THE agricultural history of this county could be nothing more nor less than
a repetition of the history of almost every other county in Southern
Illinois. But perhaps a short sketch of the subject may fill a niche in the
mind of some reader that will be a lasting benefit to him. The area of this
county is about one hundred and eighty-three square miles (one of the
smallest counties in the State), nine-tenths of which is susceptible of
cultivation, and in a state of nature was one vast forest of the finest
timber in America. No prairies were here to welcome the husbandman; if any
crops were grown, the timber must first be removed, which, in itself, was a
herculean task, and the stumps and roots were still to contend with. What
wonder is it that most of the county lay so long without improvement or
cultivation y For the first forty years of settlement in the county, there
could be no incentive to grow crops which there was no market for. Each
settler raised corn and potatoes and garden " sass " enough for his own use
and no more. The implements of agriculture consisted of a small bull-tongue
plow and a hoe made by the blacksmith.
The early mode of agriculture of this county consisted in beginning about
the 1st of March to clear up three or four acres of land for corn. This,
with the other small crops, would be planted as soon as the ground could be
prepared, and it was then cultivated until it was ready to be "laid by,"
when there was nothing more to do on the farm until time to gather the corn
and pumpkins in the fall. During this interval, the more industrious and
enterprising men would go to some wood yard on the river and chop cord wood,
while those not so disposed would hunt in the woods and loaf around among
the neighbors. The "womanfolks" would raise a patch of cotton and spin,
weave, and make their own and their family's clothes.
The main point in farming, in those days, was to have a herd of wild hogs in
the woods, corn enough for bread and to feed the pony, and a few ears to
toll the hogs up to mark them.
When spring came, the crop time was a rather hard life to live, and about
the only revenue that could be counted on was hens' eggs to buy the small
luxuries, such as coffee, sugar, salt or anything in that line; and if the
hens failed to come to time on the "lay," the old man and children would
strike out to the woods to dig " ginseng." A large sack of this then staple
could be dug in a few days, and, when dried, would bring in $3 or $4 — a sum
that would help out the family finances in a good shape. There was but
little provision made for the cattle, as they could live all winter on the
"cane" which grew in the woods. But very little wheat was grown here then,
as there were no mills to grind it, and no market for the surplus. Indeed,
the first settlers were at great inconvenience to get their corn ground;
there were nothing but horse mills, and very few of them. There are many
good stories told of these early mills. One patron said he always took his
corn to mill in the ear, as he could shell it faster than the mill could
grind it, and then he had the cobs to throw at the rats to keep them from
eating the corn all up as it ran down from the hopper. Another story is told
on the first water mill that was built on Cache River. The owner of the mill
put the grist in the hopper and let on the water, and about the time he had
the mill going nicely he heard a turkey " call" in the woods, so he took his
gun and went to look for the turkey. While he was gone, a blue jay alighted
on the hoop around the buhrs, and as fast as a grain of corn
would shake down from the hopper he would eat it. When the miller returned,
the jay had eaten all the corn, and the millstones were worn out.
But all this is changed now. Our mills are first-class in every respect. A
great change has come to the county since the advent of the railroads. Saw
mills have cut the timber off, to a great extent, and much of our lands have
been cleared up and put under cultivation. Some of our 100-acre fields of
wheat are now cut with self-binders, and an average of fifty harvesting
machines are sold annually in the county. Our hay crop is of great
importance, as the river offers cheap transportation to the South, where the
market is always good. All the low lands are well adapted to timothy, and
the hill lands grow as fine clover and orchard grass as can be produced in
the State; while the Kentucky blue grass takes to our pastures without any
seeding, and with judicious management sheep could be pastured here all
winter, except when the ground might be covered with snow, which is but
seldom.
The county has, practically, no sheep, but over three thousand worthless
dogs; and where that number of dogs reign supreme sheep do not flourish. The
stock of cattle is being graded up with shorthorn and Jersey blood, which
will prove a lasting benefit to the county. Our progressive farmers have
abandoned the " elm peeler " or "hazel splitter " hogs, for a breed that is
not all " snout " and " bristles, " and the results are every way
satisfactory.
To sum up the whole matter of agriculture and horticulture, " after taking
the quality and quantity of our products into consideration, the small area
of our county, and that only one-half improved, we feel like we have no
reason to be discouraged at the results.
Horticulture. — A history of Pulaski County that fails to accord it the
first place on the list as a horticultural county, would fail to do justice
to the capabilities of its soil and climate. While some counties grow more
apples, some more grapes and some more tomatoes, yet there is not a county
in the State where every one of the following list of fruits and vegetables
can be grown to so great perfection: Apples, pears, peaches, grapes,
strawberries, red raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries, tomatoes,
melons, sweet potatoes, wax beans, early cabbage, pie plant, asparagus, and
every variety of garden vegetable that can be grown in the temperate zone.
All of the above-named fruits and vegetables can be grown on any single acre
of good land in the county that is above high water mark, and good
watermelons and tomatoes have been produced on a pile of earth taken from a
well sixty feet deep, and that without any special fertilizers or care,
except to supply water in a severe drought. This would prove that our soil
is not exhausted as soon as the top is cultivated a few years.
The history of horticulture is in intimate relation with the progress of
civilization. An acute observer has justly remarked that the esteem in which
gardening is held among nations is an unfailing index of the advance they
have made in other forms of human progress. But it is not until society is
improved, commerce extended and the human mind expanded, that horticulture
takes its place among the arts, flourishing wherever there is wealth to
encourage or taste to appreciate its charms and excellences. Horticulture
has advanced with civilization, and blended with all that adorns, refines
and sustains the structure of a solid as well as an elegant society. The
cultivation of fruit is the most perfect union of the useful and beautiful
that the world has ever known. Trees, covered in spring time with their
green and glossy foliage, blended with fragrant flowers of white to crimson
and gold, that are succeeded by the ripened fruit, melting and grateful
through all the fervid heat of summer, is indeed a tempting prospect to
every land -holder in our favored region. It is natural to suppose that a
people so richly endowed by nature as ours have given marked attention to an
art that supplies so many of the amenities of life, and around which cluster
so many memories that appeal to the finer instincts of our nature. In a
region favored with a climate bright, sunny and free from extreme changes,
and with a soil that, in varying composition, in fertility and depth becomes
suited to all the fruits common to the temperate zone, horticulture is
naturally held in that high esteem that becomes so important a factor in our
welfare.
The introduction of fruit into this county is almost coeval with its first
settlement. Sprouts from the old apple trees and seeds from the favorite old
peach trees of the old home in the South or East were a part of the
pioneer's outfit, and were cared for with as much patience as the children
or favorite cow. While the varieties thus grown would not be considered of
any great value now, yet they served a good purpose by creating a landmark,
as it were, to which the youth who waited for the fruit to ripen can look
back with pleasure, and, while his head may be " silvered o'er with the
frosts of man y winters," a thought, perhaps, steals through his mind that
the days spent under the old apple trees were the happiest of his life.
Horticulture, as an art, received but little attention in the early
settlement of this county. The fruits adapted to the soil and climate had
not been introduced; even the nature of the soil was not well understood.
There were no means at hand for the rapid diffusion of such knowledge. There
were no horticultural societies and associations, to gather individual
experience and present it in available form for the use of the masses, and
at best there was not much time, in the struggle for the necessaries of life
in a primitive country, for the obtaining of its amenities.
Horticulture at this time, even in the older settled States, was but in its
infancy, and the first effort of the pioneer was to reproduce the fruit in
cultivation at the. time, and in the locality whence he had emigrated. Many
of the old trees planted by the early settlers show some traits that have
not been rivalled by the later and more improved varieties planted long
since. Their hardiness and good bearing qualities are phenomenal and that,
too, without any of the scientific pruning and care advocated by the
horticulturists of the present day.
Improved horticulture in this county — that is, the planting of fruits for
commercial benefits — dates back to about the year 185859. Judge A. M. Brown
(now deceased), a prominent jurist and newspaper man of Kentucky, became
infatuated with our hills and valleys, and located at Villa Ridge. He was
the first man to plant largely of budded peaches, pears and apples for
market. He was joined, almost immediately, by Dr. Brown, of Kentucky, and
Dr. J. H. Grain, of Ohio, both very enthusiastic pomologists. They planted
largely of apples, their first impulse being to grow apples for the New
Orleans market, as the river offered a good outlet for that kind of fruit.
But, like every other new enterprise, conceived by strangers to the soil and
climate, they made some mistake? in the selection of varieties; and while
the trees were growing many of our old citizens caught the fever, and new
men came in from the North and East, and all became more or less affected
with the horticultural " itch. "
About this time, a new class of men came on the scene. These were
denominated " tree peddlers," and to say that they gathered in a rich
harvest would be a mild expression. They sold trees to all they could induce
to buy, at high figures, mostly on time, and any man who had land enough
cleared was flattered and cajoled by the fine pictures and preserved
specimens, to plant from ten to forty acres, mostly in apples. Many of the
trees were true to name, but the varieties were unsuited to this climate.
The early varieties were all right, but Spys, Spitzenbergs, Baldwins and
many excellent Eastern winter apples are a failure here, as they ripen in
August and September; while many of the orders thus taken were filled from
the same pile, and labeled to suit the buyer. While this fraud was being
pushed extensively, there was another class of men, who were more
conservative, and thought that apples to suit our soil and climate should
come from the highlands of Southern Virginia and North Carolina. Among this
class, and at the head, ought to be placed " old Uncle Tom " McClelland
(deceased), who spent time and money to try all the better varieties of his
old North Carolina home, and with a fair share of success. Without any
records on the subject, he is conceded to have been the first man in this
county to graft or bud the apple tree. Many of the farms in this county
attest his work, by their "Carolina Red June," "Abram," "Nickajack,"
"Limbertwig," " Buckingham " and many other apples of that class, suited to
our soil and climate. While our experience has been a bitter one, it has
inculcated many valuable lessons. One is, we are south of the latitude in
which the apple attains its best estate. We can never hope to acclimate any
of the choice Northern or Eastern apples to this section, yet we can and do
grow good apples. Our "Winesaps," "Sparks," Finks," "Rome Beauty," "Summer
Pearmain" and many other varieties are not excelled anywhere. While we give
the apple the first place on our list of fruits for domestic use, it would
have to accept a third or fourth place in a commercial point of view. The
strawberry, peach and grape would outrank it for money.
The strawberry, while it never assumes the dignity of a tree, or the
spreading importance of a vine, yet it commands respect for its intrinsic
merit. No other single crop in this county, at this time, has the influence
on the business relations of our people. An entire failure would almost
bankrupt our merchants, and a good crop makes all hearts rejoice, from the
merchant, with his thousands of dollars invested, down to the little negro
with his " two quart check." The gathering and shipping of the strawberry
crop to market, develops a spirit of business enterprise in our boys and
girls that they would never attain by the study of text-books.
The first strawberries ever grown in this county for market were grown by
Mr. Stephen Blanchard, near the town of America, about the year 1857.
They were known as the "Virginia Seedling," or "scarlet," and were at that
time considered a great luxury, but would not be tolerated on our farms
to-day. The berries that he took to the home market were handled in shallow
trays, with the traditional "paddle scoop, " and what he marketed at the
towns on the Central Railroad were put up in small quart boxes, made of thin
lumber, and set on shallow trays. Then an old German would take one of these
trays in each hand and walk to the railroad, pay his fare to Cairo or any
other market he wished to use, and carry 'the berries and sell them and
bring back the boxes and money.
The first Wilson strawberries introduced into this county was through the
late Judge A. M. Brown; but the first Wilsons cultivated for market were by
Martin Harnish, from Lancaster County, Penn. His one-fourth of an acre soon
spread. In the vicinity of Villa Ridge, many of his neighbors planted small
patches, seldom over half an acre, as there were many who thought the
markets would be glutted and the entire business overdone. For instance,
when, in 1863, nineteen shippers sent off fifty cases in one day, almost
everyone thought the market would be " busted." But the berries sold on the
Chicago market the next day, at 45 cents per quart.
The delusion that the market would be glutted, and that no one man could
successfully handle more than one acre, clung to our people like the fear of
death; and it is only in the last six or seven years that we have learned
that the same vim and push that would handle one acre would handle ten if
multiplied by ten. To illustrate how the fear of spreading out was kept
alive, it would be well to give a sketch of one large plantation, and the
way it was managed here. Some Cincinnati men, learning that we could grow
good berries, formed a company, came here, and bought some land in a rich,
sweet gum bottom. They cleared up twenty acres at a great expense, planted
it partially with bogus plants, cultivated it in the most expensive manner
and boarded at a hotel — in fact, moved things lively; building extensive
quarters for pickers, and paying 3 to 5 cents per quart for picking. There
was no fruit train then, as now, and all had to go by express. Some days
they would miss the train, and the berries would have to lay over to another
day; sometimes the whole lot would have to be dumped out at the station and
thus lost. All this, in connection with the fact that the berries were ten
days later in the rich bottoms than on the sunny hillsides, and a big
mortgage was spread over the whole thing, and the reader will not be
surprised that a grand failure was the result of the first big strawberry
field in this county. Everybody was ready to say " I told you so," and "It
can't be done; one acre is enough for any man," and many more such
consolatory remarks. If c>ur people had seen where the failure came in, and
profited thereby, we would, to-day, have ranked first as a strawberry
shipping point, instead of being the third on the Central Railroad.
The varieties in cultivation here now are many, but the Wilson still holds
its own against all new comers in the minds of its old friends. The cash
brought into this county by strawberries, twenty-two years ago, amounted to
but a few dollars; the amount brought in this year (1883) will reach nearly
§100,000, and the acreage, which was about 600 acres this year, will, in
1884, be at least 50 per cent higher.
Peach growing has attained some success in the county in the last twenty
years: but many of the first budded varieties were not suited to the soil
and climate, and one-half of all the peaches planted in the county have
failed to pay a fair interest on the capital invested, for the reason that
the planters had not the experience and will to give the proper care to
growing the trees, cultivating the soil, and " bugging " and thinning the
fruit.
The late Judge Brown, already mentioned, and Martin Harnish planted the
first commercial peach orchards in this county. They advocated starting the
heads of the trees boot top high, so the limbs could bend down without
splitting the trunks of the trees. A few years, however, of this style of
pruning cured them of that idea, and Judge Brown became one of the stanchest
advocates of high -headed trees, thorough "bugging" and thinning of the
fruit.
It would be useless to go through the list of peaches, to designate those
that failed, or those that succeeded; but most of the peach growers here
noted that the early and late varieties pay better than to have an excessive
crop in midsummer. With a better knowledge of what varieties to plant, and
how to care for them, coupled with that progressive spirit of our planters,
the outlook is promising to make this county one of the foremost peach
growing counties of the West.
There may have been a few vines of Catawba and Isabella grapes planted here
at an early date, but old Father Huhner, a German from St. Louis, was the
first to plant grapes in this county (about 1859-60) for commercial use. His
object was the manufacture of wine, and in a few years there was a lively
interest in the grape and wine business in the county. A considerable amount
of good wine was made and sold here; but the changes and vexations of the
internal revenue, and the fact that the grapes would sell for as much money
as the wine would bring, caused a falling-off in the production of wine, and
to-day there is none made in the county. But the reader must not infer that
grape growing has ceased. Far from it. Each year has witnessed an increase
in the acreage, and more care and thought used in gathering and marketing
the fruit, until it is now considered one of our most permanent and
profitable fruit crops. Last year (1S82) there were more than seventy tons
of grapes shipped from this county, and it was one of the worst years for
the grape we have had.
The business has grown, from a few hundred vines in 1860, to near 200,000 in
1883, including the young vines planted this spring; and preparations are
being made to still increase the number. The most hopeful outlook in the
grape business in this county is the introduction of better varieties for
table use and wine.
The red raspberry has always been a good fruit for market purposes, and has
paid well the last few years; but our people don't plant largely of them on
account of the trouble of getting them picked in good condition. Our hot
summers sometimes burn the canes of the blackcaps so they die; and again,
our market is so far off, that they are neglected as a market crop,
although, in a general way, they grow and bear heavy crops, and are
profitable to evaporate.
What can we say of blackberries? The woods, fence-corners and ditches are
full of them; all fruiting annually, and making a glut in every market in
reach. Some of the wild ones are good in quality, and larger in size than
the Snyder, or many of the cultivated sorts so highly extolled by
nurserymen.
In a commercial way, the sweet potato is, perhaps, the leading vegetable of
this county. They have been grown here, for home use, for many years; but it
is only in the last ten or twelve years that they have assumed any
importance as a crop to ship to Northern markets. The first full car load of
sweet potatoes grown and shipped from Villa Ridge to Chicago was in 1870. It
was shipped by the winter, and from that date to the present time the
shipments have increased, until now they are considered one of our best
annual products; and there is not a mouth, from October to April, that they
are not shipped North by the car-load.
The growing and shipping wax beans to the Northern markets was first
successfully done by Mr. Israel Sanderson, of Pulaski (if we are not
mistaken) in 1870-71. The business has grown, from a few one-third bushel
boxes at the first, to eight or nine car-loads a year at present, and the
demand seems to keep pace with the supply. Mr. Sanderson is also the first
man to cultivate and ship the cantelope, or nutmeg melon to market from this
county, and was the most successful grower in the county. But the melon
-louse gave so much trouble that, as a commercial crop, they are now almost
abandoned.
The growing of tomatoes for market has never assumed very large proportions
here. The earliest and finest specimens, however, have been raised and
shipped from Villa Ridge, and there is no reason why it should not rival
Cobden as a tomato station. There are many other fruits and vegetables that
should be mentioned; .but the brief space allotted to horticulture in a work
of this kind, and the limited time at the writer's command, precludes a more
extended article.
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Massac McCracken KY |
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