and the floor. A pottery jug of something (we must use our imagination) is under the table. Light comes through the window as approbation of the scene.

It is a picture of work and contentment. But more than that... what we see in the picture is a citadel of plenty, peace and love.

Let's now bestir ourselves....

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—1874—Market Gardening

2011-10-14T05:51:00.001-04:00

#57

Any farmer who lives near a large town that will furnish him a market, can make market gardening very profitable, if his land is suitable for the raising of vegetables. To be fit for this purpose it must be dry, warm soil, with an exposure to the east or south, and sheltered either naturally or artificially on the north. It must also be rich, and if not naturally so, made so by the free application of manure. It may be said that it is difficult to find a limit beyond which it is not profitable to apply manure, and the net profits of the operation will depend largely upon liberality in this respect.

It must be understood that vegetable culture for profit necessarily involves a large outlay, if we reckon the cost of labor, the seed, the cultivation and marketing. But it must also be considered that most of the items of expense will be very nearly the same for a small as for a very heavy crop. A certain amount of production, of course, must go to pay the cost, and the profit does not come in till we get beyond this point; but when it is reached, the income assumes the form of profit, unless the cost of manure may be considered as to some extent a permanent investment.

The conditions of success, therefore, must include, besides those named, location, soil, manure, and a certain fitness for the business. It must be the right man in the right place, a live, wide-awake, earnest man, who is able to expend about three hundred dollars a year on every acre he attempts to handle. Such a man will readily see that it pays better, as a rule, to feed the multitude than it does to feed the few; that is, that the production of a few of the coarser vegetables, like cabbages, beets, turnips, cucumbers, sweet corn, tomatoes, &c., that are consumed in immense quantities by the hard manual laborers of the community, pays better than the production of a few rarer plants that require special skill to grow, out of their natural season, to please the palates of those whose appetites are epicurean.

If the location of the land is not virtually all that could be wished, very much can be done by way of shelter by a high board fence on the north, or by belts of evergreens, which practically modify the climate and furnish protection. Another important improvement is through drainage. If the soil is already light and deep, and with a sufficient incline to carry off the underground moisture, this expense, perhaps, can be avoided; but if it is a little stiff, or at all inclining to clay, this operation is essential. Of course deep ploughing, or trenching, will be regarded as a matter of necessity also, as it is one of the prime elements of success in the more extensive operations of the farm.

An intimate knowledge of the practical details of the whole range of market gardening and marketing may also be regarded as requisite to success, and if a man is intending to engage in market gardening for profit, it is better, on the whole, to serve an apprenticeship to some one who is already thoroughly posted, than to get this knowledge by long experiment, which will involve more or less loss of time and failure. It is slow work feeling one’s way along in such a pursuit as market gardening, where the competition is so great.
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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For market gardeners in the northern latitudes, I have a unique crop suggestion for you...... grow sweet potatoes.

The growing of sweet potatoes in New England was mentioned in a previous Agrarian Nation excerpt from 1830 (See #17).

It so happens that sweet potatoes are on my mind because I grew them for the first time this year in my garden here in Central New York state, and I dug them up a few days ago. I couldn't be more pleased with the results....

A portion of my 2011 Sweet potato harvest.

I harvested four bread trays like that from a relatively short row in my garden. The potatoes are huge and beautiful. I will have more to say about growing and curing sweet potatoes in my upcoming October installment of The Deliberate Agrarian blogazine.

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OCTOBER-1862, 1864, 1875-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-10-10T04:12:00.000-04:00

#56

Gathering Apples in 1880 (click to see enlarged view). Ox carts like shown in this rare old photograph were ubiquitous in the Agrarian Nation. Oxen, fed on grass and grain, were, of course, a renewable, sustainable, homegrown source of motive power. And after a few years of useful service, the animal was sold for meat or consumed by the farm family.

-1862-

There is enough to do to keep us on the jog all this month. It is about time to dig the murphies, to load up the yellow corn, and to pile on the golden pumpkins. I suppose you raise some pumpkins, don't you? They are so handy to feed the cattle and the pigs, you know, late in the fall, and then they look so much like old times when we used to raise them by the acre. What should we do without pumpkins? And there are the roots not all in yet, and the garden sauce to be gathered for winter use, and the apples to be picked. Don't forget to save the best seed of all the farm's crops for next spring's use, and to lay it away in a dry place. You can raise better seed than you can buy, and you know then what it is. Always pick out the earliest ripened and the plumpest seed. It is safer to pull the mangolds about the end of the month. If you don't want to store them away in their winter quarters, pile them up snug on the field and let them lie awhile, throwing some tops or other covering over them at nights. The ruta-bagas can stay in the ground till next month and they will keep growing, for they can stand the frost, but it seems to injure the keeping quality of beets to get a bite.

[Thomas's Farmer's Almanac]

Harvesting Mangolds. Horsepower was another sustainable (solar-powered) source of energy in the Agrarian Nation. The main advantage of horses over oxen was that of speed.

-1864-

Some like to roam away from home. This will by no means do for the farmer. His love of home is his safety. He must guard against contracting a fondness for being off; aye, off from the place of his business, the place of his family, the place of his love.

[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

Digging Murphies

-1875-

Digging potatoes, harvesting corn, and picking apples, come this month. Then there are the great yellow pumpkins. There is a joy in the work of the fall that the labor of no other season brings with it. In the spring it is a long time to look ahead. We plant and sow in faith and hope; now we see the end in the fall fruititon. Besides, the air is clear and sparkling, and sends the life bounding through every vein, and the Indian summer is the perfection of our northern climate. There is work enough to do on the farm, to be sure, for the team is strong and fresh for the plough, and the fall is the best time to break up
[Thomas's Farmer's Almanac]

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—1857—Pumpkins

2011-10-07T06:03:00.003-04:00

#55

An Old-Timer & His Pumpkins

Pumpkins, probably, are nearly, if not quite, as valuable as the same weight of most kinds of roots, for the purpose of feeding Milch-cows, and fattening cattle; and as they are easily raised, and still easier gathered, it would seem that raising, even the common kinds, might be made profitable.

In raising a crop, the hills should probably stand about seven feet apart; and, though the crop would require as much ploughing as other hoed crops, yet the expense of hoeing would be but trifling. The crop would not be so expensive to raise, and gather, as a crop of Indian corn; it would exhaust the soil but little, and it would be a fine preparative for wheat, as the ground could be cleared of the crop sufficiently early for sowing that grain.

It is believed that an acre, properly cultivated, would yield as much as ten tons of even the common kind of pumpkin; and that these would be found worth as much as sixteen cents per hundred, for the purpose of feeding and fattening cattle. The ground should be broken up in the latter end of the preceding autumn; and cross-ploughed just before planting the crop, which should be planted early.
[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

Some people grow giant pumpkins for the fun of it these days but, as this picture shows, that is nothing new. I understand that the really giant pumpkins are not good for eating. They're just good for being big. Methinks I see a metaphor here... Industrialism is like a field with one giant pumpkin, while agrarianism is like a field full of many smaller pumpkins.

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Pumpkins are a native American vegetable (or would they actually be a fruit?). To the modern mind, pumpkins are primarily a decoration or a seasonal novelty, but in the Agrarian Nation, they were an important source of food for cattle, hogs and people.

We like pumpkin pies, and the old-timers did too, but "pompkin porridge" was a mainstay on many early farmsteads.

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Homegrown pumpkins don't go to waste in my family....

In my family we process pumpkins into a puree that my wife uses to make a pumpkin pudding, which is really good (It might be very similar to pompkin porridge). You can read about how we process the pumpkins and get the pudding recipe at This Blog Post.

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Field of pumpkins, circa 1895

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A few years ago I went to a steam show near my home (I wrote about it HERE) and discovered the unusual tool pictured below at a flea market. The vendor told me it was a pumpkin chopper, used to chop pumpkins before feeding to cattle and hogs.

A Pumpkin Chopper from the Agrarian Nation

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On a subsistence farmstead, when harvesting was done by hand, it was a common practice to plant corn, beans and pumpkins together in a field. This was an Indian custom that the settlers adopted. This excerpt from the book, A Long Deep Furrow, explains....

On old land the best culture practice was to plow, crossplow, harrow smooth, then furrow and crossfurrow at intervals from 3 to 4-1/2 feet according to the quality of soil, and plant at the intersections. After the corn plants came up, light furrows plowed lengthwise between the rows threw the earth toward the hill, followed by hoeing to kill or cover weeds. After these first cultivations the hoe was used once, sometimes twice, according to need. Bean vines twined up the cornstalks, and pumpkin seeds planted at intervals provided foliage to cover the ground for the final weeks, smother weeds, and produce welcome additional food.

When the corn was planted at intersections of the crossfurrow grid, more than one seed was planted. And when it speaks of throwing earth toward the hill, it is not speaking of a raised portion of ground. "Hill" was a place where more than a single seed was planted. It need not have been raised, though it often became a raised spot as soil was hoed up around the growing plant. See this old definition.

Having Fun With Pumpkins

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October-1830-Farmer's Calendar Excerpt

2011-10-03T06:49:00.000-04:00

#54

William James Young with his farm horse in Summit Twp, Crawford Co, PA. (photo link)

“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” said Richard. Give me a high neck, a full and bold breast, a lively and sparkling eye, a strong back, a stiff dock, full buttocks, extensive ribs, large and well formed hoofs, and, by all means, a good gait.

Are you in search of a horse? Do you wish to purchase? Look out for Capt. Bitemslily. When a horse gets worn out, or, what is called, broken down, he is sold to some Jockey. These people are always ready for trade, at some rate or other. Next some horse barber takes him in hand, and he is put into bilboes. His teeth are filed down, and his tail pricked up; and his stomach and bowels are drenched with gin, brimstone, and other antifogmatics. Bear’s grease and various horsemetics are then applied to his skin, and his hair is soon made to shine, like a greasy Indian.

Now, fitted for market, he appears upon the public turf, metamorphosed into a prancing, dandy nag! Capt. Creds must now take good heed, or, ten to one, he will repurchase his old dobbin of 17 for a dexterous young courser.

Look out for jockeys everywhere and in everything. My neighbor Spinage, last season, purchased of an honest pedlar a pound of wooden cucumber seeds!
[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

Neighbor Spinage isn't happy

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—1851—Fodder Carrots

2011-09-30T05:51:00.005-04:00

#53

Harvesting Fodder Carrots?

Co. Meacham, who succeeded in obtaining 1000 bushels of carrots per acre, for several years, estimates the expense per acre at $35. This culture adapts the land admirably for wheat or barley. As a food, the carrot is extensively used in England, and to some extent in our eastern and northern States, as horse fodder, and is well adapted to oxen and hogs, &c. The carrots should be boiled or steamed, or, if given raw, sliced with a vegetable cutter. According to Antoine’s tables, 276lb equal 100lb of hay; they make twice as good fodder as turnips and nearly equal to potatoes. Carrots and hay are a good fodder for horses, or, when given alone, about fifty pounds prepared will be necessary daily. They are very fattening.

[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

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Years ago, my mother bought a juicer and made carrot juice. She tried to get me to drink it but I wouldn't even give it a try. I couldn't bear the thought of drinking carrots. My wife had no objections to the idea. She drank a glass of the liquified roots, and pronounced it very good. I wasn't persuaded.

But then, after months of hearing how good carrot juice was, and after being nagged by my wife to at least try it, I gave in.

Wow, was I surprised. That carrot juice was so good that I decided we needed to get ourselves a juicer, and I needed to grow more carrots!

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On another subject, I'm sure you have heard of the listeria-from-melons outbreak that is currently in the news. People are eating melons (normally a downright healthful food), contracting listeria, and dying. This sort of thing doesn't surprise us anymore—Industrial Nation food has a long track record of contamination and manslaughter.

On the other hand, how many people have you known to get sick and die from homegrown food?

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Some of you may recall that my very first post to Agrarian Nation was about Little Jack's Melon Patch. I told you that I had bought some Nutmeg melon seed and was going to try growing the heirloom variety, and that's exactly what I did. Here's a couple of my nutmegs in my garden earlier this month....

Herrick's Homegrown Nutmegs (2011)

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Do we Americans have a right to freely purchase and consume food produced by our neighbors, or even ourselves? As unbelievable as it sounds, some "authorities" in government don't think so. That said, I encourage you to read No Right to Produce or Eat Food by Walter Jeffries.

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SEPTEMBER-1859, 1860, 1862, 1863-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-09-26T05:42:00.001-04:00

#52

Barley (not quite ready for harvest)

-1859-

This month, the most serene and agreeable in the year, should not be misimproved. The farmer and the housewife may find enough to do the greater part of the time in their respective departments, and what time they can find to spare from their necessary avocations, they may spend agreeably in visiting their friends. The time of harvest, as it fills our granaries with the necessities of life, should fill our hearts with thoughts of gratitude to that Being who is the Lord of the harvest.

[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1860-

Beans should be pulled before they are too ripe. The best way is to cart them in and spread them on poles across the beams so the air can circulate through the beans and they won’t mould.

[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1862-

Towards the end of this month is the time to cut up and stook corn. Some cut the top stalks, others cut up from the ground and stook. The latter is probably the most general and the most economical practice.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1862-

The only certain test of judgment when barley is fit to mow, must be from the dropping and falling of the ears, so as to double against the straw. In that state, and not before, it may be cut with all expedition.

[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1863-

For journeying, this month of all others, is the most delightful. A fine sun, a serene and temperate atmosphere, and the fields clad in robes of golden grain, and trees bending beneath their heavy burdens ready to be delivered up to the industrious farmers, are scenes well calculated to elevate the mind, inspire new delight, invigorate the body, and thereby bring health and pleasure to the traveler, and to all others, who view things in the order of nature.

[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

Corn that has been cut and stooked (or shocked) in the field for drying.

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—1867—How To Make Milkers

2011-09-23T06:07:00.001-04:00

#51

No matter what breed you have, something is necessary to reach the highest success in raising good milkers. It’s a great thing, to be sure, to have good blood, whether it be Ayrshire, Jersey, or Short-horn grades, but apart from this important advantage, the course of treatment in raising a milker is somewhat different from that in raising a beef animal, or animal for labor.

The calf should be well fed and petted while young. Well fed, to induce a rapid growth, so as to enable the heifer to come in early; petted, to make her gentle and fond of the presence of her keepers. Fondling helps to create a quiet disposition, so important in the dairy cow, and this education must begin when young. For a milker, we would have the heifer come in at two years old, and if she has been well kept, so as to have attained a good size, she is then old enough to become a cow. She will give more milk for coming in early. It forms the habit of giving milk, and habit, you know is sort of a second nature. An older bull is better. We use too many young bulls. A three or four year old is far better as a stock-getter than a yearling, and many prefer a five or six year old to any other. After the heifer has come in, let her feed be regular. Clover is preferred to all others for the stall feed. A little oatmeal induces a large flow. Indian meal is rather fattening. In bad weather, give her a clean, airy stall.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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The Salem Towne barn at Sturbridge Village

My wife and I spent a day at Sturbridge Village last week and I took the picture above. Inside the barn is an educational display and a sign with the following information about dairying in the Agrarian Nation...

Up through the middle of the 19th century, dairying on New England farms was women’s work. Boys might help with the milking, but farm girls learned the “art and mystery” of butter and cheese-making from their mothers. The dairy was a crucial part of every farm’s economy, and it became ever more important as New Englanders gave up growing grain to concentrate on butter and cheese.

On the majority of farms, the dairy produced most of the surplus that could be traded for goods or turned into cash. Salem Towne Jr., whose house is just next door, was a farmer and businessman who frequently traveled. He wrote his wife Sally letters with instructions about the farm’s workers, field crops, and livestock—but he never mentioned the dairy, which was busy producing butter and cheese. That was Sally’s domain, and he left its management to her.

This milking stool was in the Salem Towne barn at Sturbridge Village. The seat is a section of tree (the bark-side bottom is rounded), as are the handle and legs. A stool like this would be a great little woodworking project. I'm inspired.

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SEPTEMBER-1857 & 1858-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-09-19T12:49:00.001-04:00

#50

-1857-

“Music, there music!” Ay, boy, the music of the flail and cider-mill, you mean. Well, John, let’s put things in order, that we may give them the farmer’s concert. Let the cider-mill scream the treble; Caleb and Jo shall slam-bang the tenor with their flails; neighbor Flatstall’s bull will keep up the fundamental bass; while Ben Bluster will halloo the counter, with kid up, old Dobbin! Whoa, gee, Spark! Come in there, Berry! All together now, I say!

Collect your apples, and be sure to house them until they become mellow, that your cider may be rich in flavor and in color. Some will insist that slovens make the best cider, and also that sluts make the best butter and cheese. But I cannot possibly be made to believe that decayed apples add to the excellence of good cider, of which I am very fond—to say nothing of pure cider vinegar, without chemicals—and I hope my lovely dairy maids will excuse me for saying that I dare venture to hazard a guess a little snuff, dropped ever so delicately into the churn and cheese-tub, though it may enrich the color, “by no manner or means” can brighten the flavor of your milk-meats.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1858-

If there is a widow in your neighborhood, or a poor, hard-working family, whose homestead is necessarily bare of the comforts of your orchard and garden, be sure that you do not forget them. Remember, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Meanwhile, let cheerful gratitude mark your manner daily. You know not the power of kind, inspiriting words, falling like the golden sunshine upon young hearts. Such are the things which write pleasant memories for years when you shall be sleeping.

[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1858-

It is about time now to sow your winter grain—get good seed. Now gather pears, just before ripe, to ripen in the house; also apples, as they fall—and if you do not want them for cider, they are worth full as much for vinegar, or for fattening your hogs. Let none lie on the ground, for the grubs in them go into the earth, and will breed hosts next year. Cut your corn stalks as soon as the kernel is out of the milk. Gather your peas and beans.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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"Pure cider vinegar without chemicals" in 1857? What an interesting comment. I would have thought all cider vinegar back then was made without chemicals.

If you would like to make your own wholesome cider vinegar without chemicals, be sure to check out my online cidermaking photo tutorial. It so happens that cider vinegar is very easy to make and my family will soon have several gallons of it merrily fermenting itself into existence up on the usual shelf in our home.

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And the 1858 advice about inspiriting words falling like golden sunshine on young hearts is a beautiful bit of wisdom, don't you think?.

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—1867—What Young PeopleShould Know(Part 2)

2011-09-16T18:43:00.000-04:00

#49

A few weeks ago I posted Part 1 of this excerpt, and we learned what every boy in 1867 should know. Now we will learn what was important for every girl in the Agrarian Nation to know....

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Every girl should know how:

1. To sew and knit.

2. To mend clothes neatly.

3. To make beds.

4. To dress her own hair.

5. To wash dishes and sweep carpets.

6. To trim lamps.

7. To make good breads, and perform all plain cooking.

8. To keep her room, closets, and drawers, neatly in order.

9. To work a sewing machine.

10. To make good butter and good cheese.

11. To make a dress, and children’s clothes

12. To keep accounts, and calculate interest.

13. To write, fold, and superscribe letters properly.

14. To nurse the sick efficiently, and not faint at the sight of a drop of blood.

15. To be ready to render efficient aid and comfort to those in trouble, in an unostentatious way.

16. To receive and entertain visitors when her mother is sick or absent.

A young lady who can do all those things well, and who is always ready to render aid to the afflicted, and to mitigate the perplexities of those about her, will bring more comfort to others and happiness to herself, and be more esteemed, than if she only knew how to dance, simper, sing, and play the piano.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

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SEPTEMBER-1851 & 1852-Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

2011-09-12T05:47:00.000-04:00

#48

Farmer with sheaves of grain.

-1851-

Rise early. Stir your stumps. Brush, with hasty steps, the dews away at peep of dawn, my lively lads—who are skillful and expert at handling the arms of husbandry, not of war-murders; health and competence should be, and are the watchwords of all our stripling yeomen of hearty young Maine—not filthy lucre, and slothful ease and loaferism. Man must toil and suffer—it is right and best—but he may and can also enjoy and rejoice. Call up the dear lassie milkmaids to their kinely duties. The sweet breath of morn will bless their humble hearts with an overflow of joy that fashion’s painted puppets never knew—You cannot sow your winter rye too early in this month. Do not throw the feed corn of your hogs on the bare ground—it is too wasteful. While fattening swine, let them take charcoal.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1852-

Farmer, there is a voice that comes from your fields, and says, “The year shall crown thee with its blessings, oh world, whose happiness is my work. I have called forth the spring; the harvest is the work of my power; the fields which support thee, and the little hills covered with corn, are mine.” Now, my worthy friend, as you move along through your rich meadows, and witness these abounding blessings, these thousand delicious fruits, these comforts afforded you by kind Providence, say, does no grateful feeling arise in your heart? And do you not wake into joyful thanksgivings? O, if not, you are a moping plodder, a cold and cheerless husbandman! Away, away from the fields, and come not near them, until you can do it with a cheerful, thankful heart—grateful for blessings enjoyed.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

-1852-

The credit system is a sort of snare that poverty and pride set up to get away the people’s hard earnings.

[Maine Farmer's Almanac]

A "dear lassie milkmaid"

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