Sharecropper

“ Hemp at this date was still grown in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and Marshall tells us that in 1803 there was a considerable quantity of hemp grown in Shropshire. [560] In that county there was a small plot of ground, called 'the hemp-yard,' appendant to almost every farm-house and to many of the best sort of cottages. Whenever a cottager had 10 or 15 perches of land to his cottage, worth from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a year, with the aid of his wife's industry it enabled him to pay his rent. A peck of hempseed, costing 2s., sowed about 10 perches of land, and this produced from 24 to 36 lb. ”

“ If it is a fresh, recently cleared piece of fertile soil, under favorable conditions, I am satisfied you don't need very much in the way of inter-cropping. On the other hand, if you select for your orchard site a piece of land that has been worked to death, I believe it would be well to inaugurate a system of inter-cropping that would have for its object the building up of that soil and the improvement of the environment for the roots of those trees. In the South, we are favored with twelve months of growing weather. We plant our crops throughout the year. ”

“ The amount of earth-scrap collected on any estate will depend, all other things being equal, upon the labour expended in its collection. Certainly on well-organised estates, having ample labour, the amounts collected are huge in comparison with other estates. The ground at the base of the tree below the latex-spout is systematically turned over with pointed sticks and large clots of rubber are often picked up. Here, again, it is advised that the collected earth-scrap should not be allowed to remain in heaps upon the floor of the factory. ”

“ No spruce shall be used for bridges, corduroy, skids, slides, or for any purpose except building camps, dams or booms, unless it is absolutely necessary on account of lack of other timber. (7) All merchantable spruce used for skidways must be cut into logs and hauled out. (8) Contractors must not do any unnecessary damage to young growth in lumbering; and if any is done, they must discharge the men who did it.
These two instances of forestry have been most useful and effective among lumbermen and other owners of forest land in the north-east. ”

“ To drive three hundred yards of a heading large enough for a stooping man to pass through, would be a simple matter to men who had shown the skill of these conspirators. The soil was light and sandy, and they could use without suspicion as much timber as they required to shore up their work. It was true they would have to pass under the railway, but that again was a matter of timbering. ”

“ The construction work indicated above, which should be done by the Homecroft Reserve in the locations named, should be carried forward simultaneously with the work of reclaiming or preparing for cultivation in acre tracts and building the cottage homes on the lands set apart for the establishment of the Homecroft Reserves thereon. A part of the men should be engaged in this work while others were engaged on the projects above specified for the construction of which their labor would be utilized. ”

“ A timber cruiser would come into the community, prospecting for a lumber company, and examine the standing timber. After he reported back to the company, a lawyer was sent to sound out the landowners—to see if they were willing to sell their surface rights. When the legal matters were attended to, the lumber company sometimes bought as much as seventy thousand acres of forest. Woodsmen were brought in to work along with the mountain men. Portable sawmills were set up and busy hands—sawyers, choppers—set to work leveling the giant trees. ”

“ Harry and Fairchild made their trips, scrambling ones as they went outward, struggling ones as they came back, dragging the "stulls" or heavy timbers which would form the main supports, the mill-stakes, or lighter props, the laggs and spreaders, all found in the broken, well-seasoned timber of the mountain side, all necessary for the work which was before them. The timbering of a mine is not an easy task. ”

“ About twenty carpenters were gathered up along the line of the railroad and brought into the relief work. The plan of procedure was for the farmer to receive the lumber, paper, windows, hardware, etc., for a ‘shack’ and haul it to his farm. Then one carpenter would be sent to the place to direct operations and with the farmer and his neighbors helping, the ‘shack’ would be quickly completed. If two or three ‘shacks’ were to be in a group, one carpenter could supervise all at once. ”

“ It was so natural to him that he did not hesitate to point it out on his neighbour's premises, as when he saw a pig without a ring in its nose. A road-scraper was always on the road leading to the house and farmyard, and everyone was expected to use it, or would be reminded to do so, removing dirt on to the grass. All were trained to put farm implements under cover and to fix waggon and cart shafts up by a chain. ”

“ The tree stub made the back of the pen, and over the top had been thrown a small armful of green spruce boughs, some of which the builder had broken off himself, and some of which he had taken from the neatly cut boughs that Pretty Shells had used to cover the top of one of her reconstructed cubbies which he had destroyed.
A practised woodsman, a pretty able wildcrafter, had built the bait cabin, but his job had been carelessly done. His ax work had not been very accurate. His carelessness would be obvious to any observer. ”

“ Leaving out the doubtful value of cover-crops in increasing the supply of plant-food and thereby producing an increase in yield, there are at least three ways in which cover-crops are valuable in the vineyard. Thus, it is patent to all who have tried cover-crops in the vineyard that the land is in much better tilth and more easily worked when some green crop is turned under in fall or spring ”

“ After the first rush to the placers, and when the building of permanent towns had fairly commenced, lumber fit for building purposes became in great demand, and in the forest near the sea coast, where transportation was readily obtainable, immense camps sprung up, and the scenes of the flush times in the mines were repeated. Lumber was worth hundreds of dollars per thousand feet, and money was gained and lost with a lavishness and rapidity almost incredible in these days. ”

“ The wood-cutters from the mines vied with those from the city—joiners, carpenters, wheelwrights, and coopers—in thinning the dense masses of beautiful forest trees as rapidly as possible. Burghers and others, aided by the gaunt-looking mining people, with earth-stained clothes and red night-caps on their heads, were loading the long heavy trunks upon drays that stood in readiness, and driving them off with all speed towards the town. ”

“ Acting on the information thus gained by the cruiser, the lumberman purchases his sections at the proper land office, or if he is less scrupulous, buys only enough to serve as a basis for operations. Enormous fortunes have been made by timber thieves, now respectable members of the community. As a further preliminary step to lumbering itself, the tote road and camp are built. The tote road is a rough road on which supplies for crew and cattle can be taken to camp from civilization. ”

“ A goodly cantle of Shropshire lies at our feet, like a map unfurled on a table; its heights and hollows beautifully diversified by cornfields and orchards, verdant pastures and ruddy plough-fields; while in and between the green hedgerows are seen, like the meshes of a huge net.
Towards the east, the landscape is sadly marred by the smoke of the Shropshire coalfield; so we turn to the opposite quarter, where the Wrekin, falling away by Primrose Hill, bathes his feet in the silver Severn. ”

“ The constant demand for lumber for building purposes in every settlement necessitated the building of saw-mills, and in each township, wherever there was a creek or stream upon which a sufficient head of water could be procured to give power, there was a rude mill, with its single upright saw. Getting out logs in the winter was a part of the regular programme of every farmer who had pine timber, and in spring, for a short time, the mill was kept going, and the lumber taken home. ”

“ A contract was let in the same year to Sampson Crooker for the construction of a building thirty feet by fifty, but for want of means the frame stood as a skeleton for two years afterward, when the structure was at last finished. ”

“ For the classification of the lands on a big project a surveyor and a lineman, one or more timber cruisers, and an expert from the Bureau of Soils constitute the crew. As a result of this work over 1,100 individual tracts within the Forests were made available for entry under the Forest Homestead Act during the fiscal year 1916, because this land was found to have a greater value for growing agricultural crops than for growing timber. ”

“ Leaving the mill with its distracting noise, we ascended the main logging road towards Passaconaway. It follows Downes Brook southward, now clinging to one hillside, then crossing the ice-bound torrent by a rude but massive bridge of spruce logs to stay for a while on the opposite bank. On each side the timber had been cut and hauled away. The survival of the unfittest is the rule in the forest after the lumber thief has been through it. He leaves the crooked, the feeble, and the diseased trees, and packs around their roots the fertilizing branches and tops of the logs which he hauls away. ”

“ In these parts the cottages must be built low, and the nearly flat roof of boards, fastened with long projecting wooden pins, must be farther secured by very heavy stones—a precaution employed for the same reason among the mountains of Switzerland. The soil must never be lightened for the reception of the seed, otherwise it would scarcely fail to be blown away like dust. The poor, shallow, hard ground therefore can scarcely be expected to produce good crops ”

“ In most cases the forge is surrounded on all sides with a forest which yields the wood necessary for the manufacture of the charcoal, and is in the vicinity of the iron quarry, so as to reduce the expense of hauling the ore as much as possible. ”

“ He had never seen it before; it was two or three miles from the highroad and seemed to be a virgin wilderness. But on close examination he could see, with the eye of a boy bred in a mining district, that the wall of outcrop had not escaped the attention of the mining prospector. There were marks of his pick in some attractive quartz seams of the wall, and farther on, a more ambitious attempt, evidently by a party of miners, to begin a tunnel, shown in an abandoned excavation and the heap of debris before it. ”

“ In making fills it is nearly always the best plan to build a temporary trestle of round pieces of beech, cottonwood or other cheap trees, old bridge or building timber, or other second-class lumber, and then filling in with the side dump cars. By adopting this plan the unloading will progress much more rapidly than by dumping from the end of a fill, where only one car at a time can be unloaded. These trestles are inexpensive, and the [48] saving in labor and time in making the fill will amply repay their cost. ”

“ In driving from Chapel Farm you feel, when you reach the gate, you are in the busy world again, and when you reach the hand-post and turn to Eastthorpe you are in the full tide of life, although not a soul is to be seen. Opposite the house were the farm-buildings and the farmyard. The gate to the right of the farm-buildings led into the meadow, and thus anybody sitting in the front rooms could see the barges slowly and silently towed from the sea to the uplands and back again, the rising ground beyond, and so on to Thingleby, whose little spire just emerged above the horizon. ”

“ But that is one of the clever phrases which sounds well to the defenders of the nation's forests, and vet, because of the difficulty of enforcing it, has not prevented the purcnase of the land for the benefit of lumber companies.
It is commonly reported that large tracts of timber have been taken up at the instance of wealthy companies who have employed cruisers to locate people on the land with the understanding that sales were to be made to the company. ”

“ We will have it four feet long, and six inches wide. It will be large enough to accommodate some other tools.”
“Are we to make them of these old box-covers?” asked Ned Bellows.
“The shelves are to be permanent, and we will make them of new lumber. You need just twelve superficial feet of board, with a sufficient allowance for waste. The latter item is one of great importance to the carpenter; for a man may waste more lumber than would suffice to pay his wages, by being careless, or using bad judgment. We will go to the lumber-shed, and see what we can find.”
Mr. Brookbine led the way. ”

“ The wagons were out-spanned, hidden in the garden of the farm, and the men were allowed to snatch two hours' sleep.
The farm at Scheerpan looks across an open plain to a long ridge about 2 miles off. This ridge (known as Busch Kop) is crossed at the right end of it (as you look from the farm) by a road from the north-east. To the left of the road the ridge is covered with very thick bush for some distance. A sugar-loaf hill and a small kopje stand in front of the ridge at about the centre. At the extreme left end a spur runs out from the ridge into the plain. ”