The Heirloom Orchardist

The (Un)Common Milkweed Plant

There's a native perennial that grows at the fringe of the orchard, out there with the wild raspberries and goldenrod. It intrigued me as a child.  I'd search its leaves for a plump black and yellow caterpillar, that I'd raise (in a mayonnaise jar) to an adult monarch butterfly.  My  fingers became sticky from the plant's opaque white sap.

As an adult, I appreciate its waxy rose-pink blossoms in July.  These give way to big puffy seed pods.   Split one of those pods open.  This month,  you'll reveal a dense packet of tan seeds, arranged like fish-scales.  Each seed is attached to a cluster of moist silky threads.  Next month, the pods will crack open, the threads will dry, and carry the seeds away in a breeze.

Sounds pretty magical, doesn't it?  Well, it is.  But the Heirloom Orchardist was a practical sort.  When he came upon the Common Milkweed, he tried to find uses for this interesting plant.  Consider the account given by General Henry Dearborn, who died in 1829, while residing in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His comments were published in the Massachusetts Horticultural Register sometime during the late 1820's, and reprinted in 1835 in the Yankee Farmer:

"The silk, when taken from the pods, and being freed from the seed, is hung up in thin bags in the sun, and when perfectly dry may be used without any further preparation, instead of feathers, horse hair, wool or cotton, for cushions, bolsters, pillows, mattresses; and coverlets.  From eight to nine pounds is sufficient for a bed, bolster, and two pillows.  It is lighter and warmer, when used in forming coverlets comforters than cotton, or wool, and nearly equal to eider down."

The problem, I suppose, was gathering the stuff.  One could put a lot of work into growing and harvesting milkweed silk, and end up with only a handful of sticky fluff.  So, I go back to the aesthetics.  This curious little drawing entitled "Milkweed in the Garden" shows up in my 1936 issue of the "New Garden Encylopedia".   It displays the caption: "This common roadside plant can be brought into the wild garden or border to create striking mass effects."

So there you have it.  When practicality cannot be found, there's always beauty.  And milkweed, a perennial, is very easy to grow.  Consider these two varieties for the sunny, moist areas of your "wild garden" or perennial border:

Cinderella Milkweed  (Asclepias incarnata 'cinderella')   This leafy perennial matures at about 3-4 feet.  It has an upright spreading habit.  The beautiful pink flowers are fragrant, and reminiscent of vanilla.  They're excellent for cutting.  It's good to combine this plant in the garden near another having a finer texture.  It is native to moist soils, but like its cousin (the common milkweed described above) it'll adapt to average garden soil moisture conditions.

Usually growing 18"-24" high, Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa interior) attracts numerous butterfly species for nectaring.  In late June through July you’ll find bright clusters of orange flowers adorning this plant.  Unlike Cinderella Milkweed, Butterfly Milkweed must be planted in a soil that provides excellent drainage.  Also be aware of its taproot.  Where you plant it, is where it should stay.  Deer resistant.  It’s also known also as “Pleurisy Root.”

White Weed. Farmer's Curse.

Last week I mentioned how difficult, and costly, it was for the Heirloom Orchardist to keep his fields free of weeds.  How difficult was it?  Without the benefit of some indiscriminate herbicide, how invasive were those weeds?  Well, consider White Weed.  The following comes from the July 6, 1835 issue of Yankee Farmer:

"We see that some of our brethren are calling attention, thus early in the season, to this troublesome weed, and we would also join them, heart and hand in the clamor.  In some towns it has got a rank hold, to the exclusion of much better vegetables, for wherever it gets settled, it will in time kill out all other grass."

White Weed?  What's that?  F. Schuler Mathews, in his 1902 Field Book described it as "The commonest of all weeds of the field and wayside, often called Farmer's Curse, yet a prime favorite with children and artists!"  (Well, Mathews was an artist, so perhaps it's good to get his point of view.)  Farmer's Curse?  A favorite with artists? What is this stuff?

It's the Common Daisy. Good ol' Ox-Eye.  And today, it's hard for me to believe that it is such a bad invasive. Even Neltje Blanchan expressed a sympathetic  view on the plant in her book "Natures Garden":   "Myriads and myriads of daisies, whitening our fields as if a belated blizzard had covered them with a snowy mantle in June, fill the farmer with dismay, the flower-lover with rapture."

I think the 18th and 19th century Heirloom Orchardist would chuckle at Neltje, and break out his can of Round-up... if he could.  But he couldn't.  So he had to attack it with what we now call an organic, sustainable method.  Here's one suggestion, from the "Illustrated Annual Register of Rural affairs, for 1864":

"One of the most successful examples we have ever met with of the destruction of this weed is on the farm of Isaac Garrett, of Upper Darby, near Philadelphia.  This troublesome weed whitens the fields in profuse abundance in that region: but on this farm not a solitary weed could be found, after a diligent search.  The following is the mode for its extirpation:  Two successive crops of corn are raised on the ground, both well manured and thoroughly cultivated and hoed; this treatment removes nearly all the weeds.  The subsequent dense crop of clover smothers most of the remainder, and the few scattering ones left are pulled up by hand.  On another well managed farm in the neighborhood no daisies were to be seen where the land was heavily seeded to clover;  but where a strip had partially failed, numbers of them were visible."

The above doesn't seem to put enough emphasis on the "thoroughly cultivated and hoed" part of the process.  It would seem to me that it's pretty critical, no matter what you're planting.  But I find it interesting that the icing on the cake is to finish-up with a field "heavily seeded to clover."  Do you remember my Spring post on clover in my lawn?  Clover is good stuff.  In this case, I imagine it would help smother the last remaining traces of daisy seedlings, as well as replenish the nitrogen in a soil that's been depleted by "two successive crops of corn".  Today's organic  farmer/gardeners will find pleasure in this.  The Heirloom Orchardist didn't practice sustainable methods because they are good for the earth.  He did it 'cause he had to.  What other methods were there?

Why Some Heirloom Orchardists Get Rich at the Business (Others do not)

It's too easy for me to think that somehow, someway, life was more pleasant for the Heirloom Orchardist.  He was working the seasons, working the soil, sweating and livin' off the fat of the land.  Early to bed, early to rise, checking his livestock, his beehives, and always breathing the sweet smell of freshly cut hay.  He was livin' life; not working a job.  He was running a farm, not a business.  All that his family needed came from the farm.  What more could he want?!

Well, for starters, he may have wanted to live free of debt.  He may have wanted to retire without a mortgage.  Hmm...sound familiar?  The following comes from the Illustrated Annual Register of Rural Affairs for 1861.  It's a bit sobering for those of us (like me) who occasionally think the life of the Heirloom Orchardist didn't have the same financial burdens we have today:

"We know a farmer over sixty years old, who has worked hard for more than forty years.  He began with a good 150 acre farm given him, but subject to an encumbrance of about one-third its value.  This was a good start.  He is, after a lapse of forty years, still in debt.  He is temperate; had he not been, his farm would have gone long ago.  He has worked hard; had he not, he must have failed.  He has been economical; in its common meaning, or he never could have kept even with his creditors."

"What, then, has kept him back in the world?  We have figured up, and found that he has virtually sunk three good estates, by a want of management."

"First:  In wintering his cattle and sheep.  He kept, generally, about 20 cattle and 100 sheep.  The cattle trod about three tons of hay under foot each year, and consumed half a ton each extra by exposure to the winds, in all 13 tons, worth $91.  This exposure of cattle and calves reduced their size and market value one-third-annual increase, 6 head, and average value lost, $8 each-$48.  Ten per cent of his sheep and lambs were lost by want of shelter, and the clip was diminished 25 per-cent from the same cause - total loss on sheep, per annum, $50.  The whole yearly loss on cattle and sheep was, therefore, $189.  In forty years this annual loss, with compound interest, would amount to about $35,000.  Thus one fortune has been sunk."

"Secondly: In a want of good rotation of crops. He raised wheat after wheat, oats after oats, and corn after corn, because the stubble was most easily plowed, till his land was exhausted, and full of weeds.  The crops, as a whole, scarcely paid his labor.  A good rotation would have safely given him one-third more, which would have been a clear gain, on an average, of at least $5 an acre, on about 50 acres, yearly - total, $250 a year.  This loss repeated for 40 years, and interest, would amount to more than $50,000 !  This was the second fortune sunk."

"Third: In raising crops of weeds.  Some of his pasture fields had a heavier growth of mulleins, rag-weed, johnswort and thistle, than of grass; consequently, at least half his land was wasted to grow them.  On 50 acres of pasture, at least $2 each were yearly wasted, to say nothing of the loss of grain by the Canada thistle patches, in retarding growth and preventing clean harvesting, and his greatly diminished crop of corn by fox-tail and pig-weed.  The annual loss from weeds was, therefore, at least $100 - the amount of which, with interest, in 40 years would be $20,000. The third fortune."

"There are several other items of bad management that might be added, but these will do at present."

"If anyone doubts these estimates, let him examine carefully the amount raised by one of our best and thriftiest farmers, and from this amount deduct what is produced by a poor manager; then calculate compound interest, adding in the yearly loss, for 40 years, (the period of active business,) and he will probably find that on 150 arable acres, not merely the $110,000 have been virtually sunk, but a much larger sum.  If, however, the yearly loss should be much less, all we ask is that the reader may take that diminished amount and go carefully through the calculation, and he will doubtless perceive why some men get rich at the business and others do not."

Of course there were many Heirloom Orchardists who were more financially successful than others.  Payoff of that debt was quite possible.  But I like to remind myself that debt was the same burden then, as it is today.  And when you are partnered with Mother Nature to help produce your income, debt is a great burden.

First, 150 years ago it was costly (as now), to build new structures to house the livestock.  A new building for the cattle and sheep would have added to the farmer's debt.

Second, the treatment for depleted soil is not as simple as rotating the crops.  (Although admittedly, this farmer should have been doing it.  The benefits were well known at that time).  Farmers had to spread as much manure as their animals could create.  And often, the manure they had wasn't enough.  Corn is a voracious feeder.  There were no cheap synthetic fertilizers.  Guano was expensive.

Third, weed seeds are everywhere.  There were no herbicides, no fancy petroleum powered tillers.  All the Heirloom Orchardist had were his hoeing laborers (if he could afford them), or an ox pulling a shallow plow.

Livin' off the fat of the land.  Payin' that mortgage.

 

 

Plant Patents Enrich the World

Seventy-nine years ago, President Herbert Hoover signed into law a legal mechanism that allowed anyone to lay claim on a new type of "invention": the US Plant Patent Act of 1930.

What was the purpose of the law?  Those of you that recall a post I wrote last year already have a good idea on the answer (See The "Honey Heart" Cherry Tree of 1851, and Plant Patents, March 31, 2008). The law was (is) intended to protect proprietary rights of the developer of a new plant.  A plant patent allows only one person to grow that new patented plant: the person who holds the patent.

Why did the federal government think this was important?  Well, just as conventional patents on new inventions (coupled with our capitalistic economy) encourage the development of new helpful gizmos, plant patents encourage the development of new beneficial and enriching plants.  These plants could be improved food crops with a new disease resistance, or a trait that eased the work for a grower.  For example, on March 9, 1943, inventor M. B. Crane received a plant patent on his new thornless long-bearing blackberry plant (Plant Patent #571), which made harvesting the fruit a lot easier.  Plant patents were determined to be good for society, good for the economy, and good for the nursery industry.

I recently stumbled on a 1948 issue of National Geographic with an article that gives an interesting glimpse on how the "new" plant patent law was being received, only 18 years after it was adopted.  "The only way a grower could make a profit on a new (plant) before 1930 was to build up, as secretly as possible, all the stock his capital permitted, then throw it all on the market at the top prices people would pay"  the article explains.  "In a year or so, competitors would be building up their own stocks, grown from the no-longer-secret variety, now widely distributed."  To make matters worse, in the days of the Heirloom Orchardist many growers would simply rename the new plant, call it their own, and introduce it again as another "new" introduction.  That's one lousy way to run an industry.

Perhaps it's needless to say, the 1948 article praises the new law.  It ushered in the start of a real honest, and economically viable plant breeding industry. So let me ask you a couple interesting questions:  First, by 1948 how many plant patents do you think had been issued?  The answer is 750.  That's a remarkably low number compared to what is received by the patent office today on just an annual basis.

The second question is: What type of plant had been issued the most patents by 1948?  Was it corn?  Apples?  An important disease resistant potato?  Nope....It was the rose.  By 1948, "about half" of the 750 plant patents issued had been on roses.  Hmm...it seems the heart may be more important than the stomach.