University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.

I believe I was recurring to the rapidity with which
our first winter in the wilds slipped away. We found
that when the spring came we were not half prepared
to take advantage of it; but armed with the “American
Gardener,” and quantities of choice seeds received
in a box of treasures from home during the previous Autumn,
we set about making something like a garden. It
would seem that in our generous soil this could not be
a difficult task; but our experience has taught us quite
differently. Besides the eradication of stumps, which
is a work of time and labour any where, the “grubs”
present a most formidable hindrance to all gardening
efforts in the “oak-openings.” I dare say my reader
imagines a “grub” to be a worm, a destructive wretch
that spoils peach trees. In Michigan, it is quite another
affair. Grubs are, in western parlance, the gnarled
roots of small trees and shrubs, with which our soil is

interlaced in some places almost to absolute solidity.
When these are disturbed by the immense “breaking
up” plough, with its three or four yoke of oxen, the
surface of the ground wears every where the appearance
of chevaux-de-frise; and to pile in heaps for
durning, such of these serried files as have been fairly
loosened by the plough, is a work of much time and labour.
And after this is done in the best way, your
potagerie will still seem to be full of grubs; and it will
take two or three years to get rid of these troublesome
proofs of the fertility of your soil. But your incipient
Eden will afford much of interest and comfort before
this work is accomplished, and I sincerely pity those
who lack a taste for this primitive source of pleasure.

On the opening of our first spring, the snow had
scarcely disappeared ere the green tops of my early
bulbs were peeping above the black soil in which they
had been buried on our first arrival; and the interest
with which I watched each day's developement of
these lovely children of the sun, might almost compare
with that which I felt in the daily increasing perfections
of my six months' old Charlie, whose rosy cheeks
alone, could, in my view at least, outblush my splendid
double hyacinths.

Whatever of a perennial kind we could procure, we
planted at once, without waiting until our garden should
be permanently arranged. All that we have since regretted
on this point is that we had not made far greater
efforts to increase our variety; since one year's time is
well worth gaining, where such valuables are in
question.

On the subject of flowers, I scarcely dare trust my

pen with a word, so sure am I that my enthusiastic love
for them would, to most readers, seem absolutely silly
or affected. But where the earth produces spontaneously
such myriads of splendid specimens, it would
seem really ungrateful to spare the little time and pains
required for their cultivation. This is a sin which I
at least shall avoid; and I lose no opportunity of attempting
to inspire my neighbours with some small portion
of my love for every thing which can be called a
flower, whether exotic or home-bred.

The ordinary name with us for a rose is “a rosy-flower;”
our vase of flowers usually a broken-nosed
pitcher, is a “posy-pot;” and “yaller lilies” are
among the most dearly-prized of all the gifts of Flora.
A neighbour after looking approvingly at a glass of
splendid tulips, of which I was vain-glorious beyond all
justification, asked me if I got “them blossoms out of
these here woods.” Another cooly broke off a spike of
my finest hyacinths, and after putting it'to his undiscriminating
nose, threw it on the ground with a “pah!”
as contemptuous as Hamlet's. But I revenged myself
when I set him sniffing at a crown imperial—so we
are at quits now.

A lady to whom I offered a cutting of my noble balm
geranium, with leaves larger than Charlie's hand, declined
the gift, saying, “she never know'd nobody
make nothin' by raisin' sich things.” One might have
enlightened her a little as to their moneyed value, but
I held my peace and gave her some sage-seed.

Yet, oddly enough, if any thing could be odd in
Michigan—there is, within three miles of us, a gardener
and florist of no mean rank, and one whose aid can be

obtained at any time for some small consideration of
“rascal counters;” so that a hot-bed, or even a green-house
is within our reach.

I have sometimes thought that there could scarcely
be a trade or profession which is not largely represented
among the farmers of Michigan, judging from
the somewhat extensive portion of the state with
which we have become familiar. I was regretting the
necessity of a journey to Detroit for the sake of a gold
filling; when lo! a dentist at my elbow, with his case
of instruments, his gold foil, and his skill, all very
much at my service.

Montacute, half-fledged as it is, affords facilities that
one could scarce expect. Besides the blacksmith, the
cooper, the chair maker, the collar maker, and sundry
carpenters and masons, and three stores, there is the
mantua-maker for your dresses, the milliner for your
bonnets, not mine, the “hen tailor” for your little
boy's pantaloons; the plain seamstress, plain enough
sometimes, for all the sewing you can 't possibly get
time for, and

or in the chimney-corner, for all your needs in the winter
hosiery line. Is one of your guests dependent upon
a barber? Mr. Jenkins can shave. Does your husband
get too shaggy? Mr. Jenkins cuts hair. Does he demolish
his boot upon a grub? Mr. Jenkins is great at
a rifacciamento. Does Billy lose his cap in the pond?
Mr. Jenkins makes caps comme il y en a peu. Does
your bellows get the asthma? Mr. Jenkins is a famous
Francis Flute. Then there is Philemon Greenly has
been apprenticed to a baker, and he can make you
crackers, baker's-bread and round-hearts, the like of
which—, but you should get his story. And I certainly
can make long digressions, if nothing else.
Here I am wandering like another Eve from my dearly
beloved garden.

A bed of asparagus—I mean a dozen of them, should
be among the very first cares of spring; for you must
recollect, as did the Cardinal De Retz at Vincennes,
that asparagus takes three years to come to the beginnings
of perfection. Ours, seeded down after the
Shaker fashion, promise to be invaluable. They grew
so nobly the first year that the haulm was almost worth
mowing, like the fondly-prized down on the chin of
sixteen. Then, what majestic palm-leaf rhubarb, and
what egg-plants! Nobody can deny that our soil amply
repays whatever trouble we may bestow upon it. Even
on the first turning up, it furnishes you with all the
humbler luxuries in the vegetable way, from the earliest
pea to the most delicate cauliflower, and the golden
pumpkin, larger than Cinderella's grandmother ever
saw in her dreams. Enrich it properly, and you need
lack nothing that will grow north of Charleston.

Melons, which attain a delicious perfection in our
rich sandy loam, are no despicable substitute for the
peaches of the older world; at least during the six or
seven summers which must elapse before the latter can
be abundant. I advise a prodigious melon-patch.

A fruit sometimes despised elsewhere, is here among
the highly-prized treasures of the summer. The
whortle-berry of Michigan, is a different affair from

the little half-starved thing which bears the name elsewhere.
It is of a deep rich blue, something near the
size of a rifle bullet, and of a delicious sweetness.
The Indians bring in immense quantities slung in
panniers or mococks of bark on the sides of their wild-looking
ponies; a squaw, with any quantity of pappooses,
usually riding a l'Espagnole on the ridge between
them.

“Schwap? Nappanee?” is the question of the queen
of the forest; which means, “will you exchange, or
swap, for flour:” and you take the whortle-berries in
whatever vessel you choose, returning the same measured
quantity of flour.

The spirit in which the Indians buy and sell is much
the same now as in the days of the renowned Wouter
Van Twiller, when “the hand of a Dutchman weighed
a pound, and his foot two pounds.” The largest haunch
of venison goes for two fingers, viz. twenty-five cents,
and an entire deer for one hand, one dollar. Wild
strawberries of rare size and flavour, “schwap-nappanee,”
which always means equal quantities. A
pony, whatever be his age or qualities, two hands held
up twice, with the fingers extended, twenty dollars.
If you add to the price an old garment, or a blanket,
or a string of glass beads, the treasure is at once put
on and worn with such an air of “look at me.” Broadway
could hardly exceed it.

The Indians bring in cranberries too; and here
again Michigan excels. The wild plum, so little prized
elsewhere, is valued where its civilized namesake is
unattainable; and the assertion frequently made, that
“it makes excellent saase,” is undeniably true. But

grapes! One must see the loads of grapes in order to
believe.

The practical conclusion I wish to draw from all
this wandering talk is, that it is well worth while to
make garden in Michigan. I hope my reader will not
be disposed to reply in that terse and forceful style
which is cultivated at Montacute, and which has more
than once been employed in answer to my enthusiastic
lectures on this subject. “Taters grows in the field,
and 'taters is good enough for me.”