USA > Pennsylvania > Mifflin County > History of Mifflin County : its physical peculiarities, soil, climate, &c. ; including an early sketch of the state of Pennsylvania Volume I > Part 31
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HISTORY OF MIFFLIN COUNTY.
The green leaves of the growing plant absorb carbonic acid only, and expose it to the action of the sun's light. The oxygen is sep- arated from the carbonic acid, and is given out by the leaves. The carbon remains, and entering into the system of the plant increases its bulk.
The growth and vigor of a tree or plant depends on the rapidity with which this decomposition or digestion of carbonic acid takes place. The leaves must not only be exposed to the light, but must be green. Such plants as are grown in the dark are invariably fee- ble and destitute of strength and substance, and they are also with- out color. This is not owing to a deficiency of carbon, but while they absorb it from the air, the absence of sunshine prevents them from separating it.
Time for Planting Trees.
" Where the furrows are deep that the plow-share has made, Where the engines of war are the harrow and spade ; By the side of the hill where the brook sings its tune, And the violets grow in the sunshine of June ;
Where the soldiers of labor have homes on their lands, With their great, stalwart chests and their big, bony hands ; Where the farmer sits down in the stillness of even,
And his children sing songs to their Father in heaven."
The importance of this subject has led me to postpone it, that I can give it the attention its importance demands. This we now propose to do. Unless we do our tree planting at a proper time and in an appropriate manner, our outlay and labor are not only lost, but such time is irrecoverably gone. In treating of this sub- ject I shall include the experience of myself and others, and from the best scientific data now extant, and shall have occasion to draw on Prof. Lindlay's Vegetable Physiology and Chas. Downing's larger works on fruits. Nature's laws are invariable, and are never sus- pended nor repealed, and however much we may try to persuade her to violate them, she never does. Vegetable physiology holds to the same invariable laws, whether in the giant forest oak, the spread- ing fruit tree or the lowly mimosa. Like the laws of the Medes and Persians, they change not. Temperature, moisture, light, air, plant food, a distribution of the gases, and many other contingencies go to make up the conditions of success or failure in planting ever- green or deciduous trees, shrubs, vines or plants. We now, after weighing carefully all the conditions, recommend not only fall planting but early fall planting, even before the frosts have denuded
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the trees of their foliage. It is a well known fact that during au- tumn, as the atmosphere undergoes the process of cooling from its fervid summer heat, that the earth retains a temperature according to its composition and location, from twelve to fifteen degrees above that of the air, until actnal freezing takes place on the surface, and then the natural, inherent warmth of a healthy tree or plant will sometimes prevent the earth from freezing which comes in immedi- ate contact with it. A very marked instance of this occurred with the writer a few years since. The ground was deeply frozen, and I desired some bulbs of the Lillium Candidum to propagate from in my green-house, and they were in my garden without protection. Consequently the ground was frozen to the extreme limit of that winter's frost.
Procuring an old axe to cut out the frozen earth, I found an extremely hard surface frozen to the depth of about four inches, and immediately around a nest of the bulbs for about ten inches in diameter the earth was unfrozen, though below and on all sides it was extremely hard. I cite this instance to prove that in accord- ance with the known laws of vegetable physiology, plants and trees not only have an inherent warmth within themselves above that of the surrounding elements, but improve these conditions, continuing their growth throughout the winter to a certain extent. Hence we urge not only to plant in fall, but early fall, that the trees may have the advantage of this fall and winter growth, and replace to an extent the damage to the roots in the process of transplant- ing and be prepared for the extremes of drouth and heats of summer.
In the spring the reverse is the case. The earth is frozen cold and wet. The genial warmth of the approaching sun has not yet at spring planting time warmed the soil to facilitate an active root growth. The atmosphere is warmed by a pleasant sunshine from twelve to fifteen degrees above that of the soil, calling forth the bud, leaf and flower, while the earth is holding in check the neces- sary root growth to sustain them. In the fall the warm soil and the cooling atmosphere reverses these conditions, holding the bud and leaf in check while the roots continue to run out their tender fibres into the warm soil, and are thus prepared not only to withstand the winter, but the succeeding summer, which is the most trying time on recently transplanted trees.
Now, if we bear in mind the principles above stated, we shall not go far wrong in the time to plant trees. We see that we must
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get new roots to replace those lost in digging and handling the . trees. The old roots take up some moisture, but not much, as it is- nearly all supplied by the little mouths at the terminals of the young and tender rootlets. Again, do not plant in wet, rainy weather, but in a dry soil and in dry weather, that the finely pul- verized dry soil may be thoroughly mixed with the fine roots. The principles and practices above set forth from observations and ex- perience are very generally practiced in the moist and equable tem -. perature of England, where these conditions are less essential than in a hot, dry climate. But success must attend the process of trans- plantation when the work is done-when the earth is dry-that the soil in a finely comminuted state is adjustable to the small and del- icate rootlets. A perfect knowledge of the circulation of the blood, as given us by the celebrated Harvey, enables the surgeon to per- form amputation with safety to the patient.
A perfect knowledge of the flow and circulation of the sap which is the life blood of the tree or plant enables the horticulturist to amputate the limbs of trees and even the source of supply of food,. the roots, without danger to his patient, who is less in the powers of recuperation and endurance than the human plant operated on by the surgeon.
Pruning.
On my writing table lies an old, awkward pruning knife, with rusty blade and buck-horn handle, unused for some years. Some associations connected with it remind me of my school-boy days, when sundry little offshoots of misdemeanors were wiped off by our teachers, some graceless branches of boyish conduct cut back, and some of us needed ceaseless tending, cutting into shapes, severe -- ly pruned.
There are trees and boys whose natures are such that they can do with little pruning. They do not need to be watched ; they cost no trouble. But the human tree needs, as a rule, a great deal of pruning. Little, odd habits-therudiments of worse ones-need to be cut off and corrected, or we should grow to be crooked sticks, unamiable creatures. Happy the tree that bears pruning peace- ably and kindly. A good wife is the grand wielder of the moral pruning knife. Her advice is like the ballast to a ship. We may be pruned too much. Certain ugly knots may be left in the wood. But what would we have grown to be, had we always had our own way-if our boyish fancies had not been curtailed, pruned? What.
1
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an odd stick you, reader, would have become if left unpruned. But to our subject.
It is an ancient tradition that the idea of pruning was first suggested by a jackass browsing in an ancient vineyard on the trees and vines, and from the manner in which it is often done at present day, it would often seem as though the same teacher had given instructions to the pruner. It is difficult to give rules. I will attempt to give principles-the philosophy on which the system rests. It is a prevalent notion that the leaves of a tree, although ornamental, are of no essential benefit to the plant on which they grow, hence we hear the remark, "Pull off the leaves to ripen the fruit." Fatal error.
Fruits do not need the direct rays of the sun to ripen them. They are, in fact, superior in quality when they are shaded by the leaves. This is their natural conditions. The first principle in pruning is to know that the leaves and roots act reciprocally on each other, that they are both essential to the life of the tree as the lungs and stomach is to the animal, and that no great injury can be done to the one without injuring the other also. You can- not have a large, healthful foliage aud a diseased, injured root. The roots take up nourishment from the soil and furnish the tree with crude sap which is taken up by the sap vessels and distributed throughout the whole tree. The leaves digest and elaborate the sap. They also perspire and respire, exhale oxygen and inhale curbonic acid gas and ammonia from the atmosphere, and act as lungs and stomach. It is the descending sap that deposits new layers of wood and make, the tree grow.
We have an illustration of this. If we girdle a branch in June its diamater will increase rapidly above the girdled place but re- main stationary below it. The reason is the descending sap can- not pass the girdled place but remains above and there deposits the food it contains.
We have this invariable law, viz : That tree or plant is in the best condition that has the greatest superficial area of leaves. In a densely-crowded tree the leaves contain large superficial area but they are thin, small and imperfectly developed consequently do not perform their functious and the young shoots are small and slen- der. The same tree or plant if properly pruned, by removing the overcrowded branches and admitting the light, will have fewer leaves but they will be large and healthy and perform their func- tions properly, the shoots will be stout and stiff and the whole tree
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be healthful and vigorous. The roots will grow as the top and leaves do, for they act reciprocally. But if we prune too severely we will not have sufficient area of foliage to elaborate the sap, then the whole tree will suffer, at least for a season, until new wood is made and a sufficient area of leaves are formed. In cold climates and exposed situations, as in open western prairies, we should avoid severe pruning, and rather have our trees too thick than too thin, as a dense head affords considerable selfprotection. We should prune to form also. There are two opposite forces in trees -- the wood producing and the fruit producing. It is the nature of the young tree to grow vigorously and produce no fruit. By checking more or less the vigor and vitality of the tree, we check the wood- growth and produce fruit. When you endanger its life you en- hance its fruitfulness, hence the superstition of driving nails in the roots of trees, for certain purposes, will cause them to bear and sometimes kill them. Increased fruitfulness can best be produced by summer pruning. If we carry this summer pruning too far and remove to large a portion of the leaves we destroy also a large portion of the fibrous roots of the current season's growth. This is clearly seen in the over pruned grapevine.
I would not recommend pruning on pears at all. Better wait a few years until the tree gets age and size and it will bear of its own accord, or if it presistently refuses as some cases will, tie sight weights to the branches to check the circulation of the sap com- pelling them to form fruit buds. Neither would we favor root pru- ning to check the too rapid growth of wood especially in Mifflin county. All methods used to produce fruit at a very early period of a tree's life, are artificial and are produced to some extent at the expense of vitality of the tree bringing permature maturity and old age. When a tree has become feeble or exhausted from over- bearing or other causes, the leaves are small, pale and imperfect, and we may rest assured that the roots also are in an unhealthy state. The remedy is to head the tree down to a few buds or a few branches, depending on the size of the tree. Having thus only a small area of leaves they will be large and healthy, as all the strength of the roots will go into them. They in return will react on the roots and give in return a healthy root growth. This is fre- quently practised on exhausted peach trees with great success, also on the pear tree and grape vines.
Allow no tree to set more fruit than it is abundantly able to sup- port ; you will gain in quality what you lose in quantity, besides re- 21
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taining the vigor of your tree unimpaired for future crops. This was the principle exemplified by the old negro slave, who was caught eating a stolen turkey, who, when accused of the theft, re- plied, "No difference massa, what you lose in turkey you make up in nigger."
I do not regard early and profuse bearing as desirable, or even so profitable, however convenient it may be at the commencement.
THE BEST TIME TO PRUNE
Is a subject on which men differ, but all agree that it is best to avoid winter pruning. Early spring, before the sap starts, will do for small branches, but we must stop when the sap begins to flow ; the last of June and the first part of July for heavy pruning. The leaves have then performed their principal functions, and it is not so hard on the growth of the wood. One item more, and a most important one is do not prune too much. Pruning is more a source of, than a preventive of disease, in trees. We remember when the physician bled his patient for all and every disease. Now, it is rarely done. So, now, with pruning. If a tree does not bear and grows too rank, prune it ; if it is weakly and overbears, prune it; if it is threatened with blight, prune it; if you think your trees need something done to them, and yon do not know what, prune them. Better stop and inquire what you are pruning for. Why do you prune at all ? If your tree is not healthy, "dig about it and dung it." This is an ancient prescription from unquestionable au- thority, and the best discoveries of modern experience and science has not improved thereon.
Roses.
June is called the month of roses, but May sometimes commit a larceny, and robs June of her treasures. The rose has a scientific, historic, poetic and a practical history. We cannot treat of the rose without poetical aspirations. Not having the faculty of soaring on our own wings in that line to any great extent, we will content ourselves in this section to make a few choice culls from others.
"All Eden bright
With these her holy offerings, creations of the light As though some gentle angel commissioned love to bear, Had wondered o'er the green sward and left her foot prints there." Some as they went the blue eyed violets strew, Some spotless lilies in loose order threw"
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Some by the way with full bloom roses spread, Their smell divine, their color strangely red; Not such as our dull gardens proudly wear,
Whom weathers taint and winds rude kisses tear.
Such I believe were the first rose's hue, Which at God's word in beauteous Eden grew
Queen of the flowers that made that garden gay, The morning blushes of the spring's new day."
The origin of the red color of the rose is fancifully accounted for in various ways. By the Greeks therose was consecrated to Venus, the goddess of beauty, and ancient mythology attributes its red color to a drop of blood from the thorn-pierced foot of that goddess. " Which o'er the white rose being shed Made it forever after red."
Its beautiful tint is traced to another source by a modern poet.
" As erst in Eden's blissful bowers
Young Eve surveyed her countless flowers.
An opening rose of purest white She marked with eye that beamed delight;
Its leaves she kissed and straight it drew From beauteous lips its vernal hue."
The origin of the moss rose is thus described by a poet whose fanciful imaginings we envy :
" The angel of the flowers one day Beneath a rose tree sleeping lay,
That spirit to whose charge is given
To bathe young buds with dews from heaven, Awakening from his sligh repose, The angel whispered to the rose, 'O fondest object of my care, Still fairest found where all is fair, For the sweet shade thou has given me,
-
Ask what thou wilt, tis granted thee.'
Then said the rose, with deepened glow,
'O'er me another grace bestow.' The angel paused in silent thought, What grace was there this flower had not?
'Twas but a monent, o'er the rose
A veil of moss the angel throws, And robed in nature's simplest weed, Could there a flower that rose exceed ?"
But in this practical, utilitarian age very small doses of the fan- ciful mythologies of the ancients will suffice, hence we proceed to the practical part of our subject. Roses will succeed in any good,
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HISTORY OF MIFFLIN COUNTY.
garden soil, but to have them in perfection, it must be well enriched and deeply dug. The rose, like the vine, is a gross feeder, and is improved by heavy manuring. In a poor, lean soil it is impossi- ble to bring out the beauties of any variety. A rich, vegetable monld, with about one-fourth its bulk well rotted stable manure, is a standard soil for the rose.
The rose will flourish in any situation where the soil is prepared, but it is best if it can be shaded from the intensity of the midday sun. If it can be so situated as to receive the morning and even- ing sun, the bloom will be more perfect, and last longer. Some varieties are almost ruined by a full exposure ; they should not, however, be fully shaded. The best season for planting hardy roses is in the autumn ; or, if deferred till spring, it should be done very early. A young, healthy plant is better than an old one.
In this climate roses should be pruned early in the spring. All the old wood and weak growths of last year should be taken away.
The strong, young wood produces the finest flowers. Budded roses are not as desirable as those on their own roots. Botanical classification of roses is an impossibility. Each is appropriate in its proper sphere, whether it be the stately queen of the prairie, the blushing damask, the modest tea rose or the York and Lan- caster.
History of Fencing. ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.
The practical character of this subject leaves little scope for the imaginative and poetical, but confines the writer to the practical details of material, the modus operandi of construction, the statisti- cal dryness of cost, and synoptical reviews of legislation in this and other States and countries devoted to agriculture-the leading industry of every nation on the earth worthy of the name.
A general and historic review of this subject, in its relation to agri- culture in Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States, leads us to enquire as to its origin and practice by our ancestors, and to glance briefly at the primitive modes, when not only agri- culture, but the raee, were in their infancy.
Moses, addressing the Israelites a short time before his death, characterized the country to which they were going to reside as "a good land; a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, that spring out of the hills and valleys," and further adds that it was a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees, and
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pomegranates-a land of oil, olive and honey, whose stones are of iron, and out of whose hills they might dig brass. A plenty of wheat was promised to the Israelites on their obedience, and so abundant was the produce of wheat, that sixty and a hundred-fold rewarded the toil of the cultivator. This was sometimes stored in subterraneous granaries, which were termed the storehouses of the field.
Such granaries are still in use among the Moors. Thus we find agriculture to have been the leading industry in those primitive times, and in the thirty-second chapter of Jeremiah, B. C. 590 years, we find recorded the first record of a deed or written instrument in the sale of real estate.
Vineyard culture and stock raising, were also important indus- trial pursuits among the ancients. The time of Noah indicates the period of the first advance in the improvement in agricultural im- plements. From the silence of the Bible and ancient history, on the subject, we are led to infer that the subject of enclosures did not enter into the agricultural details, but that the shepherd and the herdsmen were the indispensable and only restraints on flocks and herds. In ancient Europe, among the Saxons, Visigoths and Lombards, and other warlike tribes, war was the honorable employ- ment, and the chase the principal mode of subsistence. Hence ag- riculture held an unimportant place in their economy, and partition lines, with the exception of limited enclosures for stock, were un- known. The favorite horse occupied the best part of the rude habi- tation, and the dog shared the couch of his lord and master. This state of rude and warlike chivalry existed not only in England, but Danes, Norwegians and Russians, and the then barbarous but sooner cultivated aborigines of the Emerald Isle, were in the same state of society. Religion retired to the cloister, and her hand- maid, science, as her companion, slept and were preserved through these rude times, till the light of the fourteenth century dawned on the nucertain moonlight glimmer of the former ages. The reform- ation dawned, the art of printing shed rays of light athwart the gloom. Old John Guttenburgh could not then see what his old wooden press of 1443 would develop when he was gone.
The polarity of the compass was discovered, and on the white sails of commerce the illumination spread from sea to sea, and from shore to shore, till the most benighted lands and nations were blessed with its effulgent rays. As civilization advanced in Europe, wars became the necessity and not the choice of the people, and the
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HISTORY OF MIFFLIN COUNTY.
chase was in a great measure, but very gradually, exchanged for the more eivilized employments and the comforts of domestic life ; and even pastoral employments were superseded by the settled acquisi- tion of property, and the roving tribes took settled nationalities, from whence the nations of modern Europe and this country are derived. As these nations grew from the condition of warlike savages to a pastoral people, and from a pastoral to an agricultural and manufacturing state of society, the necessity of the changes, brought about a necessity for permanent division lines, not only of estates, but of different parts of the estates that were to be used for different purposes.
Various modes for division lines at first presented themselves to these rude forefathers of Europe. Stone pillars, in as rude a form as the projectors of them, and the planting of trees to indicate the boundaries, were the first and perhaps the eotemporary means for this purpose.
Then, as agriculture progressed with advancing science and civili- zation, the efforts to reclaim the low and overflowed lands, as they were needed for occupaney by the increasing population, led to the construction of artificial water courses leading to the streams. These became boundaries, and the ditch became the division line, finally, of the uplands as well, and the planting of trees on its sides grew into the hedge and diteh of England, Ireland and Germany, France, Spain, and many other of the leading agricultural nations of the old world, as at the present time. The economy and per- manence of this mode has been proved by hundreds of years of ex- perienee, to be the best for the reason that the space can be used in cultivation. Repairs are unfrequent. The small trees planted on the margins can be and are topped for fuel, thus thickening their growth. And a large advantage is gained by the land owners and cultivators, amounting to a public blessing by them affording a rendezvous and nesting place for thousands of migratory insectiv- orons birds. Here, in proximity to water and the cultivated fields, they rear their broods from year to year, gathering the untold mil- lions of injurious insects from the soil and growing crops, to feed themselves and on which to rear their broods. The ditch prevails to greatest extent on flat lands, but the hedge has obtained in all these countries for hundreds of years.
The English hawthorn, the white thorn and the barberry are all used to a great extent in England and Germany. In France the holly is extensively used-as mueh, perhaps, as all the others com-
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bined, as it is peenliarly fitted for the climate of France and the sonthern regions of the United States, but will not endure our win- ter, north of forty degrees north latitude ; but where it will endure the climate, nothing can exceed in beauty the shining brilliancy of its broad, evergreen foliage and the reddish, sombre tints of its autumn shades.
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