Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924073896619 oe a Ase ADVANCE SHEETS OF The Natural History of the Farm _ BY JAMES G. NEEDHAM + Issued for temporary use of students in the New York State College of Agri- culture. The completed volume will shortly be issued by the Comstock Pub- ishing Company of Ithaca, N. Y. 9 New York State College of Agriculture At Gornell University Ithaca, N. Y. Library THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM. The Natural History of the Farm A Guide to the Practical Study of the Sources of Our Living in Wild Nature. By JAMES G. NEEDHAM PROFESSOR OF LIMNOLOGY, GENERAL BIOLOGY AND NATURE STUDY IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY ITHACA, N. Y. THE COMSTOCK PUBLISHING COMPANY 1913 CYBELE Spirit of th’ raw and gravid earth, Whenceforth all things have breed and birth, From palaces and cities great From pomp and pageantry of state Back I come with empty hands Back unto your naked lands. —L. H. Baley. COPYRIGHT, I913 BY THE COMSTOCK PUBLISHING COMPANY PREFACE. ‘This is a book on the sources of agriculture. Some there may be who, deeply immersed in the technicalities of modern agricultural theory and practice, have forgotten what the sources are; but they are very plain. Food and shelter and clothing are obtained now, in the main, as in the days of the patriarchs. Few materials of livelihood have been either added or eliminated The same great groups of animals furnish us flesh and milk and wool; the same plant groups furnish us cereals, fruits and roots, cordage and fibres and staves. The beasts browsed and bred and played, the plants sprang up and flowered and fruited then as now. We have destroyed many to make room for a chosen few. We have selected the best of these and by tillage and care of them we have enlarged their product and greatly increased our sustenance, but we have not changed the nature or the sources of it. Tosee, as well as we may, what these things were like as they came to us from the hand of nature is the chief object of this course. A series of studies. for the entire year is offered in the following pages. Each deals with a different phase of the life of the farm. In order to make each one pedagogically practical, a definite program of work is.outlined. In order to insure that the student shall have something to show for his time, a definite form of record is suggested for each practical exercise. In order to encourage spontaneity, a number of individual exercises are included which the student may pursue independently. The studies here offered are those that have proved most useful, or that are most typical or that best illustrate field-work methods. There may be enough work in some of them for more than a single field trip: 6 HISTORY OF FARM many of them will bear repetition with new materials, or in new situations. Each one includes a brief introductory statement to be read, and an outline of work to be performed. In all of them, it is the doing of the work outlined—not the mere reading of the text—that will yield satisfactory educa- tional results. The work of this course is not new. Much work of this sort has been done, and well done, as nature-study, in various institutions at home and abroad. But here is an attempt to integrate it all, and to show its relation to the sources of our living. So it is the natural history, not of the whole range of things curious and interesting in the world, but of those things that humankind has elected to deal with as a meansof liveli- hood and of personal satisfaction in all ages. These are the things we have to live with: they are the things we have to live by. They feed us and shelter us and clothe us and warm us. They equip us with implements for manifold tasks. They endow us with a thousand delicacies and wholesome comforts. They unfold. before us the cease- less drama of the ever changing seasons—the informing drama of life, of which we are a part. And when in our rude farming operations, we scar the face of nature to make fields and houses and stock pens they offer us the means whereby, though changed, to make it green and golden again—a fit environment wherein to dwell at peace. In the belief, that an acquaintance with these things would contribute to greater contentment in and enjoyment of the farm surroundings and to a better rural life, this course was prepared. The original suggestion of it came from Director L. H. Bailey of the New York State College of Agriculture. It was first given in that college by me in codperation with Mrs. J. H. Comstock. To both these good naturalists, and to all those who have helped me as assistants, I am greatly indebted for valuable suggestions. James G. NEEDHAM. CONTENTS. PIelaces dees gia sme alera cians wees weds varoian Garena satis age GCoritents: insu mayer Stage othe Pesarecaeld sialon aeeearaueae e's ae PART I. STUDIES FOR THE FALL TERM: October—January 1. Mother Earth ................. age g with Study 1 on pagel 2. The wild fruits of thefarm....... is iB oe oe 2 i a 3. The wild nuts of thefarm........ S24, 3 3 30 4. Thefarm stream ............... “32 “ oe OO) ae 5. The fishes of the farm stream..... “46 “5 “ 48 6. Pastureplants ................ i 52 “6 “ 56 7. The wild roots of thefarm ....... “58S ny ee) 8. The November seed-crop ....... “ 66 “ “8 “ 69 .g. The deciduous treesin winter.... ‘ 71 “ “9 “ 76 10. Thefarm wood lot.............. ey bee “to “ 78 11. The fuel woods of thefarm....... “ 8: “ “i “ 86 12. Winter verdure of thefarm...... “go “ “12 “. g2 13. The wild mammalsofthefarm... ‘ 96 “ “ 13“ 100 14. The domesticated mammals ..... “oo “ ee 15. Thefowlsofthefarm........... “oo “ aa (ne 16. Farmlandscapes .............. “oo ‘ “16 * Individual exercises for the Fall Term (Optionals) 1. Astudent’s record of farm operations............. page oo 2. Noteworthy views of thefarm................... “00 3. Noteworthy trees of thefarm ................... “00 4. Autumnal coloration and leaffall................ “00 5. Acalendar of seed dispersal.............-.-2005 “00 PART II. STUDIES FOR THE SPRING TERM: February—May. 17. The lay of the land ............ page oo, with study 17 on page 00 18. The deciduous shrubsofthefarm ‘ oo “ “18 “00 19. Winter activities of wildanimals.. “ oo “ “ 19 “ .00 20. Acoating ofice ................ “oo “20 “ 00 21. Maplesap and sugar bush ....... 00. * ear ™ (00 22. Nature’s soil conserving operations ‘‘ oo “ “22 “ 00 23. The passing of the trees ......... “oo “23 +“ 00 24. Fiber products of the farm...... “oo ‘ “24 “oo 25. Outin therain................. “oo “ “25 +“ 00 26. Aspring brook..............-.. “oo “26 “ 00 8 HISTORY OF FARM 27. Nature’s offerings for spring pas Pp. 00 with study s) on page 00 oO 28. A cut-over wood-land thicket . 0 28 oo 29. Wild spring flowers of the farm . “oo “* “29 +“ 00 30. What goes on in the apple blossoms “ 00 “ “30 ‘ 00 31. Thesong birdsofthefarm ...... “eo “ at <3E “00 32. Theearly summer landscape .... “ oo “ “32 «= 00 Individual Exercises for the Spring Term (Optionals) 1. Acalendar of bird return ................0.0006- page oo 2. Acalendar of spring growth.............-...004- * 00 3. Acalendar of spring flowers................0005- 00 4. Noteworthy wild flower beds of thefarm.......... 00 5. Noteworthy flowering shrubs of the farm......... 00 PART III. STUDIES FOR THE SUMMER TERM: June—October. 33. The progress of the season ...... page 00, with Study 33 on page io Ba THE ClOVETS 5 6 sess: se iensd ee dese 8 oh oo 34 35. Wild pot herbsofthefarm....... 8 6p eB oNt Ae be 36. The treesinsummer............ “oo “ “36 ‘00 B72. WIGEGS We sarduaisctiuies = Ahtaces aigeon “eo “ “37 * — 00 38. Summer wild flowers............ “oo “ “38 ‘00 39. Someinsects at workonfarmcrops ‘“‘ oo “ “39 ~=©6*—s 00 40. Some insects that pester farm ani- GALS” site as ae ides outers eos Me OO! “40 “00 41. The wild berries of summer ...... “oo “ “ar “00 42. Natural pruning ............... “oo “ “42, ** 00 43. The shadows of the woods ....... “00 ‘ “43 “00 44. The brambles.................. “eo “ “44 =~“ 00 45. The population of anoldappletree ‘“ oo ‘‘ “45 ‘“ 00 46. The little brook gonedry ........ “oo “ “46 00 47. Swimming holes ............... ‘00 * “47 “00 48. Winding roads................. “00 “ “48 “ oo Individual Exercises for the Summer Term (Optionals) z Aprass CAlENAR' i, O29 wenn ocd de Noo ee ky aes . Acalendar of summer wild flowers,............... . Best crops of the farm . Acorn record I 2 3. Acalendar of bird nesting ..................0008 4 5 page 00 I. MOTHER EARTH. “Brother, listen to what we say. There was a time when our forefathers owned this great land. Their seats extended from the rising to the setting sun. The Great Spirit had made it for the use of the Indians. He had created the buffalo and the deer and other animals for food. He had made the bear and the beaver. Their skins served us for clothing. He had scattered them over the country and had taught us how to take them. He had caused the earth to produce corn for bread. All this he had done for his red children because he loved them.”’ —From the great oration of ‘‘Red Jacket,’ the Seneca Indian, on The Religion of the White Man and the Red. If you ever read the letters of the pioneers who first settled in your locality when it was all a wilderness (and how recent was the time!) you will find them filled with discussion of the possibilities of getting a living and establishing a home there. Were there springs of good water there? Was there native pasturage for the animals? Was there fruit? Was there fish? Was there game? Was there timber of good quality for building? Was the soil fertile? Was the climate health- ful? Was the outlook good? Has it ever occurred to you how, in absence of real estate and immigration agencies, they found out about all these things? They sought this information at its source. They followed up the streams. They foraged: they fished: they hunted. They measured the boles of the trees with eyes experienced in woodcraft. They judged of what nature would do with their sowings by what they saw her doing with her own native crops. And having found a sheltered place with a pleasant outlook and with springs and grass and forage near at hand, they built a dwelling and planted a garden. Thus, a new era of agriculture was ushered in. Your ancestors were white men who came from another continent and brought with them tools and products and traditions of another civilization. Their tools, though simple, were efficient. Their axes and spades and needles 10 HISTORY OF FARM and shears were of steel. Their chief dependence for food was placed in cereals and vegetables whose seeds they brought with them from across the seas. Their social habits were those of a people that had long known the arts of tillage and husbandry: their civilization was based on settled homes. But they brought with them into the wilderness only a few weapons, a few tools, a few seeds and a few animals, and for the balance and continuance of their living they relied upon the bounty of the woods, the waters and the soil. A little earlier there lived in your locality a race of red men whose cruder tools and weapons were made of flint, of bone and of copper; who planted native seeds (among them the maize, the squash, and the potato) and whose traditions were mainly of war and of the chase. These were indeed children of nature, dependent upon their own hands for obtaining from mother earth all their sustenance. There was little division of labor among them. Each must know (at least, each family must know) how to gather and how to prepare as well as how to use. Today you live largely on the products of the labors of others. You get your food, not with sickle and flail and spear, but with a can-opener, and you eat it without even an inkling of where it grew. So many hands have intervened between the getting and the using of all things needful, that some factory is thought of as the source of them instead of mother earth. Suppose that in order to realize how you have lost connection, you step out into the wildwood empty handed, and look about you. Choose and say what you will have of all you see before you for your next meal? Where will you find your next suit of clothes and what will it be like? Ah, could you even improvise a wrapping, and a string with which to tie it, from what wild nature offers you? These are degenerate days. One had to know things in order to live in the days of the pioneer and the Indian. But MOTHER EARTH Il now one may live without knowing anything useful, ifheonly possess a few coins of the realm and have access to a depart- ment store. “Back to nature’ has therefore become the popular cry, and vacations are devoted to camping out, and to “foraging off to the country’ as a means of restoration. But for- tunately it is not necessary to go to the mountains or to the frontier in order to get back to nature; for nature is ever with us at home. She raises our crops with her sunshine and soil and air and rain, and turns not aside the while from raising her own. While we are engrossed with ,‘‘developing”’ our clearings and are planting farms and cities and shops, she goes on serenely raising her ancient products in the bits of land left over: in swamp and bog, in gulch and dune, on the rocky hillside, by the stream and in the fence row. There she plants and tends her cereals and fruits and roots and there she feeds her flocks. Wherever we leave her an opening ° she slips in a few seeds of her own choosing, and when we abandon a field, she quickly populates it again with wild things. They begin again the same old lusty struggle for place and food, and of our feeble and transient interference, soon there is hardly a sign. As for the wild things, therefore,—the things that so largely made up the environment of the pioneer and the red man, we need but step out to the borders of our clearing to find most of them. But if any one would share in the experience of prime- val times he must work at these things with his own hands. To gain an acquaintance he must apply first his senses and then his wits. He must test them to find out what they are good for, and try them to find out what they are like: he must sense the qualities that have made them factors in the struggle for a place in the world of life. Thus, one may get back to nature. Thus, one may reacquire some of that ancient fund of real knowledge that was once necessary to 12 HISTORY OF FARM our race and that is still fundamental to a good education, and that contributes largely to one’s enjoyment of his own environment. The best placetobeginisnearhome. Any large farm will furnish opportunities. It is the object of the lessons that follow to help you find the wild things of the farm that are most nearly related to your perma- nent interests, and to get on speaking terms with them. You will be helped by these studies in proportion as your own eyes see and your own hands handle these wild things. The records you make will be of value to you only as you write into them your own experience: write nothing else. Suggestions to students: Theregular field work contemplated in this course makes certain demands with which indoor labora- tory students may be unfamiliar. A few suggestions may therefore be helpful: 1. As to weather: All weather is good weather to a naturalist. It is all on nature’s program. Each kind has its use in her eternal processes, and each kind brings its own peculiar opportunities for learning her ways. Nothing is more futile than complaint of the weather, for it is ever with us. It were far better, therefore, to enter into the spirit of it, to make the most of it and to enjoy it. 2. As to clothes: Wear such as are strong, plain and comfortable. There are thorns in nature’s garden that will tear thin stuffs and reach out after anything detach- able: and there are burrs, that will cling persistently to loose-woven fabrics. Kid gloves in cold weather and high heels at all 6 a ae a a a a MEREERERGUEEEUQUROSUROSGERUBROGUREOBBUSBABORHAOQUERUGRORUBBRED| a inches | LETTE ELE Pac) = a _ METRIC 4 \s 3 ite] 2 centimeters t . Metric and MOTHER EARTH 13 times are an utter abomination. Clothing suited to the weather will have very much to do with your enjoyment of it and with the efficiency of your work. 3. As to tools: A pocket lens and a pocket knife you should own, and have always with you. A rule for linear measurements is printed herewith (fig. 1.) Farm tools, fur- nished for common use, will supply all other needs. 4. As to the use of the blanks provided: Blanks, such as appear in the studies outlined on subsequent pages, are provided for use in this course. Take rough copies of them with you for use in the field, where writing and sketch- ing in a notebook held in one’s hand, is difficult; then make permanent copies at home. When out in the rain, write with soft pencil and not with ink. 5. As to poison ivy (fig. 2): Unless you are immune, look out for it: a vine climbing by aerial rootson trees and fences, or creeping over the ground. Its compound leaves resemble Fig. 2. Poison Ivy. those of the woodbine, but there are five leaflets in the woodbine, and but three, in poisonivy. Lead acetate (sugar of lead) isa specific antidote for the poison; a saturated solution in 50% alcohol should be kept available in the laboratory. It is rubbed on the affected parts—not taken internally, for it also is a poison. If used as soon as infection is discoverable, little injury results to the skin of even those most sensitive to ivy poison. After lesions of the skin have occurred, through neglect to use it promptly, it is an unsafe and ineffective remedy: a physician should then be consulted. 6. As to pockets: Some people don’t have any. But containers of some sort for the lesser things, such as twigs and 14 HISTORY OF FARM seeds, studied in the field, will be very desirable. You will want to take another look at them after you get back: so, prepare to take them home, where you can sit at a table and work with them. A bag ora basket will hold, besides tools, a lot of stout envelopes, for keeping things apart, with labels and necessary data written on the outside. 7. As to reference books: “Study nature, not books”’ said the great naturalist and teacher, Louis Agassiz. By all means, get the answers to the questions involved in your records of these studies direct from natureand not from books. But while you are in the field, you will meet with many things about which you will wish to know. Ask your instructors freely. Get acquainted, also, with some of the standard reference books, which will help you when instructors fail. Only a few of the more generally useful, can be mentioned here. There are three classical manuals for use in the Eastern United States and Canada, that have helped the naturalists of several generations. These are Gray’s Manual of Botany, Jordan’s Manual of the Vertebrates and Comstock’s Manual for the Study of Insects. There are two great Cyclopedias, both edited by Professor L. H. Bailey—The American Cyclopedias of Horticulture and of Agriculture. There are many books of nature-study but most useful of them all is Mrs. Comstock’s Handbook of Nature-Study. A new book that will help toward acquaintance with aquatic plants and animals is Needham and Lloyd’s Life of Inland Waters. All these should be accessible on reference shelves. Study 1. A General Survey of the Farm The program of this study should consist of a trip over the farm with a good map in hand showing the streams, the roads, the buildings and the outlines of all the fields and woods. The record The student should record directly on this map, the sort and condition of crops found in all the fields and the character of all the larger areas not used as fields. He should put down the names of all prominent topographic MOTHER EARTH 15 features, hills, streams, glens, etc., that bear names. The amount of additional data to be required—dwellings and their inhabitants, barns and their uses, etc.—will be determined by the area to be covered and the time available. If crops are few, colors may be used to make their distribution more graphic. If inhabitants are to be recorded, the dwellings may be numbered upon the map and the names of their occupants written down in a correspondingly numbered list. The object is a preliminary survey of the whole area that is to be subsequently examined in detail. II. THE WILD FRUITS OF THE FARM “The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.’ —The Song of Solomon 7:13 The bounty of nature is never more fully appreciated than when we see a tree bearing a load of luscious fruit. A tree that has been green, like its fellows, suddenly bursts into a glow of color, and begins to exhale a new and pleasant fra- grance as its product ripens. The bending boughs disclose the richness and abundance of its gift to us. Among nature’s delicacies there are none so generally agreeable and refreshing as her fruits. They possess an infinite variety of flavors. Before the days of sugar-making, they were the chief store of sweets. They everywhere fulfill an important dietary function, both for man, and for many of his animal associates. All fruits were once wild fruits. Most of them exist today quite as they came to us fromthehandofnature. Afewhave been considerably improved by selection and care. But none of them has been altered in its habits. They grow and bloom and bear and die as they did in the wildwood. They have their seasons, the same seasons that the market observes. First come the strawberries, breaking the fast of winter’s long barrenness. What wonder that our Iroquois Indians celebrated the ripening of the fragrant wild straw- berries by a great annual festival! Then come the currants and the raspberries and the cherries and the buffalo-berries and the mulberries and the plums and many others in a long succession, the season ending with the grapes, the apples, the cranberries and the persimmons. The wild fruits have their requirements also as to climate, soil, moisture, etc., and these we must observe if we cultivate WILD FRUITS OF FARM 17 them. Cranberries and blueberries demand bog conditions which strawberries and apples will not endure. The wild fruits have their enemies also, in a state of nature, which are ever with them when cultivated. The fruit fly of - the cherry, the codling moth of the apple, the plum curculio and all the other insect pests of the fruit garden, have merely moved into the garden from the wildwood. And they flourish equally in the wildwood still. When, for example, an orchardist has rid his trees of codling moths, a fresh stock soon arrives from the unnoticed wild apples of the adjacent woods, and infests his trees again. So, we must go back to nature to find the sources of our benefits and of their attendant ills. The wild fruits of the farm all grow in out-of-the way places that escape the plow. They grow in the fencerow, by the brookside, on the stony slope. If in the forest, they grow only in the openings or in the edges; for fruit trees do not grow so tall as the trees of the forest cover, andcannot endure much shading. The bush fruits especially are wont to spring up in the fencerow where birds have perched and have dropped seeds from ripe fruit they have eaten. They are a lusty lot of berry-bearing shrubs and vines that tend to form thickets, and when cut down by the tidy farmer, they spring up again with cheerful promptness from uninjured roots. In ‘a few years they are in bearing again. The neglected fence- row is, therefore, one of the best places to search for the lesser wild fruits. Of nature’s fruits there is endless variety. They grow on tree, shrub, herb and vine. They are large and small, sweet and sour, pleasant and bitter, wholesome and poisonous. They mellow in the sun like apples, or sweeten with the frosts like persimmons. They hang exposed like plums, or are hidden in husks like ground cherries. The edible ones that remain growing wild in the autumn are a rather poor lot of } 18 HISTORY OF FARM small and seedy kinds, that have been hardy enough to hold their own, in spite of mowing and grazing and clearing. They compare poorly with the selected and cultivated prod- ucts of the fruit farm. Yet many of them once served our ancestors for food. Collectively they were the sole fruit supply of the aboriginal inhabitants of our country. The Indians ate them raw, stewed them, made jam, and even jellies. They dried the wild strawberries, blueberries, rasp- berries and blackberries, and kept them for winter use. They expressed the juice of the elderberry for a beverage: indeed, the blackberried elder they used in many ways; it was one of their favorite fruits. And even as the crows eat sumach berries in the winter when better fruits are scarce, so the Indians boiled them to make a winter beverage. The cultivated fruits are but a few of those that nature has offered us. We have chosen these few on account of their size, their quality, and their productive- ness. We demand them in quantity, hence they must either be large or else be easily gathered. Some, like the june- berry, are sweet and palatable, but too small and scattered and hard to pick. The wild gooseberry is a rich and luscious fruit, but needs shearing before it can be handled. The quantitative demands of our appetite, the quantitative de- mands of our palate and the mechanical limitations of our fingers have limited us to a few, and having learned how to successfully manage these few we have neglected all the others for them. Our management has consisted, in the main, of propagating from the best varieties that nature offered, and giving culture. Any of the wild fruits would probably yield improved varie- ties under like treatment. All the wild fruits show natural Fic. 3. The Wild Gooseberry. WILD FRUITS OF FARM 19 varieties, the best of which offer proper materials for selection. Wild fruits, like the cultivated, fall chiefly in three categories: core fruits (pomes), stone fruits. (drupes), and berries. The structural differences between pome and drupe are indicated in the accompanying diagram. The apple is the typical core fruit (pomus=apple; whence, pomology). The seeds are contained in five hardened \ capsules (ripened carpels), together forming the core, surrounded by the pulp or flesh of the apple, which is mostly developed from \-> the base of the calyx. The calyx lobes, 3.,4 piaorams of persist at the apex of the apple, closed ae para ag and together above the withered stamens and style tips. The plum is a typical stone fruit: the single seed is enclosed in a stony covering that occupies the center of the fruit and is surrounded by the pulp. The term berry is used to cover a number of structural types which agree in little else than that they are small fruits with a number of scattered seeds embedded in the pulp. If, with the coming of improved varieties of cultivated fruits, the wild ones have ceased to be of much importance in our diet, they still are of importance to us as food for our servants, the birds. The birds like them. Nothing will do more to attract and retain a good population of useful birds, than a plentiful supply of wild fruits through the summer season. Who that has seen orioles pecking wild straw- berries or robins gormandizing on buffalo-berries or waxwings wait 8, Wis, holeshery s04 stripping a mountain ash can EDIBLE WILD FRUITS NAME Kind of Plant? Type of Fruit? No. Seeds Cluster of Fruit3 Size+ . Crab Apple . Hawthorn . Mountain Ash . Wild Cherry . Choke Cherry’ . Nanny-berry . Spice Bush . Hackberry . Wild Grape . Elderberry . Barberry . Yewberry 1Tree, shrub, vine, etc. ‘Dimensions in millimeters. ?Pome, drupe, berry, etc. ’Diagram, OF THE FARM Proportion of Pulp Used for What® Taste Animals eating it® Remarks 5Leave blank unless you have personal knowledge. Specify whether foraging on it or living within it. 22 HISTORY OF FARM doubt it? Their tastes have a wider range than ours. Wax- wings like cedar berries, and crows eat freely the fruit of poison ivy. The close growing habit of wild bush fruits gives congenial shelter and nesting sites, also, to many of the smaller birds. From all the foregoing it should appear that a little study of the natural history of the wild fruits in any locality will reveal much concerning the origin and the environing condi- tions of one of our valuableresources. Study 2. Edible Wild Fruits Program—tThe first part of this study is a comparative examination of the wild fruits of the farm. The fruits are to be sought in nature, ex- amined carefully one at a time, and their characters are to be written in the columns of a table prepared with headings as indicated in pp. 20 and eS ee ee plum curculio; (b) the coddling y foun i and (c) the cherry fruit about Ithaca, N. Y., in autumn. Earlier in the season, or in another region, the list would be very different. The second part of this study is a comparison of individuals of one kind of wild fruit, such as hawthorns, wild grape or any other that is abundant, with a view to discovering natural varieties. Half a dozen or more selected trees, bearing number-labels, 1, 2, 3, etc., should have their fruits carefully compared as to (1) quality of flesh (as tested by palatability at this date); (2) proportion of edible pulp (as compared with seeds, skin and other waste); (3) earliness; (4) size and form; (5) productiveness; (6) immunity from fungus and insects, as evidenced by the cleanness of the fruit inside and WILD FRUITS OF FARM 23 outside. (Immunity from birds and mammals is not desired, since these are attracted by the qualities we like). These qualities may be set down as column headings to a table, the first column being reserved for tree numbers, and then it will suffice if the order of excellence be written in each column in numerals. For example, in the column for palatability, if tree No. 3 be the best ‘flavored, write 1 in line 3 in that column, if tree No. 4 be the worst flavored (of 6 trees) write 6 in line 4 of that column. Arrange the others likewise accord- ing to your judgment of their flavor. The record of this study will consist of the two tables com- pleted, so far as data is available. Ill. THE NUTS OF THE FARM “The auld guidwife’s weel-hoordet nits Are round an’ round divided.” Pe 7 —Robert Burns (Hallow-e'en.) Nature puts up some of her products in neat packages for keeping. Among the choicest of them, preserved in the neatest and most sanitary of containers, are the nuts. Richin proteins and fats, finely flavored, and with a soft appetizing fragrance, these strongly appeal to the palate of man and many of his animal associates. Squirrels and other rodents and a few birds gather and store them for winter use. In pioneer days hogs were fattened on them. It was a simple process: the hogs roamed the woods and fed on the nuts where they fell. And it is credibly claimed that bacon of surpassing flavor was obtained from nut-fed hogs. In earlier days the Indian, who had no butter, found an excellent sub- stitute for it in the oil of the hickories. He crushed the nuts with a stone and then boiled them in a kettle of water. The shells sank to the bottom; the oil floated, and was skimmed from the surface. Most nuts mature in autumn. A heavy, early frost, and then a high wind, and then—it is time to go nutting; for so choice a stock of food, clattering down out of the tree tops onto the lap of earth will not lie long unclaimed. It is real trees that most nuts growon: not underlings, like fruit trees, but the great trees of the forest cover; trees that are of value, also, for the fine quality of their woods. They arelong-lived and slow-maturing. So, in our farming, we have neglected them for quicker growing crops. Practically all the nuts found growing about us are wild nuts, that persist in spite of us rather than with our care. Hereand there a valued chestnut or walnut tree is allowed to NUTS OF THE FARM 25 Fic. 7. The pig-nut hickory (Hickoria glabra); the whole nut, a crossection of the same, and the nut in its hulls (after Mayo). occupy space in the corner of the barnyard or in the fencerow, and there, relieved of competition, shows what it can do in the way of producing large and regular crops. But the nuts are wild. There has been but little selection for improved varie- ties and little scientific culture of nut-bearing trees. When we consider the abundance and value of their product, the permanence of their occupation of the ground, the slight cost inlaborof their maintenance, and the conservation of thesoil which they promote, this neglect of nut crops among us seems unfortunate. Two families of plantsfurnish most of our valuable nuts: the hickory family and the oak family. The former includes the more valuable kinds of nuts; besides true hickories, these are pecans, butter-nuts and walnuts. Tn all these there is a bony shell, enclosing the four-lobed and wrinkled edible seed. The oak family includes besides the acorns (few of which are valuable as human food) the chestnuts, the filberts, the hazels and the 6 beech nuts. In these there is a horny shell Fig. 8 Crosssec. enclosing the smooth but compact seed. tions of two types Certain other members of the oak family, as Halnut withnonspli. the hornbeams, produce nuts that are too put with four-valved small to be worthy of our consideration as 26 HISTORY OF FARM Fic. 9. The hazel nut (Corylus americanus); nuts in the hull, and a kernel in the half shell (after Mayo). food. A few stray members of other families produce edible nuts. Those of the linden are very well flavored, although minute. Those of the wild lotus of the swamps are very palatable and were regularly gathered by the Indians for food. They resemble small acorns in size and shape. Then there are nuts of large size and promising appearance that are wholly inedible. Such are the horse-chestnut and the buckeye, which contain a bitter and narcotic principle. Certain nuts of large size and fine quality, like the king hickory, have not found much popular favor, because their shells are thick and close fitting. They are hard to crack and the kernels are freed with much difficulty. Such selection as has been practiced: with Persian walnuts and pecans is in the direction of thin, loose-fitting shells. Nuts are unusually well protected dur- ing development by hard shells and thick hulls of acrid flavor; yet they have not escaped enemies. Wormy nuts are fre- quent. The most important of the “worms” living inside the hulls and feed- ing on the kernels are the larvz of the cde. wepeuuee nut-weevils. These are snout beetles and nutlets of the Linden. that live exclusively upon nuts and are NUTS OF THE FARM 27 very finely adapted for such a life. The snout or rostrum of the beetle is excessively elongated, especially in the female Fic. 11. The chestnut weevil (Balaninus proboscideus): a, adult; b, same, from side-female; c, head of male, with ’ its shorter beak; c, larva; d, eggs; e, pupa from front and from the side (from Bureau of Entomology of the U.S. Department of Agriculture). beetle. The jaws are at its tip. It is used for boring deep holes through the thick hulls, down to the kernel. The egg is then inserted into the hole, and the larva hatching PLANTS PRODUCING LEAVES Form? Size Margin? NaME Kind of Plant:| Height Shellbark Hickory Pig-nut a Mockernut “ Butternut Walnut Chestnut Beechnut Hazelnut White Oak Chestnut Oak Red Oak Linden Buckeye "Tree, shrub, or herb. ?Full, approximate. 3 Diagram. ‘Width by length in inches; of a single leaflet, if compound, WILD NUTS AND ACORNS. NUTS: Character of Hulls Shells Kernel Animals eating it® Qualitys 5 Specify whether foraging on it or living within it. *Palatability, oiliness, starchiness, acridity, etc. 30 HISTORY OF FARM from the egg finds there a ready-made passage down to its food. The larve have done their destructive work when the nuts fall. They are full grown and are ready to leave the nuts and enter the ground, there to complete their trans- formations. An easy way to get the larve, and at the same time to learn the extent of their infestation, would be to gather a few quarts of chestnuts or acorns freshly fallen from the trees, put them in glass jars to stand awhile. The larve leaving the nuts (emerging through remarkably small-holes which they gnaw through the shell) will descend to the bottoms of the jars and remain there, where readily seen. They will begin to emerge at once and in less than a fortnight, all will be out, and may be counted. These, and twig pruners and bark beetles, etc., all have to be reckoned with in the orchard where nuts are cultivated. In thisstudy we will give our attention to the nuts, noting the infesting animals only incidentally. Study 3. The Nuts of the Farm There is but a short period of a week to ten days about the time of the first hard frost, when the work here outlined can best be done. Take advantage of it, shifting the date of other studies, if need be. The tools needed will be hammers for cracking the shells, and pocket knives for cutting the soft parts of the nuts: also, containers for taking specimens home. The use of lineman’s climbers and of beating sticks in the tree tops is permissible to a careful and experienced per- son; but the use of hooks on light poles for drawing down horizontal boughs within reach from the ground is safer, and has the advantage that all members of the class can see what is going on. The program of the work will include a visit to the nut- bearing trees and an examination of their crop, first on the NUTS OF THE FARM 31 tree, then in the hulls, then shelled, then cracked, then an examination of the quality of the kernels. The record of this study will consist in: 1. A table prepared with column headings as indicated on pages 28 and 29 and filled out from the study of the specimens. 2. Simple sectional diagrams, showing the structure of such diverse forms as the following: (a) A butternut or walnut. (b) A hickory nut or pecan. (c) -An acorn. (d) A beech nut or chestnut. (e) A linden nutlet. IV. THE FARM STREAM. “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. —Ecclesiastes 1:7. There was a time when the streams of our ‘‘well watered country” were more highly prized than now. They were storehouses of food. They were highways of travel. They were channels of transportation. Several things happened to divert interest landward. The good timber along the valleys was all cut and there were no more logs to be floated down- stream to mill. The American plow was invented, making possible the tillage of vastly increased areas of ground. More cereals could be grown and more forage for cattle. The fishes of the streams became less necessary for food: and with the phenomenally rapid increase of population which followed, the fishing failed. It became easier and cheaper to raise cattle for food than to get it by fishing. Then came the railroads, providing more direct and speedy transportation and travel: and the streams were abandoned. Indeed, what happened to them.was worse than neglect. The regu- larity of théir supply of water was interfered with as the water- holding forest-cover was destroyed and springs dried up. They became dumping places, for the refuse of all sorts of establishments along their banks. Not even their beauty was cared for—their singular beauty of mirroring surfaces and sinuous banks, cutting broad green meadows and backed by wooded headlands. The pioneer was not so blind to the grander beauties of nature. Go through the country and mark where the first settlements were made. You will find them not far from the waterside, but situated where the ample beauties of land and water, hill and vale, are spread out to view. Our predecessors would not have been satisfied with a THE FARM STREAM 33 seven-by-nine lot, a bit of lawn with a peony in the front yard, and a view of an asphalt pavement. P Before the surveyor came along lines were laid down according to the law of gravity. The land was divided and subdivided, not by fences, but by streams. Chief among the agencies that have shaped our farms is the power of moving water. By it the soils have been mixed and sifted and spread out. Water runs down hill, and the soils move ever with it. With every flood, a portion is carried a little way, to be dropped again as the current slackens, and another portion is carried farther, to mix with soils from various distant sources and form new fields at lower levels. Small fields are forming now in the beds and borders of every stream. And there, even as on land, some of them are ex- posed, shifting and barren and others are sheltered and settled and productive. The rain descends upon the fields and starts down every slope, gathering the loosened soil particles, collecting in rills, increasing in volume, and cutting gullies and picking up loosened stones, and pouring its mixture of mud and stones into the creek at the foot of the slope. Then what does the creek do with this flood-time burden? Go down to its banks and see. See where it has dropped the stones in tumbled heaps at the foot of the rapids; the gravel, in loose beds just below; the sand, in bars where the current slackens; the mud in broad beds where the water is still; for its carrying power lessens as its flow slackens, and it holds the finest particles longest in suspension. It will be evident, that of all these deposits, the mud flats, are least subject to further disturbanceby later floods. Here, then, plants may grow, least endangered by the impact of stones and gravel and sand in later floods or by the out-going ice in spring. So here are the creek’s pleasant fields of green, its submerged meadows, whereas the beds where the current runs swiftly appear comparatively barren. 34 HISTORY OF FARM THE PLANT LIFE OF THE STREAM The rapids are by no means destitute of life. Given natural waters, a tem- perature above freezing, light and air, plants will grow any- where: here, they must be such plants as can withstand the shower of stones that every flood brings Fic. 12. Spray of river-weed (Potamogeton crispus) from a drawing by Miss Emmeline Moore. down upon them. They must be simply organized plants, that are not killed when their cell masses are broken asunder. Such plants are the algae: and these abound in the swiftest waters. They form a thin stratum of vegetation covering the surfaces of rocks and tim- bers. Its prevailing color isbrown:not green. Itsdominant plants are diatoms. These form a soft gelatinous very slip- pery coating over the stones. Individually they are too small to be recognized without a microscope, but collec- tively, by reason of their nutritive value and their rapid rate of increase, they constitute the fundamental forage supply for a host of animals dwelling in the stream bed with them. There are green alge also in the rapids. The most con- spicuous of these is Cladophora, which grows in soft trailing masses of microscopic filament fringing the edges of stones in THE FARM STREAM the swiftest current or trailing down the ledges in the waterfall, or encircling the piling where the waves wash it constantly. It is of a bright green color. There are apt to be various other alge also, some forming spots and blotches of blue-green color on the surfaces of rocks, where partly exposed at low water; others forming little brownish gela- tinous lumps like peas lying on the stream bed. Of the higher plants there will be hardly any present in the rapids: per- haps, a few trailing mosses or other creepers rooted in the crevices at the edge of the cur- rent, and just escaping annihilation at every flood. In quiet waters covering muddy shoals the vegetation is richer and more varied. The dominant plants are seed plants. Some of these (such as are shown in Figs. 12 and 13) grow wholly submerged. A few grow rooted to the bottom but have broad leaves (Fig.14) that float upon the surface. Fic. 13. Leaf-form in three common sub- merged plants whose leaves grow in whorls surrounding the stem at the nodes: a, the common water-weed (Elodea canadensis or Philotria canadensis); b, the water horn- wort (Ceratophyllum demersum): c, the water milfoil (Myrio- phyllum). A few small plants (Fig. 15) float freely upon the surface, in the more sheltered openings. And there are many rooted in the d Fic. 14. Outlines of four common kinds of floating leaves: a, the floating river weed (Potamogeton natans); b, the spatterdock (Nymphea lutea); c, the white water lily (Castillea odorata) and d, the water shield (Brasenia peltata). 36 HISTORY OF FARM mud atthe bottom, that stand erect and emer- gent with their tops above the water. A Fic. 15. Floating plants: a, duckweeds; and few of the more strik- b, the floating liverwort (Ricciocarpus natans). ing and characteristic of these are shown in Figure 16. Alge are common enough here also. Brown coatings of diatom ooze over- spread the submerged stems, and flocculent green mats of “blanket algae” lie in sheltered openings, often buoyed to the surface on bubbles of oxygen. THE ANIMAL LIFE OF THE STREAM The animals that live in the rapids are small in size, but most interesting in the adaptations by means of which they are enabled to withstand the on-rush of the waters. One of them at least, the black-fly larva, occurs in such numbers as to form conspicuous black patches in most exposed places— on the very edge of the stones that form the brink of waterfalls and on the sides of obstructions in the current. Individually these larvae are small (half an inch long), with bag-shaped bodies, swollen toward the rear end, where attached by a single sucking disc to the supporting surface. Attached in thousands side by side, they often thickly cover i and blacken _ several square feet of surface. They sway gently in the current as they hang with heads down stream. These larvae spin at- tachment threads by Fic. 16. Aquatics that rise from standing ‘ water: a, the great bullrush (Sci is): means of which they may b, the sweet fise Gee eee change location. The fidepneimine’ 727 eu™ and 4, the cat- THE FARM STREAM 37 Fic. 17.. The larva of the black fly (Simulium). thread is exuded from the mouth (as a liquid which hardens on contact with the water), attached to the stone and spun out tothe desired length. Thelarva, with disc loosened swings free upon the thread, reversed in position and hanging with head up-stream. After a time it will fasten itself by its sucker again. By using a very short thread and its sucker alternately, the larva may move short distances over the supporting surface by a series of loopings, its position being reversed at each attachment in a new place. Black-fly larvae are excellent food for fishes, but they live for the most part in places that are to fishes wholly inaccessible. They feed upon micro- scopic organisms and refuse adrift in the stream, and they gather their food out of the passing current by means of a pair of fan-like strainers, located on the front of the head near the mouth. Adult black-flies of certain species bite fiercely in northern forests. Other species, known as “buffalo gnats’’ and “turkey gnats’ are important pests of livestock. Other species are harmless. In the same situations with the black-fly larvae the neat little food- traps of the seine-making caddis-worms may always be found. Each is a little, transparent, funnel-shaped net, half an Fic. 18. Diagram of a seine-making caddis wocm's fishing apparatus and his dwelling; arrows indicate the direction of the current over the stream bed; a, the front edge of the distended seine through which the water is strained; b, the catching surface of finer mesh at the bottom of the seine and adjacent to the door of the tube, ¢c, in which the larva dwells, in the shelter of the rock, d, (after blished drawing by lice A, Noyes). an tn: Miss inch wide, opening always up-stream, and tapering downward into a silken tube lodged in some sheltering crevice, in which the greenish gill-bearing caddis-worm that makes it dwells. Then there is a group of diverse in- sect larvae found habitually in the rapids clinging to stones, that agree in being flattened and more or less HISTORY OF FARM limpet-shaped. Two of these are shown in Figure 19. In all of them flaring margins of the body fit down closely to the stone and deflect the water, so that it presses them against their support. ic ab, Sas In still water the deep pools are the insect larvae that special home of the larger fishes. We shall stick to stones in rapid water: ¢, the return to them in the next study. In the flat riffle - beetle (Psephenus lacontei) shoaler parts and in the midst of the aquatic and b, the net- . veined midge (Ble- vegetation are the lesser fishes and many other familiar vertebrates, frogs and their tadpoles, salamanders, turtles, etc., of uncertain occurrence. Much more generally distributed and constantly present are a few molluscs and crustaceans, such as are shown in Figure 20. There are a few adult insects and many insects in im- mature stages (Figs. 21, 22 and 23). Some help toward the recognition of these may be had from the table on pages 40 and 41, which contains brief hints, also, of the situation they occupy in the water and the role they play in the food consumption. There are leeches, and fresh water sponges and bryozoans and a host of lesser forms of many; groups, mostly too smallito CRUSTACEANS MOLLUSCS Massed Fic. 20. Some common crustaceans and molluscs:—crawfish, with the asellus at the left and the scud (Gammarus) at the right: also, a mussel and two snails: Limnea, on the left, and Planorbis on the right. THE FARM STREAM 39 be seen without a lens and too num- erous even to be mentioned here. The water is like another world of life, containing a few forms that are directly useful to ae ay aa aquatic Reseali oe the back swimmer otonecta); b, the water boatman (Corixa); c, a diving us and me HOLS beetle (Dytiscus); and d, a giant water-bug (Benacus). that furnish for- age for these; containing a few that are noxious when adults, such as black-flies, horse-flies and mosquitoes, and a host of other forms, all of interest to the naturalist, but not known to be of practical importance. They are all a part of the native population of the stream and each has a share in carrying on its natural social functions. In the water as on land, green plants represent the great producing class while animals and parasitic plants are the con- sumers. And among the animals there are herbivores and carnivores, parasites and scavengers. One who but casu- ally examines the animal life of the stream is apt to see chiefly carnivorous forms: for these are most in evidence: a@ R Fic. 22. Aquatic insect aes a, s diving beetle. for here, as_ else- Coptotom ter Helen Williamson Matthews): b,a i by rae mee oF hellgrammite, Corydalis cornuta (after where, . herbivores, jantacr) a c,an orl-fly larva, Sialis (after Maude be in g poor 1 y and are plainly visible upon the back. Recognition characters of some of the commoner Single distinctive characters 1. Forms in which the immature stages (commonly known as nymphs) ComMon NAME ORDER Form TAILS Stoneflies Plecoptera depressed 2, long Mayflies Ephemerida elongate, variable 3, long: (rarely 2) Damselflies Odonata slender. tapering rear-| see gills Dragonflies Odonata sie variable very short, spine-like Water bugs Hemiptera short, stout, very like| variable adults 2. Forms in which the immature stages differ very greatly from the adults visible from the outside, and having the legs shorter, rudi- internally and not CoMMON NAME ORDER Lecs GILLS water moths Lepidoptera 3 , pairs of ‘minute| of numerous soft white jointed legs followed| filaments, or entirely by anumber of pairs| wanting of fleshy prolegs Caddis worms Trichoptera 3 pairs rather long variable or wanting Orl flies Neuroptera 3 pairs shorter 7 pairs of long, lateral laments Dobsons Neuroptera 3 pairs tufted at base of lateral filaments, or want- ing Water beetles Coleoptera 3 pairs usually wanting True flies Diptera wanting usually only a bunch of retractile anal gills 3. Further characters of some common dipterous larvae: these are distin- Common NaME FaMILy HEAD TaIL Craneflies Tipulidae retracted and invisible] a respiratory disc bord- ered with fleshy ap- pendages Net veined midges Blepharoceridae tapering into body wanting o Mosquitoes Culicidae free with swimming fin of fringed hairs Blackflies Simuliidae free with caudal ventral attachment disk True midges Chironomidae free tufts of hairs Soldier flies Stratiomyiidae small, free floating hairs Horse flies Tabanidae acutely tapering tapering body Snipe flies Leptidae tapering retractile with two short taper- ing tails Syrphus flies Syrphidae minute extensile process as long as the body Muscid flies Muscoidea rudimentary truncated forms of aquatic insects in their immature stages. are printed in italics. are not remarkably different from the adults. The wings develop externally GILLs OTHER PECULIARITIES HABITAT Foop-HABITS many, minute, around] .................. . | rapids mainly carnivorous bases of the legs / 7 pairs on back all waters mainly herbivorous 3 leaf like caudial gill- plates internal gill chamber at end of body wanting immense grasping lower lip bumnente grasping lower 1p jointed beak for punc- turing and sucking slow and stagnant slow and stagnant all waters carnivorous carnivorous carnivorous of the same specie s, being more or less worm-like, having wings developed mentary, or even wanting (larvae proper). Rear Env oF Bopy OTHER PECULIARITIES HABITAT Foop Hasits 1 a pair of fleshy pro- legs with numerous claws on them do., with paired larger hooks at tip a long tapering tail paired hooked claws variable see next table mostly living in port- able cases head small often ap- parently wanting still waters all waters gravelly beds all waters slow or stagnant all waters herbivorous mostly herbivorous carnivorous carnivorous carnivorous see next table guished from aquatic larvae of other groups by the absence of true legs. F.LesHy LEGS, oR PRo- LEGS OTHER PECULIARITIES HABITAT Foop Hasits variable wanting wanting one beneath the mouth I ha a at rear wanting wanting stout paired beneath wanting flat lobed body with row of ventral suckers swollen thoracic seg- ments “fans” on head for food-gathering live mostly in soft tubes depressed form tubercle covered spin- dle shaped body usually wanting shoals rocks in falls pools at surface rocks in rapids all waters still water at surface beds in pools rapids under stones shallow pools herbivorous mostly diatoms, etc. herbivorous herbivorous herbivorous herbivorous carnivorous carnivorous 42 HISTORY OF FARM equipped for fighting, cannot afford to be conspicuous. Butif one will reflect that carnivores may not maintain themselves indefinitely by eating one another, and will look a little more closely, he will find plenty of the herbivorous forms. These are they whose economic function is that of “turning grass into flesh, in order that carnivorous Goths and Vandals may subsist also, and in their turn .pro- claim ‘All flesh is grass’’’ (Cowes). The most widespread, abundant, Fic. 23. Immature stages and important of the herbivores of the of four common neuropterous insects: a. adragon-fly (Anax i insects: @- 2 dragon-fy (Atay Stream are apt to be the scuds (Fig. (Amphiagrion amphion); ca 20), the mayfly nymphs (Fig. 23d) and stone-fly (Acroneuria sp?); and d,a may fly (Callibacus the larvee of midges (Fig. 24d). Study 4. The Farm Stream This study assumes that there is accessible some creek, or large brook or small river, having rapids and shoals and pools and reed-grown bays in it, all easy of access. If the banks where the work is to be done are too soft, rubber boots for wading, or temporary walks that will make wading unneces- sary, will have to be provided. Each student should be pro- vided with a dip-net for catching specimens, a shallow dish in which to examine them, a lifter with which to transfer them, and a few vials in which small specimens may be examined with a lens. A normal condition of the stream is necessary; high water and great turbidity will render the work unsatisfactory. Program—Go over the area marked for examination, begin- ning with the pools having mud bottom, and proceeding to THE FARM STREAM 43 the rapids. Note the extent of mud, sand, gravel, rubble, and flat- stone-bottom, and their relation to slope and cur- rent. Note also the physical conditions that organisms have to meet . a = Fic. 24. The larvae of four two-winged in each situation. flies (Diptera): a, the swale-fly (Sepedon), “ withdrawing beneath the surface film of the Collect and examine water; b, the punkie (Ceratopogon); c, the : phantom midge larva (Corethra); and d, the the commoner plants common midge (Chironomus). and animals, first of the rapids and then of the still water, omitting the fishes, save, for noting where fishes are seen. The Record of this study will consist of: I. A map, on which are indicated as clearly as possible: 1. Waterfalls and riffles. 2. The extent of each sort of bottom. 3. The principal plant beds. 4. The fish pools. II. List of all the water plants observed, arranged in a table with column headings as follows: Name (this will be supplied by the instructor). Grows where (that is, in which of the situations examined). Depth of water (approximate). Growth-habit (simple or branched, erect or trailing, stem- less, leafless, etc.). Remarks. III. List of all the water animals observed, arranged in a table with column headings as follows: Name (this will be supplied by instructor, if needed). Lives where (in which of the situations examined). 44 HISTORY OF FARM At what depth (approximate). Eats what (your own specific observations rather than general data taken from table). Habits of locomotion (walking, swimming, looping, etc.). Remarks. IV. A summary and comparison of the chief differences between the several situations, and of the differences in abundance and kind of plant and animal inhabitants. Arboretum Fic. 25. A stream map, suchas will. serve as a basis for the work herewith outlined. we ff J} a e H H H ! ost. j ay} 4 Py } piped “ AD bs - Ayn Abe oor } yp oy Pe ey ye 16 Cascadilla Pond of conteur saterpales ft scale ttanso ft ‘ Ni her a Fe ee List the plants and animals studied on a separate sheet, with data as indicated on pp. 43 and 44. Indicate diagrammatically on this The water falls and riffles. 2. The areas of rock, rubble, gravel and mud bottom. 3. The principal formations. 4. The haunts of the commoner fishes. water-plant V. THE FISHES OF THE FARM STREAM. “To dangle your legs where the fishing 1s good Can't you arrange to come down?” —Riley (To the Judge). Before the days of husbandry, man’s supply of animal food consisted of fish and game. Edible things found running on land were game: if found in the water, they were fish. So we have the names shell-fish, crawfish, cuttle-fish, etc., still applied to things that are not fishes at all. The true fishes were, and probably always will be, the chief staple crop of the water. While waters were plenty and men were few, fishes fur- nished the most constant and dependable supply of animal food. The streams teemed with them. There were many kinds. They were easily procured. Before there were utensils, fishes were spitted over an open fire, or roasted in the coals. But ancient and important as the fish supply has been to us, we have not taken measures adequate to its preservation. We have cared for the crops of the field and the dorsal a 7 drones! Pertorat fr \X S \ KY Fic. 26. Diagram of a fish (the black bass) with the fi i : ventral jin is also called pelvic. Drawing by wie Dorothy. sciig a aa FISHES OF THE FARM STREAM 47 Fic. 27. The common bull-head. A race of short-horned bull-heads is much to be desired. garden, and have neglected most of the others: The back- ward state of fish culture among us may be expressed by saying that we have developed no means of growing natural forage for fishes or of managing them in ordinary waters in pure cultures under control, and we have hardly any valuable cultural varieties. Many of our wild fishes, however, are excellent: the basses, and the perches, and the cat fishes, forexample. And for the most part they are very hardy and are widely distrib- uted in our inland waters. If the fish fauna of any con- siderable stream be carefully explored, doubtless a number of good, bad, and indifferent kinds of fishes will be found. Bullheads and sunfishes are nearly everywhere in permanent fresh water: and what excellent materials for selection they offer! True the bullheads are nearly all head and horns, but what flesh they have is excellent quality. What we need is to develop a race of shorthorns among them. If such im- provement of them were made by selection and care as has been made with cattle and hogs, what fine table fishes we should have: and everybody might have them in his own water garden. Fishes are the dominant animal forms in all fresh waters: in powers of locomotion they surpass all other aquatic creatures. Their fighting powers are good. Consequently we find them in full possession of the open waters, while most 48 HISTORY OF FARM Fic. 28. The pike. other dwellers in the stream are restricted to the shoals and to the shelter of rocks or of vegetation. Certain of them like the pike (fig. 28) are specialized for feeding at the surface: others, like the sucker (fig. 29), for feeding at the bottom, and the mdtth is turned up or down accordingly. The best of them are carnivorous and eat habitually other smaller fishes. The rock bass seems to prefer crawfishes as food. Most of them eat the larve of mayflies and midges, though the pikes demand bigger game. The sheepshead eats mol- luscs, crushing the shells with its flat-topped molar-like teeth. Fishes are among the most beautiful of living things. Their colors are splendid. Their motions are all easy and graceful. Their habits are most interesting and varied. Nearly all the common forms are included in six or seven families: the cat fishes, the trouts, the pikes (including the pickerel), the suckers, the minnows (including the huge carp), the perches and the sunfishes (including the basses). It is the purpose of the following study to promote acquaintance with some of these. Study 5. Creek Fishes A representative lot of a dozen or more of the larger com- mon fishes should be available for this exercise. It were better to have most of them collected in advance and kept alive for examination. A seine may be drawn, or traps taken up, as a part of the exercise, but often there are uncertainties FISHES OF THE FARM STREAM 49 as to the catch, which are to be avoided. The living fishes may be displayed in aquaria set up on high benches, or the fishes may be strung singly to stakes in the shore and drawn forth for examination. The program will consist (x) in whatever fishing is made a part of the class exercise; (2) then in a careful examination of the fishes of each species and writing of their recognition. characters in a table prepared after the manner indicated on. pages so and 51. The record of this study will consist in the completed table,. together with notes on the places where each species was: taken and the method of its capture. 1 Fic. 29. The sucker. RECOGNITION CHARACTE Size NAME Length! Ratio? Form’ Scales4 Mouth! "Length (when grown) in inches. 3 Cylindrical, depressed, or compressed. 5 Large or small, terminal or inferior. ? Ratio of depth to length. ‘Large or small or wanting. CASCADILLA FISHES FINS REMARKS Dorsalé Caudalé Pelvic? 6 Diagram side view. 7 Thoracic or abdominal. VI. PASTURE PLANTS “Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.” —A Psalm of David (Psalm 65:11-13). Before there were tilled fields there were green pastures. The grazing animals made them. They cropped the tall vegetation and trampled the succulent herbage, and pasture grasses sprang up and flourished in their stead. Wherever there were pieces of level ground frequented by wild cattle, there pastures developed. Pasture plants have seeds that are readily carried about and distributed by the muddy feet of cattle. They also have good staying qualities: once rooted in the soil, they will live long even where they can grow but little. So we find them growing everywhere, flourishing in the light, hanging on in the shadow, as if waiting for a chance—even in the deep shadow of the woods. Cut down the trees, and the grasses appear. Keep all the taller plants cut down, and the grasses spread and form a meadow. Brush-covered hills are sometimes changed into pastures simply by cutting them clean and turning in sheep. More sheep are kept on them than can find good forage; so, they are reduced to eating every green thing. It is hard on the sheep, but the grasses, relieved of the competi- tion of the taller plants, spread in spite of very close cropping. After two or three seasons, the hills are turf-covered: the woody plants are gone. This is a crude method of pasture making, and one that is coming to be practiced in our day more often with goats than with sheep, goats having a wider range of diet: but it illustrates some fundamental condi- PASTURE PLANTS 53 tions. Keep almost any weed patch mown, and it soon will be grass-covered. The valuable pasture plants are all low-growing perennials, that spread over or through the soil and take root widely, and that are uninjured by the removal of their tops. Where- fore, an amount of browsing and trampling that is sufficient to destroy their competitors, leaves them uninjured and in possession of the soil. We raise some of these pasture grasses on our lawns. We crop them with a lawn mower to make them spread, and we compress the soil about them with a heavy roller, and a turf results. But these operations are performed in nature by means of muzzles and hoofs. If you would understand the conditions pasture plants have to meet, you can hardly do better than to cultivate friendly relations with some gentle old cow, and follow her awhile about the pasture watching the action of her muzzle and hoofs. Watch her crop the grass. See how she closes on it, and swings forward and upward, drawing it taut across the edges of her incisors, (these being in her lower jaw). Hear the grass break at the joints, and tear and squeak as inter- nodes are withdrawn from their sheaths. Then pull some grass by hand, and observe that while single leaves may break anywhere, the stems for the most part break at the joints, which are so formed that little injury to the plant results. The parts necessary for re-growth remain attached to the soil and uninjured. Then try the tops of any common garden weeds, and observe that, for the most part, they pull bodily out of the ground. Herein appears one of the characteristics of good pasture-plants: they must be able to withstand cropping—even, close cropping. Then watch the old cow’s hoofs as she walks about over the turf. See how they spread when she steps in a soft place. Look at her tracks and see how the sharp edge of her hoofs have divided the turf and spread the roots and underground 54 HISTORY OF FARM stems of the grass asunder. If broken, take up the pieces and’ observe that each is provided with its own roots. Thus, a moderate amount of trampling only serves to push the grasses into new territory. Think, how disastrous in comparison would be the descent of this bovine’s hoofs upon the balsams and cabbages of the garden. So, the chief perils to plants in the pasture are of three sorts. The danger of death from being eaten, from being pulled up and from being trampled. To be sure, both browsing and trampling may easily be overdone, and the hardi- est of plants may be exterminated. This occurs in the places where the herds habitually stand in the shade of trees. Furthermore, mere hardiness will not qualify a plant to be a good member of the pasture society. The first requisite of all is that it shall be palatable and nutritious. The little wire rush (Fig. 30) is among the hardiest of pasture plants, growing habitually in the very edges of the path, but it is well nigh worthless as forage. a oe SE Ie The most valuable plants for permanent pastures are all grasses. Indeed, the very best of them are native grasses that exist today just as they came to us from the hand of nature. The only selection that has been practiced on them is the natural selection that through long ages has eliminated such sorts as are not equipped to meet the requirements set. PASTURE PLANTS 55 Under certain conditions white clover and some other plants are useful members of permanent sod. There are many other plants in the pasture, considered by us undesirable there, and hence called weeds. They mostly produce abundant seed and have excellent means of giving it wide dispersal. Many seeds find openings among the grasses. Fic. 31. Blue grass (a) and timothy (b): flowering spikes and roots; ae two modes of producing new shoots underground shown at (c). A few of these plants survive by virtue of the same qualities that save the grasses Some like the thistles and the teasel are spiny, and able to ward off destroyers. Many, like the mullein, the buttercup, the daisy, and the yarrow are un- palatable and are not sought by the cattle. Many grow well underground with only their leaves exposed to danger of trampling. If someleaves are cut off new ones will promptly grow. Then, after a long season of growth, they suddenly shoot up flower stalks into the air, and quickly mature fruit.. They do this, too, at the season of abundant grasses, when their exposed shoots are least endangered by close cropping. Some, like the dandelions and the plantains, produce so many flower stalks, they can survive the loss of some of them. Finally there are some, like the speedwells and the chickweeds so small they are inconsequential. They merely fill the chinks between the others. 56 HISTORY OF FARM There is one tree that regularly invades our neglected pastures. Itisthe hawthorn. The cattle browse on it, but they leave a remnant of new growth every year. So its increase is very slow until it gets beyond their reach: slow but sure. All the while its dense cone of stubs is shaped smoothly as ina lathe. But once emancipated from their browsing, it suddenly expands upward into the normal form of the spreading hawthorn tree. Study 6. Pasture Plants Any old pasture will do for this: the more neglected, the more interesting its population is likely to be. The equip- ment needed is merely something to dig with. Let all the work be done individually. The program of work will consist in digging wp one by one, first the forage plants andthen the weeds, andexamining them, root and branch. Give special study to the forage plants— the grasses and the clovers. Dig them up and pull them up. Find their predetermined breaking points. Observe their mode of spreading through the soil. Trample them, espec- jally with the heels of your shoes. Observe their preparedness for the rooting of dismembered parts. Observe in the weeds also their various ways of preventing being pulled up or eaten up and trampled out of existence. Also stake out a square yard of typical pasture and take a census of its plant popula- tion. The record of this study will consist in: 1. Annotated lists of: (a) Forage plants. (b) Weeds (further classified if desired), with indica- tions, of size, duration (whether annual, bien- nial, or perennial) mode of seed dispersal (whether by wind or water or carried by ani- mals on their feet or in their wool). Vegetative PASTURE PLANTS 57 modes of increase, such as stolons, runners, off- sets, suckers, etc.; noting also special fitness for pasture conditions, as indicated above. 2. Diagram a vertical section of the soil and on it show form and growth-habit of half a dozen of the more typical pasture plants, suth as the following: (a) A grass that spreads by undergrourid branches, like a bluegrass. (b) A bulbous grass, like timothy. (c) A creeping plant, rooting along the branches, like white clover. (d) A rosette forming, tall, single-stemmed biennial like teasel or dock. (e) A rosette forming, tap-rooted dwarf, like dande- lion. (f) A fibrous rooted perennial, like the daisy, or but- tercup, or yarrow. 3- A complete census of the plant population of a single square yard of old pasture: names of plants and numbers of individuals. It will be necessary to state how you have counted individuals of the multiple-rooted forms.* *The foregoing is a sample lesson from Professor Needham’s field course on the Natural History of the Farm now being given to fresh- men in Cornell University. It assumes an instructor who knows the plants, and a full equipment of stout digging tools in the hands of the members of the class. It illustrates record-making of three of the sorts that were discussed by Professor Needham in our last issue-—EDp1Tor. VII. THE EDIBLE WILD ROOTS OF THE FARM “The sunshine floods the fertile fields Where shining seeds are sown, And lo, a miracle is wrought; For plants with leaves wind-blown, - By magic of the sunbeam’s touch Take from the rain and dew And earth and air, the things of life To mingle them anew, And store them safe in guarding earth To meet man’s hunger-need. Then lo, the wonder grows complete; The germ within the seed Becomes a sermon or a song, A kiss or kindly deed.” —Dean Albert W. Smith. Nature sometimes caches her stores of provisions—hides them underground. She puts them up in mould-proof packages, and stows them away in the earth, where, protected from sudden changes of temperature, they keep for along time. Fic. 32. Nature’s most efficient implement of tillage. But, alas! a little bit of metal ring thrust into the sensitive base of the “rooter’’ renders this beautiful contrivanceinoperative, reduces the efficiency of his pigship to the com- mon level of mamma- lian kind, and leaves him endowed only with his appetite. It is chiefly a few of the mammals that are the reci- pients of this bounty—those that can burrow in the soil and those that can root. The burrowers are numerous, and of very different sorts. They all have stout claws on their fore feet. The rooters are few: only the pigs and their nearest allies. These have a most unique and beautiful digging apparatus, happily placed on the end of their nose, where it is backed by all the pushing power of a stout body, and where it is directed in its operations by the aid of very keen olfactories. This is a most efficient equipment for digging. If any- THE EDIBLE WILD ROOTS OF THE FARM 59 thing good to eat is buried in the earth, trust to a normal pig to find it. The wild ruminants also dig to a certain extent with the hoofs of their fore feet. Digging for roots has béen in all ages an important and necessary occupation of mankind. Once it was done by everybody. For ages it was the work of women, men, in the division of labor, assuming the more dangerous and more exciting tasks of hunting and fighting. Now it is coming to be the work of machinery, handled by men. Once all the roots were wild roots, and they were used in very great variety. Now comparatively few have been selected and improved and are cultivated. The majority of those that have served as human food are neglected. But they may still be found in the wildwood. Nature made them hardy and fit. They are still with us unimproved—and unsubdued. These roots, which are nature’s underground food stores, are, many of them, botanically speaking, not true roots at all: they are merely the underground parts of plants, that have been developed as food reserves: and they are primarily for the benefit of the plant species producing them. They are the products of the growth of one season, stored up to be used in promoting the growth of new individuals the next season. Some, like the potato and other tubers are modified under- ground stems; others, like the onion, are bulbs. They con- tain food products far more watery than the nuts and the grains and less concentrated. Their flavors are less choice than those of the fruits; they are of the earth, earthy. There are few of them that we consider palatable without cooking. Many abound in starch, like the potato, and some, in sugar, like certain beets. Of true roots that are fleshy there are many to be found wild, but few of these are edible. The wild carrots and parsnips are insignificant as compared with cultivated varieties: the fleshy roots of weeds like the docks are 60 HISTORY OF FARM inedible, and a few like the water hemlock (Fig. 33) are very poison- ous. All the cultivated sorts, radishes, beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips, chicory, etc., are natives of the old world. The last named, where cultivated, is chiefly used to make an adulterant for coffee, and has scarcely any nutritive value. American tubers are much more valuable. Indeed, the most valuable root crop in the world is the potato. fic. 33. The poison hem- The potato crop stands among our cided Inetaad act crops second only to the wheat crop in cash value. And an acre of potatoes may produce as much human food as ten acres of wheat. The only other native tuber that is extensively cultivated is that of the arti- choke (Helianthus tuberosus) which maintains _ itself wild in great patches in many a rich bottomland thicket. The artichoke is able to win out over the other herbaceous perennials by reason of its sheer vegetative vigor: it over- tops them all and gets the sunlight. And when it blooms it overspreads the thicket with a blaze of yellow sunflowers in late summer. There is another native tuber, however, of great promise, it has higher nutritive value than the potato and is very palatable: it is the so-called ground-nut (A pios tuberosa). The plant is a vine, that grows in moist thickets and clambers over low bushes. It bears brownish purple, violet-scented papilionaceous flowers in dense clusters in mid- summer. The tubers are borne on slender underground stems, often a number in a row, and are roundish or pear- shaped, very solid, and when cut, exude a milky juice, like a sweet potato. Doubtless, this valuable plant, which furnished the Indians with a dependable part of their living, THE EDIBLE WILD ROOTS OF THE FARM 61 would have received more attention among us had it been adapted by nature to ordinary field conditions. But it grows in moist or even wet grounds and in partial shade. The Indian cucumber-root (Fig. 34) bears another sort of tuber that might well qualify it for a place among our salad plants, were the plant adapted to fields: but it grows in leaf mould in the shade of dense thickets. The wild bulbs of the scaly sort that are edible, are the wild onion and a few of its relatives, the wild leeks and garlics. These are valued not for nutritive value but for flavoring. Here, again the cultivated exotic varieties are superior to the wild native ones. There are a number of interesting wild aroids, producing solid bulbs or corms, which were food for the red- man, but which we do not use. They mostly grow in wet soil. They are the arrow arum, the skunk cabbage, the Jack-in-the-pulpit, etc. The related taro is a valuable food plant in the Hawaiian Islands and throughout the South Seas. Like these, it is somewhat coarse, and does not keep well after gathering. So it gets into our markets only after being dried and ground into flour. The fierce acridity of the Jack-in- the-pulpit, which renders it inedible when raw, is entirely removed by cook- ing. Among the aroids is another that is PIG ee eot Ulaieola) aa worthy to be mentioned not as a food excellent salad plant. tant, but as one that has been valued for its pungency, and for the magic powers widely believed to inhere in its root. It is the sweet-flag (Acornus calamus, 62 HISTORY OF FARM Fig. 16b): its charmed product, ‘‘calamus root.”’ Dried it is often nibbled by school children, and it is candied by their mothers, especially in New England, and served as a condi- ment. There areanumber of other native “‘roots’’ of semi-aquatic plants that were eaten by the aborigines. The biggest ‘“‘root”’ of all was the rhizome of the spatterdock—-several feet long and often six inches thick, coarse and spongy, and full of starch. The root stock of the lotus, and of several other members of the water lily family are edible: also, the sub- terranean offsets of the cat-tail. These were and are favorite foods of the muskrat, also. The red man ate also the root stocks of the arrowhead and the underground stems of the false Solomon’s seal. Then if we count the exotic, cultivated peanut in its poda root crop, we shall have to count the native hogpeanut (Amphicorpea monoica Fig. 36) with its more fleshy and root- like subterranean pod, one Fic. 35. A portion of a vine of the also. hog peanut (Amphicarpes), bearing —_‘ Tt is a most interesting plant. It grows as aslender twining vine on low bushes in the edge of thickets. It produces pale blue flowers in racemes along the upper part of the stem, and from these develop small, bean-like pods. It develops also scattered, colorless, self-fertilizing flowers on short branches at the surface of the soil. These are very fertile. They push into the soil and develop there mostly one-seeded, roundish, fleshy pods about half an inch in diameter. These are the hog-peanuts. THE EDIBLE WILD ROOTS OF THE FARM 63 So, if we go out to examine the plants producing nature’s root crops we will find them a mixed lot of solanums, legumes, aroids, etc., growing in all kinds of situations, wet and dry, in sun and in shade, and producing food reserves that have little in common either in character or in content. Study 7. Wild Root Crops of the Farm This study will consist in an examination of the edible and poisonous roots found growing wild on the farm. Such exotics Fic. 36. The root . a . and the under- as parsnip, carrot and chicory, will be found — ground “nuts” of growing as weeds in the field. The native Tete root crops will have to be sought in the woods and thickets and in swampy places. The equipment needed will be a knife, a bag and a stout digging tool of some sort. The program of work will consist of a trip to selected places where the wild roots may be foundin abundance, the examina- tion of them one by one as to all their parts, measuring of the roots, slicing of them, tasting of them, testing of them, etc., and recording their characters. The record will consist of: 1. A table prepared with headings as indicated on pages 64 and 65 and carefully filled out for about a dozen species. 2. Simple sectional diagrams representing the structure of (x1) some wild tuber; (2) a scaly bulb; (3) a solid bulb or corm; (4) a fleshy rhizome and (5) a true fleshy root. EDIBLE WILD R00} NAME Kind of Plant* Grows Where Nature “Root" aw “es *Tree, shrub, herb, vine, etc., aquatic, climbing, etc. ?Root, tuber, bulb, corm, rhizome, offset, etc. F THE FARM aig Qualities Uses Remarks 3 Diagram. 4Length < width in mm. VIII. THE NOVEMBER SEED-CROP “Tis all a myth that Autumn grieves For, list the wind among the sheaves; Far sweeter than the breath of May.” Samuel M. Peck (Autumn’s Mirth). November, in our latitude, is nature’s season of plenty. Her work of crop-production is done. Living is easy for all her creatures. The improvident may have their choice of fruits, or may eat only of the seeds that are best liked and easiest gathered. The frugal and foresighted may gather winter stores. It was no mere arbitrary impulse of our Puri- tan pioneers that settled upon November as the season of special Thanksgiving. Nature’s prodigality of seed production is for the benefit of her animal population. She gives them the excess. They in their turn are very wasteful in their handling of the seed. They never eat all that they gather but scatter and lose some of it in places favorable for growth next season. Thus, they, in their turn, assist by aiding in distributing the seed. The sleek and surfeited meadow mice, scatter grains along their runways and never find them again, and these lost seeds are favorably situated for growth at the proper season. It is only a remnant of them that will escape the more careful search of the beasts when the hunger of the lean season is on, but so great is the excess of production, that remant is, in the nice balance of nature, sufficient to keep the species going. It is a long, lean season that follows on November in our latitude, and the seed-crop though abundant, is not sufficient - to feed all the wild animal population. So nature takes various measures to eke it out. She puts to sleep in hiberna- tion the great majority of animals. These include nearly all THE NOVEMBER SEED-CROP 67 of the lesser animals and a few even of the larger ones, like the woodchuck, now fat and drowsy. She removes the greater number of the birds by migration to feed in summer climes. There remain to be fed through the winter only a small pro- portion of the birds and a larger proportion of the mammals, including ourselves. All these are by nature improvident— given to eating to excess when there is plenty, forgetting future needs. So, she makes it impossible that any lusty foragers, or all of them put together, shall be able to dissipate and waste her patrimony. She keeps it in a considerable part from them against the hour of need. If she grows luscious fruits, which, when ripe, will fall into their mouths she also, grows roots underground, and imposes the labor of digging to get them. If some of her seeds ripen all at once and fall readily, others ripen at intervals, and are held tightly in their husks. It takes labor to get them. The animals that eat in winter have to work their way. Nature’s population is suited to her products. Her seed-eating rodents are all armed with stout chisel-like teeth, adapted for cutting anything, from the nut shells to chaff. Her a seed-eating birds are armed with stout, ® < seed-cracking, husk-opening beaks. be Her little birds are agile, and can cling with their feet to swaying twigs, PUG. 38 a mcialized seed and ravage the loaded seed cones pre reothot a norcupine; pendant upon them. The beaks of arenes of a cross- the crossbills, are especially adapted to ing the seeds of pine extracting the seeds from the cones of our evergreen trees. The seeds we cultivate for food are cereals and lentils. With the exception of maize they came with our ancestors from other climes. Some of the native cereals have heavier 68 HISTORY OF FARM seeds but we have not learned their culture. We have been satisfied with the grains and pulse of our agricultural tradition. Wild rice is marketed locally at fancy prices: but it is still wild rice, gathered where nature produces it in the old way. There is no culture of it worthy of the name. The cereals are mainly the edible seeds of grasses (Grami- neae): the seeds of sedges (Cyperaceae), if edible, should perhaps be included; and there is one seed of very different botanical character, the buckwheat, a member of the joint- weed family (Polygonaceae), commonly rated a cereal. We can find wild seeds of all these groups growing about us, some of them of good size and quality, but most of them far too small to be of possible value to us. The lentils are all mem- bers of the pulse family (Leguminosae), and their more or less bean-like seeds grow in two-valved pods. A few sorts of these protein-rich seeds will be found hanging in autumn. So great is the diversity according to climate situation and locality it is not possible to indicate what sorts of seeds are to be expected. Besides the cereals and lentils there are other wild seeds allied to those we cultivate, for minor uses: for their flavors, for the oils they contain, for their medicinal properties, etc. And there are many others that are of interest to us solely on account of the very special ways in which they contribute to the preservation of the species, by providing for their own dispersal. Some are armed with hooks or barbs that catch in the wool of animals (as indeed they do also in our own cloth- ing), and steal a ride; the ridemay possibly end in some new and unoccupied locality. These grow at low elevations—not higher than the backs of the larger quadrupeds. Some light- weight seeds develop soaring hairs, which catch the wind and by it are carried about. Some of the larger dry seeds of trees develop parachutes by means of which they are able to glide to a considerable distance from the place in which they grow. THE NOVEMBER SEED-CROP 69 Some take a ride by water, and to aid their navigation, develop water-repellant seed- coats, boat-shaped form, corky floats, etc. Finally some develop automatic ejectors like the capsules of the touch-me-not or jewel-weed, which collapse with explosive violence; or like the close-pinching hulls Fic. 39. Two seeds Of witch-hazel, which shoot out the seeds Hie with es a. toadistance of several yards. But most sweet cisely (Osmor- hiza); , pitchforks Seeds are featureless, as regards means of ee dispersal. They merely fall, singly or in clusters, and are moved about only with the chance removal of the soil with which they mix. Of wild seeds there is no end. It should be the object of the following study to survey a small area to find the wild allies of our cultivated seed crops, to observe the differences in size and qualities, and containers, and means of dispersal of as many as possible of the others. Study 8. The November Seed-Crop The program of this study will cover the exploration of a small area well overgrown with herbage. The variety of forms found will be greater if diverse situations wet and dry, in sun and in shade, are included. Collect seeds of all kinds as encountered (omitting fleshy fruits and nuts) and noting what sort of plant produces each kind. It will be well to take specimens of the seeds in their containers for closer examination at home. The apparatus needed beside knife and lens will be a supply of envelopes, large and small, to hold the specimens collected, with names and data. ; The record of this study will consist of annotated and illus- trated lists of the seeds examined, arranged under as many categories as desired: such as; Cereals, Lentils, Seeds with 70 HISTORY OF FARM hairs for air-drifting, etc. Let the list include such data as, kind of plant, size of seed (give measurements in millimeters: if very small lay enough seeds, in line and touching each other, upon a metric rule—such as Fig. 1 on p. 12—to reach one centimeter, and divide for average diameter), characters affecting dispersal, characters of hull affecting its release: animals observed to feed upon it, etc. Let the illustrations be simple outline sketches. As to names, if you do not know them, save time by asking an instructor or some- one who does know them. IX. THE DECIDUOUS TREES IN WINTER “Yet lower bows the storm. The leafless trees Lash their lithe limbs, and, with majestic voice Call to each other through ‘the deepening gloom.” —J. G. Holland (Bitter-sweet) Largest of living things, and longest of life are the trees. They have dominated the life of the greater part of the habitable earth by the sheer vigor of their growth. They have gone far.towards making the world a fit place for us to live in. Our ancestors were woodsmen. The forests pro- vided them homes and shelter and food. The plants we now raise in fields, and the animals we keep in stock pens, they found growing or running wild in and about the borders of the woods. The pioneers of our race in America were woodsmen. When they entered the states of the Upper Mississippi Valley they passed by the rich prairies and settled in the less fertile lands of the wooded hills. They wanted fuel and shelter and water. They sought for trees and springs: finding these, they trusted to find with them all else needful for a living. The trees themselves contributed largely of the materials needed for the beginnings of human culture. A club for a weapon, a sharpened stick for an instrument of tillage, a hollowed log for a boat, and a sheet of bark for a roof—these were among the earliest of the agencies employed by man in mollifying and bettering his environment. It is a far cry from these few crude tree products to the numberless manu- factured products of the present day. Our need of tree products has multiplied inordinately, but our ways of getting these have become circuitous. When an implement or a utensil of wood is placed in our hand, all shaped and polished and varnished we scarcely think of the trees as its source. 72 HISTORY OF FARM The trees have not changed, but our relations with them have become remote. Let us renew acquaintance with a few at least of those that are native to our soil. Let us go out and stand among them, and feel, as our ancestors felt, their vigor, their majestic stature and their venerable age. To the ancients they stood as symbols of strength, of longevity, and of peace. Our poets love to celebrate the grace of the birch, the beauty of the beech, the lofty bearing of the pine and the rugged strength of the oak. In winter, when the boughs are bare and stand out sharply against the background of the sky, the structural character- istics that best distin- guish tree species are most readily seen. The forking and the taper and the grouping of the branches, the size and Fic. 40. Diagram illustrating thecharacteristices stoutness and position eased 7h, whats birch: < miget asley vi of the twigs, that are apple; e, American elm. obscured by summer foliage are now evident. By noting such characters as these we may learn to recognize the trees. The woodsman, who learns them unconsciously, knows them as wholes, and knows them without analysis by the complex of characters they present. But most of us will have to make their acquaintance by careful comparison of their characters separately. A few suggestions to that end here follow. There are a few deciduous trees that are instantly recogniz- able in winter by their color. Such are the white birch and the sycamore. The former is pure white on the trunk and larger branches: the latter is flecked with greenish white on the boughs, where the outer bark is shed in patches. The light satiny gray of the smooth beech trunks, and the mat gray of the rough white oak trunks, also help, although less WINTER VERDURE OF THE FARM 73 distinctive to an unpracticed eye. Then there are tints of yellow in the twigs of certain willows, and of red in the twigs of the red maple and in the swollen buds of the linden. Trees grown in the open develop a characteristic form and are recognizable by their general outline. Most strict and cylindric is the lombardy poplar; most inclined and spread out upward into vaselike form is the beautiful and stately American elm. Most smoothly oval is the sugar maple and most nearly hemispherical is the apple. The soft maple and the hickories and many others take on an irregular and ragged outline. It is to be noted at once that in their youth these trees are all much more alike in form; also, that in the forest, close crowding reduces every kind of tree to a tall and slender trunk holding aloft as a crown the few branches that have been able to reach the light. Much more dependable recognition char- acters are found in the structure of the tree- top. The trunk may tend to form a single axis as in the birch, or to split up early into long main branches asin theelms. The boughs may be short and stocky as in an old chestnut or long and slender as in a beech. The twigs may be long or short stout or slen- der, and in position ascending, horizontal or drooping. The bark may present many characteristic differences on trunk and bough gram of i and twigs, all of which need to be seen to andof grouping be appreciated. But most positive of all of bundle scars ontwigs of: ¢, the structural differences by which we may sn, Pe Pose distinguish trees are some of the lesser chestnut; ¢: characters in bud and leaf scar, a few of kory; @ black which are indicated in figure 41. The size RECOGNITION CHARACTERS NAME Growth Habit Bark (mature) Color Fissures*? Surface Layers? Dia: Oak, White Oak, Red Hickory? Chestnut Butternut Beech Birch? Maple? Elm? Ash» Basswood Sycamore Tulip Tree x x * Vertical or horizontal, simple or forking, deep or shallow, narrow or wide, « ? Hard or soft, adherent or loose, shedding in strips or in bits, etc. 3 Smallest diameter of an average twig in mm. 9Specify which kind. Another kind of tree of your own selection. DECIDUOUS TREES IN WINTER Twigs Buds Misc.* Color Form® ee Leaf Scars’ Other Peculiarities 4 Peculiarities of form and color, lenticels, pith, etc. 5 Sketch in simple outline. ® Opposite or alternate. 7 Diagram, including bundle scars and stipule scars. ® Taste and smell, persistent leaves, nuts, fruit, stalks, etc., also, flower, buds, etc. for next season. 76 HISTORY OF FARM and structure and color of the pith will often furnish good characters. One who is learning them should employ his senses of touch, taste and smell as well as his sight. The toughness and pliancy of hickory twigs are revealed to our fingers. By biting twigs, distinctive flavors may be discerned in most twigs. Tulip tree is bitter, and sweet birch is deliciously aromatic. The buds of linden are mucilaginous when chewed. The twigs of walnut and sassafras have a smell that is instantly recognizable. There is no difficulty at all about knowing the principal kinds of trees if one will take the trouble to note their characteristics. Study 9. Recognition Characters of Deciduous Trees in Winter The object of this study is to learn to recognize a dozen or more common native trees. The apparatus needed by the student is only a lens and a knife: Collective use may per- haps be made of an axe or a hooked pole. The program of work should consist of a short excursion among the trees, first where growing in the open, to observe their outlines, and later, into the woods. The species selected for examination will be studied as to the characters indicated by the column headings of the table on pp. 74 and 75 The record of this study will consist in: 1. The completed tabulation. 2. Simple outline sketches of (a) Twigs of ash and birch or elm. (b) Longitudinal sections of walnut or butternut. (c) Cross sections of oak and linden. X. THE FARM WOOD-LOT. Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The satling pine; the cedar proud and tall; The vine-prop elm; the poplar never dry; The builder oak, sole king of forests all; The aspen good for staves; the cypress funeral; The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage; the fir that weepeth still; The willow, worn of forlorn paramours; The yew, obedient to the bender’s will; The birch for shafts; the sallow for the mill; The myrrh sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound; The warlike beech; the ash for nothing tll; The fruitful olive; and the platane round; The carver holme; the maple, seldom inward sound. —Spenser (Faery Queen.) When we know the trees by sight, then we may profit by an inquiry as to what kind of associations they form with one another. The farm woodlot will be a good place for this, especially if it be, as it usually is, a remnant of the original forest cover. We will assume a small piece of wild-wood not too closely or too recently cut over, with small areas, at least, of forest cover, and with a goodly remnant of brushwood. There are openings even in primeval forest, where giant trees have fallen, letting in a flood of light. In such places the trees of the undergrowth lift their heads and bushes flourish for a few years, rearing a generation and sending forth their seeds before a new growth of trees of the forest cover over- takes and overtops them. All about the borders of the wood-lot will be found such a growth of lesser trees and shrubs, massed against the light, and backed up against the wall of the forest. Within the wood, where the larger trees are growing closely, their crowns touching each other, there will be found but a scanty growth beneath them of spindling small trees and of straggling shrubs. These will often show a fairly distinct 78 HISTORY OF FARM stratification of their crowns at two levels, with scattering low shrubs nearer to the ground. This is the way in which, left to themselves, each ‘‘finds its level’? and its proper situation. Too much interference of the axe may keep down some of them and may make unusual opportunities for others: but it does not change the nature or needs of any of them. BR Let us study the wood-lot first to see what nature is trying to do with it, and to find out what kinds of woody plants she is endeavoring to maintain there. There will be time enough later to find out which of them are the best producers of fuels, posts and timbers, and which are the ‘‘weed species.” Study 10. An Examination of the Farm Wood-Lot This study presupposes sufficient acquaintance with the superficial characters of trees, so that the principal kinds may readily be recognized. A small piece of woodland not more than a few acres in extent with both forest cover and brushwood undergrowth remaining, should be mapped out and the map subdivided into a number of plots. The boundaries of the lot and of its subdivisions should be plainly marked out. The accompanying diagram indicates such preparation for a wood-lot study made on the Cornell Univer- sity farm. There, the boundaries of the plots were made plain by white twine strung across the area at shoulder height. The tools needed will be a lens and a pocket knife. The program of this study will consist in a slow trip over the wood-lot, and a careful examination of its population of woody plants: 1. Tosee what they are. 2. To see their relative abundance, and 3. To see what relations they bear to one another in the adjustment of the place. THE FARM WOOD-LOT 79 The record of this study will consist in: 1, An annotated list of all the woody plants present, with notes on their size, relative abundance, and manner and place of growth. 2. Indications on the map of the dominant kinds of trees and shrubs in each plat. 3. A diagram of a vertical section of the forest cover (in some place to be designated by the instructor) showing a few characteristic plants of the several foliage strata present. +33 OOX = Your YE ‘ayeos, ta iii ‘sqniys “III ‘YJMOIZIOpUN O44 JO Seely], “]] *IQAOD S010} OY} JO SOIL, “J tsdnois 9014} Ur ‘41 UL punoy sjuejd Apoom ay} Jo yseuOUIUIOD oY} Jo Maj e JO soureu ayy ‘Uort}oes yows uodn ApJOOIIP OFM LOT-COOM deaVAOIHO & TRE PERS A simple outline mato wierd Fig. 42. XI. THE FUEL-WOODS OF THE FARM “We piled with care our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney back,— The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; The knotty fore-stick laid apart And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then hovering near We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old rude-fashioned room Burst flower-like into rosy bloom.” . —Whittier (Snow-Bound.) One of the first of the resources of nature to be brought into human service was fire. Lightning and other causes set wild fires going, and the savage following in their wake, found that they had done certain useful work for him. They had cut pieces of timber into lengths and shapes that were convenient to his hand. They had roasted wild roots and green fruits, and the flesh of wild animals overtaken, and had made them much more palatable. They had left piles of glowing embers beside which on a chill day he warmed himself. So he took a hint from nature, added a few sticks to the live embers, and kept the fire going. Strange that no other animal has done this simple thing! Afterwards he found out how to start a fire, by rubbing wooden sticks, later by striking flint on steel and still later by friction matches. The wonder of the savage has become commonplace. Since cooking began, the word fireside has been synony- mous with home. Fire has been the indispensable agent of many comforts, and womankind have been the keepers of it. The wildwood has furnished the fuel. In the wood there is great variety ofit: fine twigs and coarse, and bark and splin- ters, all ready for use; and dead trees down, and green trees. 82 HISTORY OF FARM standing, needing cutting. Fire was the cutting agent first employed. Trees were burned down by building fires about their bases, and then by similar process they were cut in sections. It was only for long-keeping fires that such fuel was needed: there was always excess of kindling-stuffs available for making quick fires. All wood will burn and give forth heat, but one who knows woods will not use all kinds: it is only the degenerate Fic. 43. Western yellow pine dismantled and ignited by lightning (U.S. Bureau of Forestry.) modern, who will do that: who will go to the telephone and order a cord of wood without further specifications. Heavy, close grained, hard woods as a rule burn more slowly and yield more heat than the lighter more open-textured soft woods. Combustible resins vary the rate of burning, and the amount of heat produced: but the greatest differences in burning qualities are due to the amount of water present. A punky old log that when dry will burn like tinder will soak up water like a sponge and, becoming “water logged,” will not FUEL-WOODS OF THE FARM 83 burn at all. The modern, who keeps his fuels under cover, can get along without knowing about woods, much that was essential to the savage. Building a camp fire in the rain is a task that takes one back again to the point where he needs to know wood fuels as nature furnishes them. Certain trees, like the yellow birch, produce the needed kindling material. Strip the loose “curl’’ from the outside bark, resin-filled and water proof; shake the adherent water from it, and you can ignite it with a match. Go to the birch also or to the hemlock for dry kindling wood: the dead branches remaining on the trunks make the best of fagots, and are enclosed in waterproof bark. Splinter them and put them on the hot flame from the “birch curl’’, increase their size as the heat rises, and soon you have a fire that will defy a moderate rain. If you want to get much heat out of a little fire, feed it with thick strips of resinuous hemlock bark, or with pine knots. These are special materials, the presence of which often determines camp sites; though excellent, they are not essen- tial. Any ready-burning dry wood may be kindled if splin- tered fine enough. Skill in fire-making consists not alone in the selection of suitable materials. They must be gradually increased in size as the heat increases, but not fed larger than can be quickly brought to the igniting point. Air must be admitted to combustion as well as wood; and as the heated air rises, the sticks must be so placed as to admit fresh air freely below. It is easy to smother a nascent fire. The sticks must be so placed that as the centers are burned the remaining portions will be fed automatically into the coals. It is easy to so pile the fuel that a big central flame will be quickly followed by a black hollow central cavity, walled in by excellent but unavailable fuel. A well built fire does not suffer sudden relapses. The qualities of a good fire are: (x) a rapid increase to the desired size, and (2) steady burning (with no great excess of heat) thereafter. 84 HISTORY OF FARM Dan Beard’s famous campfire of four pine knots illustrates well the principles of fire making. Each knot is cleft in tapering shav- ings, which, ignited at their tips, gradually Fic. 44. Dan Beard’s famous fire of four pine 4 si G knots: a, the preparation of one of the knots; increase in size as the b, the placing and igniting of them. fire runs along them and the heat increases. They are set with thick ends upward and bases outspread, admitting air freely below. They are leaned against one another, and as they burn, they automatically come closer together. The ‘‘top fire’ of the Adirondack woodsmen illustrates excellently a long-keeping fire, that is based on a discriminat- ing knowledge of fuel values. Figure 45a illustrates its con- struction at the start. Two water-logged chunks of hemlock that will not burn out, serve as “‘andirons” to hold up the sides and insure a con- tinuous air supply from below. A smooth platform of freshly cut yellow birch polesis laid upon these. The yellow birch, even when green, has good fire keeping qualities. Hickory would serve the pur- pose. An ordinary fire is then built upon the top of the birch plat- form by means of kind- Fic. 45. A woodsman’s long-keeping “top-fire’’: : : a, beginning; b, well under d di: ling and fagots and the rolling on of the side logs. pene gor FUEL-WOODS OF THE FARM 85 rungs. As live coals form, the birch poles are burned through in the middle and fall in the midst of the coals and keep on burning. The extension of the fire outward is promoted by the upward inclination of their ends. A fire of this sort, properly begun, will continue to burn steadily through the greater part of the night, without excess of heat at the beginning, and without any further attention. A woodsman knows there are certain fuels that burn well enough that must be avoided in camp: hemlock, for example, whose confined combustion-gases explode noisily, throwing live coals in all directions. One does not want his blankets burned full of holes. And even the householder who sits by his fireplace should know that there are woods like hickory and sassafras that burn with the fragrance of incense: woods like sumach that crackle and sing: woods, like knotty pitch pine, that flare and sputter and run low, and give off flames with tints as variable and as delightful as their shapes are fantastic. One who has burned knots observantly, will never order from his fuel dealer for an open fire “‘clear straight-grained wood,” even though he have to split it himself. It has been the wasteful American way to pile and burn the tree tops in the woods for riddance of them, and then to split kindling at home. Witha woodfamineat hand we ought to be less wasteful. Half the wood produced by a tree is in its branches. Some trees hold their branches long after they are killed by overhead shading. Others with less resistant bark, drop them early and in an advanced stage of decay. Fagots gathered in the forest are, therefore, quite as different in their burning qualities as is the wood of the trunks. It should be the object of the following study to learn at first hand, what these differences are. 86 HISTORY OF FARM Study 11. Fuel-woods of the Farm The work of this study should be conducted in the wood-lot or in a bit of native forest, where there is a great variety of woody plants, big and little, living and dead. There should be found a few trees fallen and rotting; a few, broken by storms or shattered by lightning; some, diseased by fungi or eaten by beetles or ants: dead snags, tunneled by wood- peckers: old boles tattooed by sapsuckers: sprouting stumps, and scattered weaklings smothered by lustier com- petitors: In short, the usual wildwood mixture of sorts and conditions. The tools needed will be a pocket knife and a hatchet or a brick hammer to split and splinter with. The modern con- venience of matches will be allowed to all. A few axes and cross-cut saws may be taken for common use. To save the axes from certain abuse, chopping blocks should be provided in advance. The program of work will consist of: (1) a gathering of fuel stuffs from the wood-lot; and (2) a testing of them in firemaking. 1. The wood-lot should first be explored for firemaking materials. Quick-kindling stuff will be wanted chiefly for this brief exercise. These are of several categories (a) ‘‘dead and down”’ stuffs in the woods, the result of nature’s pruning and thinning. Nature has placed good firemaking materials handy. As you collect observe what kinds of trees hold their dead branches longest and preserve them most free from decay. If there are shattered trunks within reach, knock off the shattered ends and try them for kindling. Compare splintering with chopping as a means of preparing kindling stuff from dry softwood. (b) Resinous stuffs, such as the “curl’’ of the outer bark of the yellow birch, the bark strips from hemlock and other conifers, pine knots from rotted logs, etc. These will be the FUEL-WOODS OF THE FARM 87 more needed in the rain. If there be many kinds of materials available some sort of division of labor may be arranged for the collecting of it. 2. The materials gathered should be carried out to an open space on the lee side of the woods, and tried out in fire- making. Let the fires be so arranged as to secure a minimum -of inconvenience from smoke. Each student should make a small fire (not over 18 inches in diameter) using one kind of material only. Let those more experienced at fire making try more difficult materials,—say green elm, for aclimax. Let each effort result in a fire and notasmudge: It should catch quickly and burn up steadily and clear] ly with little smoke. To this end materials should be selected of proper (pen aoe, kind and proper size for ready ignition, must be so Sire or the block testing outlined in this arranged as to admit air “"4” below, must “feed”? inward as the center burns out and must not be increased in size faster than the increasing heat warrants. With the individual fires burning steadily let observations be made on the readiness of ignition of other woods, green and dead, wet and dry, sound and punk. Different kinds of bark will show interesting differences in readiness of ignition. Demonstrations: At a common fire of larger size a num- ber of demonstrations may be made. 1. The long-burning qualities of different kinds of wood may be roughly shown by placing pieces cut to like size and form on a wire rack such as is shown in fig. 46, setting the tack upon a broad uniform bed of coals, and noting the time at which each piece is completely consumed. 2. The fire holding qualities of the same kinds of wood may be shown by like treatment of a similar lot up to thepoint of their complete ignition—then removing them from the fire Fic. 47. 88 Rubbing sticks for fire making: @, drill-socket. to which pressure is applied with the left hand (a pine knot with a shallow hole in it will do for this); 6b, the drill. an octagonal hardwood stick about fifteen inches long; the top should work smoothly in the drill socket; ¢, inelastic bow for rotating drill. It is moved horizont- ally back and forth with the right hand; itscord, d,isa leather thong with enough slack to tightly encircle the drill once; e, fire board of dry balsam fir, or of cotton- wood root, or even of bass wood. Observe how the notches are cut with sides flaring downward, a little pit to receive the point of the fire drill is at the apex of each one; 1 is a used-out notch: 2 is yet in use; zisa new unused notch: the rotating of the drill with pressure from above rubs off a brownish wood powder which falls beneat the notch and smokes, and then, with gentle fanning, ignites. A dry piece of punk should be placed beneath the notch to catch it, and some fine tinder (such as may be readily made by scraping fine, dry cedar wood) should be added to catch the first flames, HISTORY OF FARM and timing the disappearance first of flame, and then of red glow. 3. The burning quality of the same kind of wood in different con- ditions, green and dead, sapwood and heartwood; dead wood wet and dry, sound and punk; pieces from knot and from straight grained por- tions, etc., may be tested as in paragraph [. 4. Ancient methods of starting a fire may be demonstrated in the inter- vals while waiting for the pieces used in 1, 2, and 3 to burn out. With the apparatus shown in fig. 47 any- one can start a fire by friction of one piece of wood upon another and care- fully nursing the first resulting spark. Flint and steel and tinder may also be tried. . 5. Some interesting peculiarities of certain woods may be shown at a common fire: (a) By having green chunks, burning at one end the liquids in the wood may be made visible. Green elm will exude water at the other end; red maple will froth; hickory will exude a very limited quantity of delicious ‘hickory honey.” (b) By burning pieces of chestnut, sumach, etc., the crack- ling of woods may be demonstrated: also the ember throw- ing habit of hemlock. A shower of sparks may be had by throwing on green and leafy boughs of hemlock and balsam. FUEL-WOODS OF THE FARM 89 The record of this study will consist in: x. An annotated list of the kindling woods found, with notes on their occurrence, natural characters, and burning qualities. Names will be furnished by instructors if needed. 2. Asketch showing your own preferred construction of a fire, with pieces properly graded in size for ready ignition, and properly placed for admission of air. 3. A brief statement of the results of the demonstrations made at the common fire. XII. WINTER VERDURE OF THE FARM. “The damsel donned her kirtle sheen; The hall was dressed with holly green; Forth to the wood did merry-men go To gather in the mistletoe.” —wWalter Scott (Marmion.) In winter when the fields are brown, the pastures deserted, the birds flown, and the deciduous trees stark as though dead, the evergreens preserve for us the chief signs of life in the out-of-doors. They mollify the bleakness of the landscape. So we cover with them the bleakest slopes, we line them up for windbreaks, and we plant them cosily about our homes. Nature has used the larger coniferous evergreens on a grand scale, covering vast areas of the earth with them and developing a whole population to dwell among them. Two species of pine have been among the most important of our country’s natural resources: the white pine at the North and the pitch pine at the South; and these two have con- ditioned the settlement of the regions in which they occur. Both have been ruthlessly sacrificed, and we have but a poor and shabby remnant of them remaining. At the North the white pine was cut first: then the spruce and then the hem- lock. This was the order of their usefulness to us. Old fences made of enduring pine stumps surround fields where there are no living pine trees to be seen, bearing silent testi- mony to their size and their aforetime abundance. Our evergreens, broadly considered, fall into two groups of very different character. These are the narrow-leaved evergreens (the leaves we call ‘‘needles,”) mostly conifers, and the broad-leaved evergreens. The former are mostly trees of the forest cover; the latter are mostly underlings. The former are mostly valuable timber trees, the latter have little practical importance. The former are plants of an WINTER VERDURE OF THE FARM gI archaic type that bear naked seeds in cones and have incon- spicuous flowers. The latter are of more recent origin and have mostly very showy flowers. So great are these differen-. ces we may better consider the two groups separately. — The larger conifers all have one habit of growth: they shoot upward straight as an arrow. Most of them have their branches arranged in whorls about the slender tapering trunk, and extended horizontally. Thus, under their winter burden of ice and snow, they may bend down uninjured until they rest on branches below, or on the ground. Given plenty of room the pines grow in ragged outlines: the spruces, hemlock and balsam, are beautifully tapering and conical, the arborvite and the taller cedars approach cylindric form. In color the white pine is the darkest green, the pitch pine is yellowish green. The balsams and certain spruces and cedars have a bluish cast. Arborvite is a chameleon, that changes its color with the season, being rather dull and un- attractive in mid-winter but making upforit by the liveliness of its tints a little later. In texture the pines are loosest, their long needles being arranged in bundles. The balsams and spruces have a sleek, furry aspect. The hemlock is soft and fine: indeed of all foliage masses, there are none more beautiful than those of well-grown hemlock. And the closest textures of all are wrought out of the minute, close-laid leaves of the cedars and the arborvite. The red cedar is not among the largest of the conifers, but it is a valuable one, because of the fine aromatic fragrance and the enduring quality of its wood. The junipers and the yews are the underlings of this group: they are low, sprawling shrubs that grow on the forest floor in the shade, or on stony and barren slopes. This exceedingly important group of trees furnishes us with a great variety of products, timber, fuel, tannin, tur- pentine, rosin, etc., but it furnished the red man with many g2 HISTORY OF FARM additional, not the least important of which was cordage. The Indian made binding thongs from the tough roots of hemlock, cedar and yew. Our broad-leaved evergreens are mostly low shrubs, and trailing ground-cover herbs. One of the finest of them, in the freshness of its winter greenery and in beauty of its summer flowers, is the mountain laurel. In the woods on the ground there are clumps of evergreen ferns, and partridge berry and wintergreen, and tufts of perennial mosses, and considerable areas are often overspread with the bright and shining ver- dure of the blue myrtle, or, in dry places with the gray green of the mosspink. Many of our scattered herbs like alum root and wild strawberry remain green over winter if not too much exposed. Even the grasses of our lawns remain green, with a little protection. Study 12. Evergreens of the Farm An examination of all the commoner and more interesting evergreens of the farm, with a view to learning their earmarks, is the object of this study. The apparatus needed will be a lens and a pocket knife. The program of the work will include a trip about the lawns where specimen trees grown in the open may be found,* and a visit to the woods to see the evergreens of the forest cover and the forest floor. The species are to be examined care- fully, one by one, and their salient characters noted. The conifers are to be written wp in a table prepared with headings as indicated on pp. 94 and 95. The more heterogeneous broad-leaved evergreens are to be listed, with brief notes as to their characters and habits. *Often the most available living collection of evergreens will be found in a neighboring cemetery or park. WINTER VERDURE OF THE FARM 93 The record of this study will consist in: 1. The table of conifers above mentioned filled out so far as data are available. pete Weer gata 2. Anannotated list of the broad-leaved evergreens, with notes on size, growth-habits, situation preferred, character of - foliage, etc. RECOGNITION CHARACTER Growth NAME Habit! Kind of Barke Size? Forn 1 Diagram. ? Note color, content, manner of shedding, etc. 3 Length X width in mm. 4Cylindric, flat, keeled, grooved, etc. EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS Fruit Position® Arrangement6 Kind? Form? Miscellaneous 5 Appressed or divergent, etc. §Solitary or in bundles: if solitary are they opposite or alternate, 2—ranked or scattered: if in bundles, how many leaves per bundle. 7Cone, berry, drupe, etc. 8 Diagram of distinctive features. XIII. THE WILD MAMMALS OF THE FARM “I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken Nature’s social union. An’ justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle, At me, thy poor earth-born companion An’ fellow-mortal! —Robert Burns (To a mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough.) Aboriginal society in America was largely based on the native wild beasts. They were more essential to the red man than our flocks and herds are to us. His dependence upon them was more direct and absolute. They furnished him food and clothing and shelter and tools. His clothing was made of skins; his eating and drinking vessels were of horn and hide and bone. His knife was a beaver tooth. Sinews, teeth, hair, hide, hoofs, intestines and bones all served him. Out of them he got hammers. and wedges and drills and scrapers and clamps: threads and thongs and boxes and bags; tools and supplies for all purposes. He made textiles of hair and of quills and in them wrought the expression of his esthetic ideals. The Indian was conquered and driven out in part by direct assault, but in a far larger part by the destruction of his resources in furs and game. Losing these, he became dependent. Armed resistance by the eastern Indians ceased with the passing of the beaver; by the plains Indians with the passing of the buffalo. The earliest white settlements in America were supported mainly by hunting and trapping and the sale of furs. Mis- sionary zeal and desire for extension of empire promoted the founding of colonies, but peltries provided the necessary revenues for their maintenance. The fur trade was inti- mately associated with our early colonial development and THE WILD MAMMALS OF THE FARM 97 even with early social affairs and military enterprises. The beaver and the badger and the wolverine and the bison rightly occupy a place on the seals of certain of our states. These fine quadrupeds, once so abundant, are gone from our settled country. Save for a remnant, preserved in reservations, largely as a result of private enterprise, the bison is entirely gone. The others are crowded to the far northern frontier. We have fur-bearers still, and also a fur trade: indeed, more money is spent for furs now-a-days than ever before in the country’s history. But our furs are now derived from animals, which but a generation ago were mainly considered hardly worth skinning. The four native mammals which now chiefly supply the market are, in their respective order, muskrat, skunk, opossum and raccoon, with the mink still furnishing a lesser proportion of much more valuable skins. These are obtained in considerable numbers from all parts of the country still, but the getting of them is no longer aman’s work. It is rather the recreation of the enterprising farm boy. The white man brought with him to America all the differ- ent kinds of mammals that he now uses. He found none domesticated here. The Indian was a hunter: not a husbandman. The white man was a more ruthless hunter, equipped with better weapons. The Indian would no more kill off allthe beaver and otter on his range, than the stock- man would dispose of all his herd. He kept a portion to breed and renew the supply. But the white man, having his domesticated animals to fall back on; slaughtered the wild ones ruthlessly without regard for the future. Indeed, the wantonness of the slaughter of some of them—notably of the bison—is a disgraceful chapter in our country’s history. The mammals that are of great importance to man fall in three groups: hoofed animals, beasts of prey and rodents. There were some fine native hoofed animals in North America. 08 HISTORY OF FARM Besides the bison, “noblest of American quadrupeds” there were deer and elk and moose, of wide distribution, and in the Rockies were mountain sheep and goat: and in their foot- hills, the graceful prong-horn. Of these, the red deer remains where given protection: indeed, though never domesticated, it seems to thrive on the borders of civilization. Recently in New Eng- land farmers have had to kill off wild deer in order to save their crops. Of the beasts of prey, all the lar-. ger species, bears, and pumas, and lynxes and wolves have been killed or driven out: and probably most of us would be well enough satisfied to have all those that remain, confined in zoological parks. Foxes linger in the larger wooded tracks. Skunks are probably more abundant than in primeval times; for there ismore food available and they are not hunted very eagerly by most of us. Minks and weasels and raccoons haunt the swamps and marshes, and being both small and alert, main- tain themselves very well. The rodents have fared better under agricultural conditions than the two preceding groups. The destruction of the beast of prey removed their most dangerous natural enemies, and the growing of crops in the fields increased their available food. It is altogether probable, therefore, that where special measures are not taken by man to destroy them, such rodents as the woodchuck, gophers, meadow mice and rabbits are more abundant now than in primeval times. At any rate, we can by taking proper ‘measures, find plenty of them. Fic. 48. A prong-horn buck. THE WILD MAMMALS OF THE FARM 99 Then there are a few little insect-eating mammals, like the moles and the shrews in their burrows in the soil, and the bats in the air, that perhaps are not greatly affected by the changed conditions. Southward, there is the interesting marsupial, the opossum, nocturnal, wary and elusive, holding its own. The group of mammals includes those animals that are most like us in structure and habits and mode of develop- ment. Among them are our best servants, our best pro- ducers of bodily comforts, our most direct competitors and our most dangerous enemies. We have gathered the more docile of those useful to us about our homes, and have made them our more immediate servants. We have exploited their untamable allies to the limit of our powers. So long as there remained a toothsome body or a prized pelt we spared not. Our enemies and competitors we killed. At first it was done in self-defense: of late, it has been done in sheer and wanton love of slaughter. Improved weapons of destruction have placed the larger beasts completely at our mercy, and we have had no mercy. There remain with us one that we avoid, a few that are too small to be deemed worthy of pursuit, and.a few that are able to elude us. At our approach the squirrels hide from us in the trees; the gophers and their kind drop into their burrows, the swamp-dwellers slip into the water, and the wiley foxes watch us from the thickets. Eternal vigilance is the price of their safety. We may see little of them when we walk in the woods or by the streamside, but there are many pairs of sharp little eyes always watching us. Before the final disappearance of the larger species, it is well that we are taking measures to keep a remnant of them in game preserves: our descendants will want to know what the native fauna of their native land was like. Wedo well aiso, to consider that each species we destroyisa final product of the evolution of the ages. It is the outcome of the toil and 100 HISTORY OF FARM pains of countless generations: and when once swept away it can never be recovered. By the care of our flocks we have become more sympathetic towards tame animals. By taking thought for the welfare of the remnant of our wild animals, we shall become more sympathetic toward them: more appreciative of their fine powers and their esthetic values. We shall become more civilized; for, as the late Professor Shaler assured us, ‘“‘The sense of duty which mastery of the earth gives, is to be one of the moral gifts of modern learning.” Study 13. The Wild Mammals of the Farm This study includes a little trapping expedition, and some examination of captured wild animals and observations of their haunts and habits. The tools needed will be pocket knives, an individual supply of small mouse traps and bait (rolled oats will do for bait), and some cord and fine wire for snares. Since members of the class will be able to capture only a few of the over-abundant little rodents, others should be available in captivity. Woodchucks, chipmunks, etc., may be kept buried in a box in hibernation, if obtained in autumn. Raccoons, opossums, etc., may be purchased from dealers. They may often be borrowed from persons in the neighborhood who keep them as pets. The program of work will consist of: 1. A trip along some meadow fence row and about the grassy borders of a wood, taking up a line of traps (that should have been set the day before and marked as to location), removing the catch and again baiting them. They should be set in the runways of meadow mice, wood mice, shrews, moles, etc. Little “Zip” traps or others of the guillotine type, are lightest and cheapest (three cents or less apiece in quantities), - and are quite efficient. They are baited by sprinkling some flakes of oats about the trigger. They,are best covered by a THE WILD MAMMALS OF THE FARM 101 sheltering piece of bark or a flat stone, supported an inch or more, allowing easy access. A few snares of the simple sort Fic. 49. Spring pole and snare: A, its setting; the pole is a lithe sapling, trimmed and bent, its top held down by a line, J, attached to a trigger ina hole in the post, p. Fast to the line is the sli noose, #, (most ec made of small annealed brass wire) which is set across the rab- bit’s path in such a position that the rabbit will push his head through it when reach- ing the bait, T, illustrates how the trigger ¢ set in a 54 inch hole in the post. The slightest movement of the bait-stick rolls the ball and, releases the line, /, and liberates the pole to draw the noose. illustrated in fig. 49 (or of some better sort known to any member of the class) may be set in the briar patch in the runways of rab- bits or in the mouths of their bur- TOWS. 2. Such animals as the traps contain, together with such others as are provided, living or dead or represented by tanned skins are to be compared and their characters are to be written in a table pre- pared with headings as indicated on pages 102 and 103. Fill out the table in full, but distinguish in it between original observations and borrowed data. The record of this study will consist in: t. The completed table, as indi- - cated above. 2. Amap of the farm, with the location of typical haunts of the different species studied indicated upon it. THE WILD MAN NAME Weight Length Body Tail Color and Mark: RODENTIA (Ss) CARNIVORA J i=) i —_ 12. . Woodchuck . Chipmunk . Red squirrel . Deer mouse . Meadow mouse . Short-tailed shrew - Mole . Skunk Mink . Weasel . Raccoon Bat "In brief. bbb, OF THE FARM Fur Quality! {Market Price Feeding Habits? Economy? Miscellaneous XIV. THE DOMESTICATED MAMMALS OF THE FARM “One of the best features of agricultural life consists in the great amount of care-taking which it imposes upon its followers. The ordinary farmer has to enter into more or less sympathetic relations with half a score of animal species and many kinds of plants. His life, indeed, 1s devoted to ceaseless friendly relations with these creatures, which live or die at his will. In this task ancient savage impulses are slowly worn away and in their place comes the enduring kindliness of cultivated men. . . To this perhaps more than to any other one cause, we must attribute the civilizable and the civilized state of mind.” —Shaler (Domesticated Animals, p. 222.) Our chief needs in life are things to eat, things to wear, and things to have fun with. Our mammalian allies provide all these things to a remarkable degree. Agriculture tends to increase the things that minister to our bodily comforts; but it is probable that animals were first domesticated to serve the needs of our minds; for the first animal to be domesti- cated appears to have been the dog, and he, to furnish, not food, nor raiment, but companionship. The dog was docile and friendly and cheerful and in every way responsive to his master’s moods. His mind was of a singularly human-like quality. He could interpret his master’s commands, and was eager to obey them. He could appreciate praise or blame. He could profit by instruction; and he lent to primitive man the inestimable aid of his sharp teeth, his swift feet, his keen ears and nose, and, above all, his courage and his fealty. He shared his master’s hovel and ate of the leavings from his table until he came to prefer his master’s society to that of his own kind, staying with him through poverty and want, often indeed, in the face of penury and abuse. He becamea will- ing slave, and the ‘“‘completest conquest man has made in all the animal kingdom.” In all this he was a companion and_”’ a helper. Rarely among the tribes of men has the dog DOMESTICATED MAMMALS OF THE FARM 105 been considered a source of food supply. except in times of famine. And our dealings with the other domesticated beasts, that now-a-days seem so utilitarian, were not in the beginning so very different. It is probable that the first of them to be brought into human association were captured young and kept at home as pets. The desire of their captors was probably not to eat them, nor to wear their skins, but to see more of their interesting ways. The frisking calf or colt or lamb was a new playmate for the children of the household. So, all sorts of wild animals are gathered about the homes of primitive people. everywhere, even today. So, they are played with and tamed and such as prove harmless and docile are allowed increasing liberty about the place. There are few of them indeed, that, when free and fully grown, will not desert the homes of their captors for their native wilds. Some such have been found in times long past, and from these have descended our domesticated animals. Doubtless the sav- age youth whofirst captured a few wild calves, and tamed and reared and bred them and started a herd, little realized the far-reaching influence of his venture upon the development of buman civilization. In attaching the more useful wild animals to his home, savage man attached himself there. It became easier to raise food and clothing than to get them by the uncertainties of the chase. As a keeper of flocks and herds his substance increased; his living became better assured; his sympathies and interests were broadened; his forethought grew. The dog has been of chief value to the hunter and the husbandman. He was by nature a superb scout; vigilant, keen, able to take care of himself, and quick to learn ways of cooperating with his master. Hecould be taught what to do, and—yet more remarkable—what not to do, even to the curbing of his natura] appetites. From eating sheep and 106 HISTORY OF FARM fowls he came with education to be the protector and shep- herd of them. He could be taught to work also, tho too small to be of value where large beasts of burden are available; yet that stocky dog, the turnspit, was developed to operate the tread mill. Heisa draft animal in arcticlands; there his flesh also serves to tide over many a famine, and his furry coat is used for clothing. It is only in our cities, where removed from the ways of nature, and subject to too much coddling, and developed in freak varieties, that he has become a stupid and useless nuisance. Dogs are subservient to their masters in both sexes; while the males of the larger domesticated beasts, after centuries of care and training, remain dangerous beasts still. One of the greatest advances in agri- culture came with the domestication of the cattle-kind, and their use as draft Fic. 50. Ox yoke: our animals. Turning the soil with a Bag en ae anees sharpened stick was, to the early plant- er, a sore task, and a slow one. When the stick was exchanged for a plow, and the great strength of the ox was set to draw it, then tillage began on a larger scale. Then settled homes, and property in land, began to be developed. Nature equipped the cattle kind to serve us in many ways. She made them excellent producers of flesh and of milk, of hides and of horn. She made them hardy, and adaptable to a great variety of climate and of artificial condi- tions of life. She made them to live on such herbage as any meadow, wild or tame, offers. In no other beasts has she so combined usefulness in labor, docility, and productiveness. The horse has been one of man’s chief helpers along the road of progress. Next to the dog he has been man’s most intimate associate. He was admirably adapted by nature to supplement man’s physical powers. He was of the right size: not too small to carry a rider and not too large nor too DOMESTICATED MAMMALS OF THE FARM 107 obstinate to be manageable. His back was a natural saddle, behind the sloping shoulder blades, and his well-knit frame was well braced and fitted for carrying a rider easily His rounded muscular hams gave power to his hind legs and made them efficient organs of propulsion. His lengthened foot bones gave length of stride. His solid hoofs were well cushioned and admirably adapted for travel over solid ground. His gait was more easy and graceful than that of any other beast of burden. The structure of his mouth would seem to have invited the use of a bridle-bit for his guidance and control. The whole horse invited a rider; and doubtless many a savage youth, who had captured an orphaned colt and reared it by hand, felt moved to accept the invi- 7: 31; The pleasure tation. At first he doubtless rode bare- back, and witb only a cord halter for control. Later, he invented a saddle and bridle. To a strong horse, the weight of grown man is a lightsome burden. The saddle is not a symbol of labor, but of a pleasure that is mutual. The two participants seem complemental. The trained horse and the skilful rider make a unit in action: they make up such a powerful creature as the mythical Centaur was intended to portray. In the long struggles of past centuries during which incessant wars were waged in hand to hand encounter, the mounted soldier had a tremendous advantage. The horse lent him swiftness and strength and momentum in attack, and advantage of position in the fray. The mounted soldiery of the Aryan and Semitic peoples enabled them to over-run the earth. As the wealth of a people was measured of old by its herds of cattle, so its power was measured by its multitudes of war horses. All ancient art and literature testify abundantly to 108 HISTORY OF FARM this. The horse was kept for use in war mainly. Some peculiarities of his mental make-up seem to fit him for the parade ground. He seems to love excitement. He enters into a race with great zest. He steps high in public and wears the trappings of war with all the proud disdainfulness of a Cavalier. He has given his name to one ostentatious period of our history, the Age of Chivalry. To the Greeks we probably owe an invention of the first order, that has adapted the horse more fully to our needs: the iron shoe, to fit his foot for continuous travel over hard roads. The cloven foot of the ox could not be so equipped. It was adapted for soft ground and could not endure hard roads. The horse gradually took the place of the ox, first on the roads and later in the furrow. The horse was both swifter of foot and stronger. Do we not still measure the energy used for heavy work in horse-power? To our welfare sheep have contributed of their flesh and their wool. The latter is their unique gift to us. Man’s earlier clothing of skins was heavy and unadaptable and unhygienic. Sheep’s wool is finely adapted to be spun into threads and woven into cloth; and, so treated, it makes the strongest and best of clothing. The discovery of this art wrought one of the greatest advances in the comforts of life for people in temperate climes. Sheep do not belong to the tropics. They are adapted to life in rough, hilly, semi- agricultural districts. They are less exacting as to forage than are cattle, and being strictly gregarious, the flocks are more easily herded and guarded from the attack of wild beasts. They are quicker of growth than cattle, and more prolific and less capital is required to make a beginning at sheep-raising. The pig has served us mainly as a supplementary food supply. He puts on flesh quickly and is very prolific.” Hence, the meat supply can be more quickly increased by DOMESTICATED MAMMALS OF THE FARM 109 raising pigs than by raising sheep or cattle. In our late Civil War, hogs early became the main reliance for meat supply for the soldiers on both sides. The quantity of pork in the country at any given time may, by raising hogs, be doubled in eighteen months. Hogs are well nigh omnivorous and are gifted by nature with a keen sense of smell, with the aid of which they are able to find food that cattle and horses waste. So they are usually allowed to run after cattle to convert the waste into pork. The pig is not naturally a very dirty animal, when given a chance to be clean, nor is he hopelessly stupid. He can be taught more tricks than many animals that have a higher reputation for cleverness. His manners, however, are bad. These five animals, dog, horse, ox, sheep and pig are as yet our main dependence. There are others more or less widely kept. like the cat and the ass and the goat and the rabbit; but these five are most necessary tous. These illustrate well the phenomena of domestication: the many different pur- poses served by different beasts, the great differences among them in size, in strength, in speed, in habits, in disposition, and in products. We do not treat any two kinds of them alike, nor in speaking to them, do we use the same words. They have affected our sympathies and our habits, enriched our language, and conditioned our progress. How individual they are: how well known and characteristic are their voices. Dogs bark and whine and howl: cats purr and mew and yowl: horses whinny and neigh: bulls bellow and cows bawl: pigs grunt and squeal: sheep bleat: don- keys bray. How characteristic their actions are, also. They furnish our most graphic figures of speech Often in politics or in business we hear men accused of shying, of balking, of Fic. 52. A quick growing meat supply. IIo HISTORY OF FARM getting their bristles up, or of having the fur rubbed the wrong way; of barking up the wrong tree. Ethnologists tell us that half the words in any primitive language are derived from association with animals. They have been long and intimately associated with man- kind. They have learned some things from us but we have learned vastly more from them. We have learned fidelity from the dog, chivalry from the horse, gentleness from the cow, parental affection and codperation and sympathy from all of them. To our minds, the dog stands for fealty: he represents many private virtues. The horse stands for courage; he represents rather the public virtues. The ox stands for docility. The sheep represents our commonest social, the pig, our commonest personal shortcomings. How much we have been influenced in our dealings with them by their mental characteristics is well shown by the horse: his flesh is excellent, but the thought of eating it is repugnant tous. The milk of maresis good, but who would drink it? In lands where certain cattle are regarded as sacred their flesh is not considered good toeat. Their availability as food is not determined by our judgment, but by our sympa- thies. Furthermore, the mule considered from a purely utili- tarian standpoint has much to commend him to our favor. Though he is a hybrid between the horse and the ass, he is stronger than either parent. He will live on coarser food than the horse, and needs Jess careful handling. But heis a sterile hybrid; his voice is a bray, his ears are long, he is inelegant in outline and in his bearing, and his manners lack all the pleasing little playful capers of the horse. He has taken no hold on our affections. The domestication of all our important live-stock antedates history. Of the five most important mammals discussed in the preceding pages the ancestor of only the pig is known. It is the wild boar of Europe. Selection has done its proper DOMESTICATED MAMMALS OF THE FARM IIL work on all of them, and as many types of each of them have been evolved as there were purposes to be served. Selection .began with dogs, and has proceeded farthest with them. They have served the greatest variety of purposes. There are sledging dogs for the arctic fields, and turnspits for the treadmills, and bull dogs to guard the door, and shepherd dogs to guard the flocks, and besides these, and more numerous than all these, are the hunting dogs: for hunting was the occupation that dogs could best aid. There were developed, to meet the various conditions of the chase, harriers and beagles and pointers and setters and terriers, etc., and, to follow particular kinds of game blood hounds and fox hounds to run by smell, and grey hounds and stag hounds to run by sight; and so on, dogs without end. The case is much simpler with the other mammals. Horses are bred mainly for speed or for draft, thothere are many kindsof horses, and ponies for children’s use besides. Cattle are bred mainly for beef or for milk production; sheep for mutton, or for wool; pigs for lard, or for bacon, etc. In the following study we shall have opportunity to study a number of the important breeds. Let us do it without forgetting that the reasons for their value to us have lain and yet lie in their natural history. Study 14. The Domesticated Mammals of the Farm The object of this study is an acquaintance with the live- stock of the farm: their number, location, characteristics and uses. The program of work will consist of a trip to all the barns where domesticated mammals are kept: (1) A preliminary examination will’ be made of a typical representative of each species and then (2) a more detailed examination of the varieties of a few species. 112 HISTORY OF FARM The record of this study will be in two parts: 1. The student will write up brief notes on the dog, horse. cow, sheep, pig, etc., concerning those points in their natural history determining their availability for purposes of domesti- cation as follows: their size and weight (average); rate of growth; reproductive capacity; foods and feeding habits; voice and social habits; weapons and fighting habits; for what use fit; and general attractiveness or unattractiveness of make-up and behavior. These notes should include only personal observations. 2. The record of the second part of this study, the com- parison of breeds, may conveniently be incorporated into tables, one for each species studied, with column headings indicating the more obvious points of structure and of pro- ductiveness and habits in which the breeds differfrom one another. For example. a table for the breeds of cattle might have the column headings as follows: Name of breed (as Holstein, Ayrshire, etc.). Average weight (adult). Average milk production (get data from dairy record). Color and markings. Horns. Muzzle. Feet. Other peculiarities. Number kept. Kept where. Average market value. XV. THE FOWLS OF THE FARM ‘No longer now the winged habitants, That in the woods their sweet lives sing away, Flee from the form of man; but gather round, And prune their sunny feathers on the hands Which little children stretch in friendly sport Towards these dreadless partners of their play.” —Shelley (Daemon of the World.) In that day, not so long gone in America, when all men were huntsmen, and when game was all-important animal food, wild fowls were abundant everywhere. The feathered game was the most toothsome and wholesome of animal foods. The waterfow], fattened on wild rice and on wild celery, and the turkeys and pigeons, fattened on mast, acquired a flavor that is a tradition among our epicures. Eggs, also, and feathers were their further contribution to human needs. These wild fow], altho mainly different species from those we have domesticated, represent the same bird groups that are used by mankind the world over; land fowl, and water- fowl, and pigeons. There were also a good many lesser edible birds of no great importance, such as the snipe of the shores, the woodcock of the swamps, and the rails of the marshes. Comparatively few birds were big enough to be worthy of consideration as food for man. Of large land fowl the most noteworthy were wild turkeys and grouse and quail. Of large waterfowl there were swans and geese and ducks. Of tree-dwelling fowl there were wild pigeons. To learn how abundant these were we need go back only a little to the records of the pioneers. Father Raffeix, the Jesuit missionary who was one of the first white men to dwell beside ‘‘Cayuga’s waters,” wrote thus of the abundance of game in the Cayuga basin: “Every year in the vicinity of Cayuga more than a thousand deers are killed. Four II4 HISTORY OF FARM leagues distant from here on the brink of the river (the Seneca) are eight or ten fine salt fountains in a small space. It is there that nets are spread for pigeons, and from seven to eight hundred are often taken at a single stroke of the net. Lake Tiohero (Cayuga), one of the two which joins our can- ton, is fully fourteen leagues long and one or two broad. It abounds in swans and geese all winter, and in spring one sees a continuous cloud of all sorts of game. The river which rises in the lake soon divides into different channels enclosed by prairies, with here and there fine attractive bays of con- siderable extent, excellent places for hunting.” (Jesuit Relations for 1671-72). Of our fine native fowl, one, the turkey, has been domesticated: one, the wild pigeon has been wholly exter- minated; and most of the others have been hunted almost to the point of extinction: game laws as at present written serve merely to prolong a little their slaughter. If there be any hope of preserving unto future gener- ations the remnant of those game birds that still survive it would seem to lie in the permanent reservations that are being established north and south, mainly by private enterprise. The wild pigeon was the first of our fine game birds to disappear. Its social habits were its undoing, when once guns were brought to its pursuit. It flew in great flocks which were conspicuous and noisy, and which the hunter could follow by eye and ear, Pre. Oe. be wild passenger and mow down with shot at every THE FOWLS OF THE FARM 115 resting place. One generation of Americans found the pigeons in “inexhaustible supply:’’ the next saw them vanish—vanish, so quickly that few museums even sought to keep specimens of their skins or their nests or their eggs; the third generation (which we represent) marvels at the true tales of: their aforetime abundance, and at the swiftness of their passing; and allows.the process of extermination to go on only a little more slowly, with other fine native species. The waterfowl have fared a little better. Their migratory habits have kept most of them, except at the season of their coming and going, out of the way of the pot-hunter. In their summer breeding grounds in the far north, andin their winter feeding grounds in the far south they have been exposed only to those natural: enemies with which they were fitted to cope. Yet,. before the fusillade of lead that has followed their every flight across our borders their ranks have steadily thinned. Their size and conspicuousness (and consequent ability to gratify the hunter’s:zeal for big game) seem to be determining the order of their passing. The swans have disappeared. The geese are nearly gone: rarely do we hear their honk, honk over head in springtime; and the wild ducks appear in our equinoctial skies in ever lessening numbers. Who that has: grown up in a land of abundant wild fowl, has known them as heralds of summer and winter, has seen the coming out of the north and disappearing into the south, has not marvelled at the swiftness, strength and endurance of their flight, and been uplifted with enthusiasm as he watched their well drilled V-shaped companies, cleaving the sky in lines of perfect alignment and spacing. Our literature testifies abundantly to the inspiration of this phenomenon. How much poorer will our posterity be if these signs are to dis- appear from our zodiac! The terrestrial wild fowl have vanished also; especially those that, like the wild turkey, were large enough to be 116 HISTORY OF FARM trophies to the hunter; or those, like the bob-white, that were social in habits; or those, like the prairie hen, that flew in the open and could be followed by the eye to cover. Our woods-loving < ruffed grouse has fared a 3 little better. Wherever suffi- cient forest cover remains, it has been able to maintain itself in spite of well armed. pursuers. It is alert. It is solitary. Its protective coloration is well nigh perfection. Its flight is swift; and when flushed from cover it goes off with a startling suddenness and whirring of wings that disconcerts the average hunter and delays his fire until a safe escape has been made. Moreover, the hunter, by . killing off some of its worst enemies among the beasts of prey, has unwittingly helped the grouse to hold its place. So it remains with us, by virtue of its superb natural endowment, notwithstanding it is truly a hunter’s prize. Fattenedon the wild cereals of the woodland swales, and flavored with the aromatic buds of the sweet birch, there is no more toothsome game bird in the world than this one. Among the curious sounds made by male birds the calls of our native land birds are most unique. The ludicrous gobble of the turkey, the ——~, thrilling whistle of the bob-white, ; ~ the muffled drumming of the ruffed FS:,55; , The, male, mudled Fic. 54. Bob-White (after Seton). THE FOWLS OF THE FARM 117 grouse are sounds unmatched in nature and inimitable; so also are the antics that accompany their utterance. The day of abundance of wild fowl in this country is forever past. The most that may be hoped for by the bird-lover is that a few may be saved here and there, wherever fit homes for them remain. The pigeon is gone; the turkey is a captive; but let us hope that a few wild places will be preserved where those who come after.us may hear the call of the bob-white . and the grouse in our vales: Piling) Sf tail (Portana tot us hope they may be uplifted with the sight of some of our fine wild water-fowl, traversing the equinoctial skies. Our ancestors brought with them to America fowls that had been domesticated in earlier times and in far distant lands: Chickens, ducks, geese, pigeons, guinea-fowl, pea- fowl, etc. These doubtless, came into domestication largely by way of the barnyard. Are they not called barnyard fowl, and so distinguished from wild fowl? They may have lingered about the stalls-of the cattle and horses in primeval times to find the grain wasted by these animals, and to feed up- onit. It is a noteworthy fact that of all birds, the ones most useful to us are those that are best equipped by nature for working-over the barnyard litter and securing the grain left init; the grallatorial birds by scratching with their feet; the waterfowl by dabbling with their beaks. They consumed what would otherwise have been wasted and turned it into a reserve meat supply; so they were encouraged to remain. With growing familiarity they made their nests in the hay- 118 HISTORY OF FARM mow and among the fodder where their eggs could be more easily found than in the woods. Here was another reason for encouraging intimacy. Nests were made for them; at first, as nearly as might be, after their own models. Then shelters were erected over their roosts: then pens were built to keep them from their enemies. So, by some such easy stages, poultry husbandry probably began. The most valuable fowls are those that furnish eggs as well as meat. Eggs are pure food, containing no refuse. Among animal foods they are natures choicest product. They are edible without cooking and are at their best when most simply prepared for the table. All the world eats eggs; and in any land to which one may travel, whatever its culinary offerings, one may eat eggs, and live. Among domesticated fowls, chickens hold first place. The obvious practical reasons for this are the excellent quality of their flesh, the rapidity of their growth, their productivity of eggs, and their hardiness and ready adaptability to the artificial conditions under which we keep them. The less obvious but none the less real reason is that we like chickens for their interesting ways, They are eminently social creatures, endowed witha wonderful variety of voice and signs for social converse. Their beauty strongly appeals to us. We are interested in the arrogant eomplacency of the cock, in his cheerful pugnacity, his lusty crowing, his watchfulness over his flock, and his warning call when a hawk appears in the sky; in his great gallantry toward the hens; how ostenta- tiously he calls them when he finds a choice morsel of food (tho he may absent-mindedly swallow it himself). We like the hen for her gentle demeanor, her cheerful, tho unmelo- dious, song; her diligence and capability in all her daily tasks; her fine maternal instincts and self sacrificing devotion to her brood. The chicks also appeal to us by their downy. plumpness of form, their cheerful sociability and their soft THE FOWLS OF THE FARM 119g conversation, and playfulness. Contrast: with this the pea fowl: itis of good quality and large size and effulgent showi- ness, but it has a raucous voice and bad social manners and it has never taken any hold on the affections of human kind. There can be no doubt that in the beginning—in those prehistoric days during which all our important conquests of animated nature were made—when association with domestic animals was much more intimate than now, animals were selected, as other associates are selected, on the bas‘s of pleasing personal characteristics. Study 15. The Fowls of the Farm Few observations by a class on wild fowl are possible: hence, this study assumes a few such forms as grouse, bob whites and pheasants in pens, and available domesticated breeds of the various kinds of poultry. The information obtainable in the pens may be supplemented by exhibits of skins, nests and eggs, by photographs and lantern slides. Two things are here proposed to be undertaken: 1. A general comparison of fowl species, wild and tame, as to those qualities that determine availability for domestica- tion; and 2. A comparison and census of the breeds of the more important kinds of poultry maintained on the farm. The program of work will include a visit to at least one pen of each kind, (species; not breed), of fowl with note-taking as indicated below, followed by a more careful examination of the breeds of one or more kinds. The record of the first part may consist of an annotated list of all the kinds of fowls studied, with notes on such points as relative size and weight, rate of growth, reproductive capacity, foods and feeding habits, eggs and nesting habits, broods and breeding habits, voice and social habits, weapons and fighting habits, and their general attractiveness or unattractiveness of 120 HISTORY OF FARM: make-up and behavior. In these notes distinguish between original observations and second-hand information. The record of the second part of this study, the comparison of breeds, may conveniently be made in the form of a table, provided with column headings as follows: Name of breed (Plymouth-rock, bantam, etc., if a table of common fowl). Average weight. Average egg production (get data from poultry-yard records). General color. Special ornamentation. Comb (make a simple diagram of it). Feet (size, color, spurs, feathering, etc.) Peculiarities of behavior. Other peculiarities. Number males kept. Number females. Kept where. XVI. FARM LANDSCAPES “I do not own an inch of land But all I see is mine— The orchard and the mowing fields The lawns and gardens fine. The winds my tax collectors are; They bring me tithes divine.” —Lucy Larcom (A Strip of Blue.) Agriculture is the one great branch of human industry that does not necessarily spoil the face of nature. It does not leave the land covered with slash, or heaped with culm, or smeared with sludge, or buried in smoke. It alters and rearranges, but it keeps the world green and beautiful. It changes wild pastures into tame ones, and substitutes orchards for woodlands. Its crops and its herds are good to look upon. The beautiful plant or animal is the one that is well grown; and farm plants and animals must be well grown to be profitable; otherwise there is no good farming. Nature nourishes impartially wild and tame, and crowns them equally with her opulent graces of form and color. The farmer has at hand all the materials that nature uses to make on the earth an Eden. Fortunately, there are some features of the beauty of the country that may not be misused. The blue sky overhead, and the incomparable beauty of the clouds, are out of reach - and cannot be marred. Hills and vales, also, and lakes and streams, and uplands and lowlands, have all been shaped by the titantic forces of nature, and are beyond man’s puny power tochange. These are the major features of the land- scape: It is only the minor features that are, to any appre- ciable extent, within our control: mainly, the living things that are the finishings and furnishings of one’s immediate environment. These, however, always fill the foreground, I22 HISTORY OF FARM giving it life and interest. With these one may do much to alter the setting of his labors. Besides furnishing the farmer with all the materials used in her landscape compositions, nature surrounds him with good models, from the study of which he may learn their use If he looks to the wildwood about him he will be able to find scenes that disclose the elements of landscape beauty. He will find sheltering nooks that invite him to come and rest in their seclusion; sinuous streams and curving paths whose gracefully sweeping lines invite his imagination to wander: broad levels, whereon his eye rests with pleasure, bordered by cumulous masses of shrubbery; tree covered slopes, with the leafage climbing to the summits, here advancing, there retreating, everywhere varied with infinite tuftings, full of lights and shadows; irregular skylines, punctuated by not too many nor too prominent forms of individuality; and all organized and unified and harmonizing as component parts of the border of the valley of some stream or lake. Now the farm is not a natural unit of this larger landscape, but only a small section arbitrarily marked out by the sur- veyor. With the larger landscape the best one can do is to locate, if he may, where the prospect is good. Moreover, the curving lines of nature’s pictures and the merging masses of her plantings, are not practically applicable to the growing of crops. The beauty of the fields must be that of an exhibit; the beauty of things isolated, and well grown. The unity of the farm plan should center about the place where the farmer dwells and where others come and go. It will be better for him if the outlook from his window is pleasing; it will be better for his community if the inlook ~~~ toward his door from the public road is pleasing. About the house the suggestions from nature’s models may be freely applied. The lawn may furnish the broad, restful, level stretch of green verdure; over its recesses shapely trees FARM LANDSCAPES 123 may cast their inviting shadows; a border of gracefully merging masses of shrubbery may inclose the sides and give it an aspect of privacy; evergreens may be planted to shut out the view of unsightly objects; and the woodlot may be left to cover the distant rocky slope. Fruit trees may be used for ornament as well as service; they will grow and bloom and bear fruit just as well where they contribute to the beauty of the place as where they block the view. And if the roads and fences be not made too conspicuous where they transgress natural contour lines, and if buildings be not set up where they hide the more pleasing distant prospects, nor painted in alarming hues—then one may look at the place without lamenting that it has been “improved.” The most pleasing of homesteads usually are not those that have the greatest advantage of location, or that have had the most money lavished upon them. But they are the places that fit their environment most perfectly, and that are planned and planted most simply. Much bad taste has been imported into our country houses from the cities of late. In almost any locality in the Eastern United States it is the older houses that have the most pleasing setting. They are not exposed on bare hill tops, but nestle among great trees with always an outlook across levels of green toward distant hills or valleys or strips of blue water. They are sequestered a bit from the winds and from the public; and as Wordsworth said concerning the older homes of lake country of England (Guide p. 43) ‘‘Cottages so placed, by seeming to withdraw from the eye, are the more endeared to the feelings.”” Their decorative plantings are not sickly “novelties,” leading a nursling existence, but the hardiest of the hardy plants, that grow, and, in their season, bloom lustily. The houses are not tall and spindling, but low and contented and comfortable-looking. Their roofs are not cut up in figures to make an alarming sky line, but, broadly 124 HISTORY OF FARM descending, they seem to have but the one simple function of keeping out the rain. Their colors are not—at least they were not—all the rainbow hues. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say “If you would fix upon the best color for your house, turn up a stone, or pluck up a handful of grass by the roots, and see what is the color of the soil where the house is to stand, and let that be your choice.” The trouble with many homesteads is that no thought has ever been taken of the gifts of nature near at hand; how rich they are, and how available for use in beautifying the home is little realized. Vistas that would warm an artist’s soul are shut out by sheds, unnoticed. The choicest of native plants are cut away as “brush.” Buildings are set down helter- skelter, facing all ways, at all levels, up and down. The boundaries of fields are accidental. Roads happen. Efficiency and beauty are sacrificed together. Both demand that a homestead shall fit its environment. Both efficiency and beauty need a little planning and forethought. For both a little study of what nature offers both in materials and in models lies near the beginning of wisdom. Study 16. A Comparison of the Outlook of Local Farm Homesteads The program of work includes a visit to the front approach of half a dozen or more nearby farmsteads to see how they fit their environment; to see how their builders have treated the beauties of the larger landscape and how they have used decorative materials in planting. The record of this study may consist of notes on each one of the homesteads visited, arranged for each one as follows: No. (if the name of the owner be not set down, it will matter less whether the remarks be always complimentary). Location. (This may, perhaps, best be shown by making a little sketch map of the route whereon all the places studied FARM LANDSCAPES 125 are shown in relation to the public highways and to the main hills and valleys). 1. The natural setting; note: a) The pleasing views that have been preserved or lost in the planning. b) The use of nature's materials to add beauty or hide ugliness, or to accomplish the converse. 2. The artificial arrangements; Note (in so far as visible from the approach): c) Concerning buildings, whether they fit the situation, look comfortable, bespeak shelter and privacy, etc., and whether they are arranged with unity and harmony. d) Concerning fields and stock pens, whether they seem to belong to the place and are harmonious with each other and convenient in location. e) Concerning roads and fences, whether they are made to add to or to detract from the beauty of the place; whether harmonious or discordant in arrangement; etc. A general summary and comparison of the places visited as to their attractiveness or unattractiveness, and the reasons therefor, should, in conclusion, be added. Individual Exercises for the Fall Term Five studies follow, which are intended to be used by the student, individually, and at his own convenience. The data called for may be picked up during the course of walks afield for air and exercise; but serial or extended observations, that cannot all be made in the course of a single class exercise, are in all cases demanded. Personal initiative is desired. An instructor may be asked to name plants or animals, but the student should learn by these exercises to consult nature independently. He should work alone, or with not more than one or two companions.