Not All the People Should Live on Salary

L.H. Bailey (left) at his home in Ithaca, New York

A mediation from L.H. Bailey for Labor Day

 

Not all the people should live on salary.

I think that we need the example and influence of men who do not live on salary. One reason why boys leave the farm is because in other occupations they are offered wages or salary, and the risk of livelihood is thereby reduced; but the very lessening of this risk sacrifices much of a man's self-reliance, — it loses him his independence, not only in directly securing the means of support, but, what is more serious, in his attitude toward society.

     Salary-practice is a concomitant of organization, and it goes with social stratification. The man who receives salary exclusively depends on some one else, and his opinions are controlled, or at least modified, thereby. Often to a very large extent he loses his autonomy. There is a general feeling among salaried men that they must engage inother business in unsalaried hours, not always so much, I think, because they desire to add to their income, as to satisfy the longing for some greater measure of independence.

     The farmer is about the only man left who lives directly on his own efforts, without the aid of salary, speculation, or the non-intrinsic profits that accrue from trade. There is a tendency to organize agriculture, and thereby to develop salaries in it; this tendency is no doubt to be commended, yet I look with some apprehension to the effect that it may have on independent effort and opinion. Outlook to Nature, - L.H. Bailey

The Common Things

Often indeed we look too far away for our treasures and stand too much aloof from what in our superiority we call the trivial things…Everywhere that I have been I look for the “common” things, so little noted that they are the uncommon. The great views and the resplendent objects do not make us content, not until the trivial and the common have meaning to us. - L.H. Bailey, unpublished manuscript

Bailey's View on Growing Annuals

Liberty Hyde Bailey wrote that, "The best gardener is one who does the most gardening by the winter fire.” And here we are folks. Nursery catalogs are filling mailboxes and the big box stores are moving out the half-off Christmas decorations for the Burpee display. Here is some timeless advice from America's Father of Modern Horticulture regarding annuals as we get ready for another growing season.

ANNUAL plants are those that you must sow every year. From seed to seed is only a year or less. Annual plants probably comprise half the flowering plants of the world. They quickly take advantage of the moving seasons,— grow, blossom and die before they are caught by the blight of winter or of the parching dry season. They are shifty plants, now growing here, then absconding to other places. This very uncertainty and capriciousness makes them worth the while. The staid perennials I want for the main and permanent effects in my garden, but I could no more do without annuals than I could without the spices and the condiments at the table. They are flowers of a season: I like flowers of a season.

    Of the kinds of annuals there is almost no end. This does not mean that all are equally good. For myself, I like to make the bold effects with a few of the old profuse and reliable kinds. I like whole masses and clouds of them. Then the other kinds I like to grow in smaller areas at one side, in a half experimental way. There is no need of trying to grow equal quantities of all the kinds that you select. There is no emphasis and no modulation in such a scheme. There should be major and minor keys.

    The minor keys may be of almost any kind of plant. Since these plants are semi-experimental, it does not matter if some of them fail outright. Why not begin the list at "A" and buy as many as you can afford and can accommodate this year, then continue the list next year? In five or ten years you will have grown the alphabet and will have learned as much horticulture and botany as most persons learn in a college course. And some of these plants will become your permanent friends.

    For the main and bold effects I want something that I can depend on. There I do not want to experiment. Never fill a conspicuous place with a kind of plant that you have never grown.

    The kinds I like best are the ones easiest to grow. My personal equation, I suppose, determines this. Zinnia, petunia, marigold, four o'clock, sunflower, phlox, scabiosa, sweet sultan, bachelor's button, verbena, calendula, calliopsis, morning-glory, nasturtium, sweet pea,—these are some of the kinds that are surest and least attacked by bugs and fungi. I do not know where the investment of five cents will bring as great reward as in a packet of seeds of any of these plants.

    Before one sets out to grow these or any other plants, he must make for himself an ideal. Will he grow for a garden effect, or for specimen plants or specimen blooms? If for specimens, then each plant must have plenty of room and receive particular individual care. If for garden effect, then see to it that the entire space is solidly covered, and that you have a continuous maze of color. Usually the specimen plants would best be grown in a side garden, as vegetables are, where they can be tilled, trained and severally cared for.

    There is really a third ideal, and I hope that some of you may try it,—to grow all the varieties of one species. You really do not know what the China aster or the balsam is until you have seen all the kinds of it. Suppose that you ask your seedsman to send you one packet of every variety of cockscomb that he has. Next year you may want to try stocks or annual poppies, or something else. All this will be a study in evolution.

    There is still a fourth ideal,— the growing for gathering or "picking." If you want many flowers for house decoration and to give away, then grow them at one side in regular rows as you would potatoes or sweet corn. Cultivate them by horse or wheelhoe. Harvest them in the same spirit that you would harvest string beans or tomatoes: that is what they are for. You do not have to consider the "looks" of your garden. The old stalks will remain, as the stumps of cabbages do. You will not be afraid to pick them. When you have harvested an armful your garden is not despoiled. - L.H. Bailey, Country Life in America, Volume 4, 1903 (see the full article here: ANNUALS )

L.H. Bailey on Pruning

Of all the operations connected with horticulture, pruning, shaping, and training bring the person into closest contact and sympathy with the plant. One directs and cares for the plant tenderly and thoughtfully, working out his ideas as he would in the training and guiding of a child. There are some persons, to be sure, who cannot feel this sympathetic contact with a plant: they are the ones who, if they prune at all, use an axe or machete or a corn-knife. If a person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion. It is a pleasure to till the soil and to smell the fresh crumbly earth, but the earth does not grow; it is still a clod. The plant responds to every affectionate touch. - L.H. Bailey, The Pruning Manual

Pumpkins and Squashes-What's the Difference?

Image via Wikipedia    G. W. C. B., Baltimore, Maryland, writes: "In some sections of country pumpkins, or at least such as are recognized as such in other sections are called squashes and then again in other sections this order of recognition is exactly reversed. Will you please define the difference between pumpkins and squashes, so we novices can make the distinction also."

    We submitted your inquiry to Prof. L. H. Bailey of Cornell University, who kindly replies as follows:

It is impossible to give any distinctions between pumpkins and squashes because the vernacular names are used very indiscriminately. Ordinarily, what people in Europe call pumpkins are what we call squashes. Perhaps I can best answer by saying that there are three types of pumpkin-like plants which we grow. One type is characterized by a soft, round stem to the fruit, and to this type belong the true squashes, like the Hubbard, Boston Marrow, Turban, Mammoth Chili, and the like. This species is Cucurbita maxima. Another type is characterized by a very hard and deep-five-cornered stem, and this includes the true field pumpkins which are used so much for stock and for pies. To this type also belong the summer bush squashes like the Crookneck, and scallop varieties. This type is Cucurbita Pepo. This third type is characterized by a rather firm, cylindrical stem which has a large expansion where it joins the fruit and it includes the Cushaw, Canada Crookneck and Japan Crookneck types. This type is Cucurbita moschata. -L. H. Bailey (From "Gardening, Vol. IV, 1896)

Ten Things to Learn From An Apple

I like to go into the cellar at night with a lantern and pick apples from this box and that — plump and big and round — and eat them where I stand. They are crisp and cool, and the flesh snaps when I bite it and the juice is as fresh as the water from a spring. There are many kinds of them, each kind known by its own name, and some are red and some are green, some are round and some are long some are good and some are poor.

1. How much of the apple is occupied by the core?

2. How many parts or compartments are there in the core ?

3. How many seeds are there in each part ?

4. Which way do the seeds point ?

5. Are the seeds attached or joined to any part of the core? Explain.

     6. What do you see in the blossom end of the apple?

     7. What do you see in the opposite end?

8. Is there any connection between the blossom end and the core?

9. Find a wormy apple and see if you can make out where the worm left the apple. Perhaps you can make a drawing. To do this, cut the apple in two. Press the cut surface on a piece of paper. When the apple is removed you can trace out the marks.

10. When you hold an apple in your hand, see which way it looks to be bigger—lengthwise or crosswise. Then cut it in two lengthwise, measure it each way, and see which diameter is the greater.
-L.H. Bailey, An Apple Twig and An Apple, 1904

THE HARVEST OF THE APPLE-TREE

Image via Wikipedia   Finally the apple is ripe, a fair goodly object joyous in the sun, inviting to every sense. Hanging amidst its foliage, bending the twig with its weight, it is at once a pattern in good shape, perfect in configuration, in sheen beyond imitation, in fragrance the very affluence of all choice clean growth, its surface spread with a bloom often so delicate that the unsympathetic see it not; and yet the rains do not spoil it.

The apple must be picked. Do not let it fall. Probably it is over-ripe when it falls; the hold is loosened; its time is up. Wormy apples may fall before they are ripe; the worm injury, if it begins early, causes them to ripen prematurely. A premature apple is not a good apple, albeit the small boy relishes it but only because he may get his apple earlier; in the apple season, when ripe fruits are abundant, the boy does not choose the wormy one.

Pick the apple from the tree. It will do you good. It is ever so much better than to pick it from a box on the market or out of a quart-can in the ice-chest. You will feel some sense of responsibility when you pick it, some reaction of relationship to its origin. We know that we understand folks better when we see them at home. L.H. Bailey- The Apple Tree, 1922

The Importance of Cooperative Extension Work

Regarding Cooperative Extension Work: "Any enterprise closely associated with homes and that hopefully employs the leisure of multitudes of people is worthy of investigations and researches conducted at public expense. It is a sad attitude of legislators and others that predicates the need of such investigations on the probable money earnings of the enterprises, as if there were no other measure of human life."  -Liberty Hyde Bailey, The Garden Lover, 1928

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The Size of An Acre

I am convinced that the size of an acre of land varies directly with the size of the man who manages it. The larger the man, the larger the acre...I once asked an old gardener how much land he had, and he said with pride that he owned once acre; and he added, "It is a wonderful acre: it reaches to the center of the earth in one direction, and it takes in the stars in the other." This man's farm included not only the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but it contained the entire rainbow. - Liberty Hyde Bailey, 1911

The Farmer is Proverbially the Man Who has Stood on His Own Feet

“The farmer is proverbially the man who has stood on his own feet. Other persons have stood on other men’s feet. The purpose of every good country-life institution is to develop persons who are able to walk alone.” Liberty Hyde Bailey, The State and the Farmer (1909)

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To Share the Earth Should Be the Right of Every Soul

We have yet scarcely visioned the proper partition of the earth, that the greatest number of the people may partake of it. When finally we have mastered ourselves, we shall look back on the people in the deep gray cities who never had the opportunity or the right to stand on a bit of wild land somewhat as we now look back in pity and in sorrow on those who suffered in the Inquisition or those who were in bondage. To share in the earth should be the right of every soul, and we shall some day make it easy rather than difficult for this to be brought about. - L.H. Bailey, The Open Country

Geraniums

If a window or a garden can have but one plant, that plant is likely to be a Geranium. -L.H. Bailey, Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, 1901

The Fruit Tree

   By the woodshed or the pump, or against the barn or the garden fence, the apple tree or pear tree connects the residence with the world of life and space that stretches out to woods and farms. We transfer our affections to it, as a half-way place between ourselves and our surroundings. It is the warder of the fields and monitor of the home. It is an outpost of the birds. It feels the first ray of morning sunshine. It proclaims every wind. It drips copiously in the rain. Its leaves play on the grass when the year goes down into the long night or winter. And in the spring its brightening twigs and swelling buds reveal the first pulse in the reviving earth. Every day of the year is in its fabric, and every essence of wind and sun and snapping frost is in its blossom and its fruit.

    I often wonder what must have been the loss of the child that had no fruit-tree to shelter it. There are no memories like the days under an old apple tree. Every bird of the field comes to it sooner or later. Perhaps a humming-bird once built on the top of a limb, and the marks of the old nest are still there. Strange insects are in its knots and wrinkles. The shades are very deep and cool under it. The sweet smells of spring are sweetest there. And the mystery of the fruit that comes out of a blossom is beyond all reckoning, the magic growing week by week until the green young balls show themselves gladly among the leaves. And who has not watched for the first red that comes on the side that hangs to the sun, and waited for the first fruit that was soft enough to yield to the thumb!

The Feeling for Plants

   One does not make a good library till one has a feeling for books, nor a good collection of pictures without a feeling for pictorial art. Neither does one make a good garden of any kind without a feeling for plants.

    This does not mean that the feeling must be born with the person. It would be a hopeless world if we could not acquire new sentiments and enthusiasms. One can cultivate a feeling for plants by carefully observing them, growing them, reading about them, and particularly by choosing the company of persons who know and love them. As soon as one begins to distinguish the different kinds closely, one acquires the feeling of acquaintanceship; every kind then has its own qualities, and every kind is admirable in itself. Plants have personality. - L.H. Bailey, The Feeling for Plants, Homegrounds

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Good Air

It is most strange that persons who spend the day in the open air are likely to bottle themselves up at night. I suppose that the fear of fresh air is in part expressive of our general philosophy of life, whereby we unconsciously carry the idea that man is in warfare with nature. We shut our doors to nature. Our windows are small and cramped, as if we only grudgingly let in the out-of-doors. Before we knew the nature of contagious disease, it was very natural that we should consider the atmosphere to be responsible for all kinds of insidious enemies. Disease was supposed to be due to some effluence or miasma, and we shut our doors to it. Now that we are able to distinguish the effects of air from mosquitoes, flies, and germs, we should begin to discriminate in our habits. The best civilization will come when we put ourselves in sympathetic attitude toward nature, rather than when we antagonize it; and we shall learn what things are noxious and take means to avoid them. The spread of tuberculosis in northern regions in former time was due not so much to the fact that winters were cold as to the battening up of doors and windows. Sometime we shall learn how to warm our houses and at the same time supply them with clean air. - L.H. Bailey, The Training of Farmers, 1909

The Best Planting

...the best planting, like the best painting and the best music, is possible only with the best and tenderest feeling and the closest living with nature. One's place grows to be a reflection of himself, changing as he changes, and expressing his life and sympathies to the last. -L.H. Bailey

The Camera In Gardening

L.H. Bailey, Apple-Jonathan, ca. 1901

 The best preparation for gardening is to go afield and see the things that grow there. Take photographs in order to focus your attention on specific objects, to concentrate your observation, to train your artistic sense. An ardent admirer of nature once told me that he never knew nature until he purchased a camera. If you have a camera, stop taking pictures of your friends and the making of mere souvenirs, and try the photographing of plants and animals and small landscapes. Notice that the ground glass of your camera concentrates and limits your landscape. The border-pieces frame it. Always see how your picture looks on the ground glass before you make your exposure. Move your camera until you have an artistic composition—one that will have a pictorial or picturesque character. Avoid snap-shots for such work as this. Take your time. At the end of a year, tell me if you are not a nature-lover. If to-day you care for only pinks and roses and other prim flowers, next year you will admire also the weedy tangles, the spray of wild convolvulus on the old fence, the winter stalks of the sunflower, the dripping water-trough by the roadside, the abandoned bird's-nest, and the pose of the grasshopper. L.H. Bailey, 1900


Being One with a Tree

Man listens in the forest. He pauses in the forest. He finds himself. He loses himself in the town and even perhaps in the university. He may lose himself in business and in great affairs; but in the forest he is one with a tree, he stands by himself and yet has consolation, and he comes back to his own place in the scheme of things. - L.H. Bailey, The Holy Earth

The Peach is Sunshine

This peach is sunshine. It is night, the twilight, and the dawn. It is dew and rain. It is noon, and wind, and weather. It is heat and cold. It is the sequence of the seasons, winter and spring, summer and autumn, and winter again, all of which have gone into the tree that gave it birth...and in the years to come, when you and I shall not be here to see, it or its progeny will bear peaches still! — L.H. Bailey, Peach, from The Harvest

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The Earth is Divine

Verily, then, the earth is divine, because man did not make it. We are here, part in the creation. We cannot escape. We are under obligation to take part and to do our best, living with each other and with all the creatures. We may not know the full plan, but that does not alter the relation. When once we set ourselves to the pleasure of our dominion, reverently and hopefully, and assume all its responsibilities, we shall have a new hold on life. - L.H. Bailey, The Holy Earth