Hunting crop

“ Although winter is approaching, and already many of the leaves are dropping from the boughs to wither and to perish, still the aspect of the forest is gay and brilliant, as if nature put on her most gorgeous garments at the very moment when death and decay are approaching.
While these scenes are presented to the eye, the farmer is busy in gathering his crop of Indian corn, digging his potatoes, and securing the pumpkins, squashes, beets, and other vegetables of the garden. The migratory birds have departed, but the whistle of the quail is heard at morning and evening. ”

“ Not so with many of the animals, however, which soon work their way to the surface. Some of these attack the growing plants which have been made to occupy the place of those destroyed by the plough. Others take wing and seek suitable food in adjoining districts where they add to the numbers already drawing upon the vegetation up to the point of possible continued supply. Here, then, the scales begin to vibrate. In the field the new and tender crop entices the ever-shifting individuals of myriads of forms that have been crowded out elsewhere. ”

“ Indian bands hunted, dug roots, and pastured their ponies. Quick to recognize the productivity of the soil, the newcomers staked claims, strung miles of barbed-wire fences, and set to work breaking the sod, in the meantime turning their cattle out on the range to fatten. Within a few years, thousands of acres had been planted to wheat and were producing exceptional yields. Wheat continues to be the chief crop of the region. In the spring the entire countryside, seen from an eminence, is a checkerboard of green fields and dark brown squares of fallow land. ”

“ During the various processes to which the ground is subjected in preparation [Pg 70] for the crop, they repeat their visits, spreading more widely over the field, and not only pick up the grubs which lie on the surface, but bore for such as, by certain signs best known to themselves, lie concealed. I need not say that in all these stages the wisdom of the farmer is to offer them every inducement to remain; all that they ask is to be let alone. ”

“ In harrowing the ground, one man is required to lead the horses, and another to direct the harrows. In rich soil, under cultivation of green crop, in this manner, trees progress very rapidly, and from the open arrangement acquire very healthy constitutions. Of course, when not coniferæ, the plants require a little more attention to train to one leader and equality of feeders, than when close planted. ”

“ They're busting big trees, and just breaking down with the finest crop ever known, and with never a single fellow brave enough up to this time to go there and gather the harvest. Why, when I heard what that man had to say about it, I was fairly wild to be off. And believe me, boys, we'll make the eyes of the other fellows stick out of their heads like fun when they see what an enormous supply of nuts we've gathered for next winter around the fire. ”

“ Viewed from some impossible altitude, the great, green corn fields were broken here and there by smaller fields of wheat, in which some venturesome farmer reaped a little crop hardly indigenous to that black soil, and to the eastward, over the broad pastures of virgin prairie, blocky cattle browsed and fattened at their leisure. ”

“ First, while the Pawnees, from their situation, [Pg 61] are still enabled and disposed to go upon the summer hunt, they are already engaged to a small extent, and with encouraging success, in the raising of vegetables and garden products, and even of corn and wheat. Two hundred and ten acres were planted by them last year in the several crops.
Second, while the chiefs and braves of the tribe still look to their traditional resource of hunting, the children of the tribe generally are being carefully instructed in letters and in labor. ”

“ As plants the cereals are weaklings. They must be coddled and weeded. For their reception the ground must be plowed and harrowed, and sometimes it must be cultivated after the crop is planted. This must be done for every harvest. When we produce these crops upon hilly land, the necessary breaking up of the soil prepares the land for ruin—first the plow, then rain, then erosion. Finally the desert.
CAN WE GET ECONOMICS INTO BOTANY?
Must we continue to depend primarily upon the type of agriculture handed to us by primitive woman? It is true that we have improved the old type. ”

“ Many a crop of grain and comfortable homestead has been saved by turning a furrow round the field; and great conflagrations have been effectually stopped by men beating the fire out with spades, and hoeing up the fresh earth so as to cut off all communication with the dry roots, grass, and leaves that feed its onward progress. ”

“ In the afternoons and evenings, we took breezy gallops through the forests, along the boundary sward of the fields, across the rich black soil of that third of the land which, in the "three-field" system of cultivation, is allowed to lie fallow after it has borne a crop of winter grain, rye, and one of summer grain, oats. ”

“ You see wheat stacks, ten feet high, moving slowly, and while you are wondering, you become aware of four feet moving below them; for all the crop is carried on horses’ if not on human backs. I went to see several threshing-floors,—clean, open spaces outside barns,—where the grain is laid on mats and threshed by two or four men with heavy revolving flails. Another method is for women to beat out the grain on racks of split bamboo laid lengthwise ”

“ When the water has entirely disappeared, a crop of luxuriant herbage takes its place, affording pasture for the cattle of the neighboring farmers, who are thus enabled to reap where before they went a-fishing. ”

“ It was the assured possession of its fluvial crop that peopled the valley, for not only did this manna of the wilderness tide over the waiting interval between seed time and harvest, but, salted or smoked, afforded a winter supply of nourishing food that during the felling of the forest and the clearing of the land sustained the strength of the industrious pioneer. ”

“ We hope more of your men will assist in clearing and fencing land, and planting it with corn; also sowing it with wheat; you will then have a supply of provision, more certain to depend upon than hunting.
“‘Brothers,—We are pleased to see your stock of cattle increased. The rich bottoms on the river will be plenty for them to live on in the summer season; but, as your winters are long and cold, it will require something for them to live on in the winter. The white people keep their cattle on hay, on straw, and on corn fodder. Straw you cannot get, until you have raised wheat or other grain ”

“ Poor light Land, by the common Husbandry, must be very well cultivated and manur’d, to maintain Wheat for a whole Year, which is the usual Time it grows thereon; and if it be sown late, the greatest Part of it will seldom survive the Winter, on such Land; and if it be sown very early on strong Land, tho’ rich, well till’d, and dung’d, the Crop will be worse than on the poor light Land sown early. ”

“ And, by the way, who estimates the value of the crop which nature yields in the still wilder fields unimproved by man? The crop of English hay is carefully weighed, the moisture calculated, the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and pond holes in the woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and various crop only unreaped by man. Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was, though not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. ”

“ The same Effect follows when they prepare Land for Turneps, since they are come in Fashion, and sow them several Times upon several Plowings, the Fly as often taking them off; they have from such extraordinary Tillage a good Crop of Wheat, instead of the lost Turneps, without the Help of Dung; hence double-plowing is now become frequent in this Country.
The Reason why Land is enrich’d by lying long unplow’d, is that so very few Vegetables are carried off it, very little being produc’d; the Exhaustion is less than what is added by the Atmosphere, Cattle, &c. ”

“ It is a fact well known to every intelligent farmer, that infield or croft land, that is land, which, having been earliest cultivated, was, of course, the best soil at first, and which has also been long highly manured at the cost of the outfield, and therefore containing much oleaginous and other matter, products of organization, produces grasses and other vegetables much more nutritive to cattle than the outfield, even though these vegetables be of the same species, and by reason of more careful culture of those of the outfield, also of the same size of plant. ”

“ Sometimes the oldest man in the house cuts the first five bundles of the crop, and they are afterwards left in the field for the birds to eat. And at the end of harvest the last one or two sheaves are left standing in the field, and any one who likes can cut and carry them away. In some localities the last stalks are left standing in the field and are known as barhona or the giver of increase. Then all the labourers rush together at this last patch of corn and tear it up by the roots; everybody seizes as much as he can and keeps it, the master having no share in this patch. ”

“ In the interior his chief dependence is on his cattle; and as grass is the main produce of his farm, his anxiety during the haymaking season is extreme. A bad crop would be almost ruin. He is, however, wofully ignorant of agriculture as a science, does but little for the improvement of the soil, and employs implements of the most primitive character. ”

“ The soil itself is red, and the grass grows so sparsely that the color of the ground crops up, giving impression of general sun-blight, broken here and there by the glimmering moonlight gray of an olive orchard, or the dark-green of an orange garden. The huts of the farmers are built of the red clay; the clothing of the population appears to be of the undyed wool of the brown sheep, while to add to the prevailing russet hue, the general occupation seems to be that of herding pigs on the plains—and the pigs are hideously brown also. ”

“ In the field of the agriculturist it is the same story. The earth which brings forth its crop of unwholesome weeds so bountifully, resists man's approaches when he strives to bring it under cultivation. Only by the most careful attention can useful grains be made to grow where the wildlings swarmed in profusion. Not only do wind and rain, blighting heat and withering cold menace the crops ”

“ Farming was confined to the sandy soil in the stream bottom land. All farming was a man’s job except the harvest when women helped. A two-handed planting stick was used. Corn was eaten green, roasted or dried and shelled by women. ”

“ When we were not on the trail taking large herds of cattle or horses to market or to be delivered to other ranches we were engaged in range riding, moving large numbers of cattle from one grazing range to another, keeping them together, and hunting up strays which, despite the most earnest efforts of the range riders would get away from the main herd and wander for miles over the plains before they could be found, overtaken and returned to the main herd. ”

“ I am quite sure that the most skillful hunter would have found no game had he scoured this and the adjoining fields, even with trained dogs; no trapper would have deigned to set a snare anywhere about the place, and the naturalist would have considered the outlook most unpromising. As in every farming district, here were acres of corn-fields, wheat-fields, truck-patch, and pasture, and nothing but grass or growing crops to relieve the monotony of the landscape. ”

“ Yucca pods, cactus fruits, berries, roots and seeds all have their uses. Medicinal herbs are also gathered as well as plants that will be needed for dying cotton cloth and buckskin. Bundles of drying plants hang on the walls of every house.
During the summer there was little hunting, for the deer and mountain sheep drifted north into the higher country. Now they are returning and as soon as the harvest is over, the men begin to lay in the winter’s supply of meat. Hunting parties vary in size from one man to all of the men in the town and there are always important ceremonial preparations. ”

“ There are other and newer clearings beyond the ranges and out of sight, but here all that is visible is very much trimmer and neater in appearance than our farm.
Over three parts of the basin the plough has passed. About one-half is under wheat, maize, and other crops, while the grass on the remainder looks wonderfully rich, freed as it is from stumps, drained, and, to a measurable extent, levelled. Cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs are feeding in the paddocks.
We eye the scene with great admiration, and even envy. This is the sort of thing our farm ought to be, and will be. ”

“ The fields are richly cultivated, and the soil naturally rich, till you approach the sea, where it becomes sandy and barren. Even here, however, I found, in the midst of a forest of oaks, a beautiful thriving farm belonging to the grand duke. It is true, there was not much cultivation, owing to the thinness of the soil; but there were immense herds of horned cattle, sheep and wild horses which roamed at large through the woods, and over the desert tracts along the shore, and, what surprised me most of all, about two hundred camels. ”

“ He had put four years of his life into making this farm out of nothing, four years of incredible toil, energy, and young enthusiasm. He had a good dwelling, and spacious corrals, an orchard started, a truck garden, a barley field, a pasture, cattle, sheep, chickens, horses—all his creation from nothing. ”