#44 Read Malabar Farm

I just finished reading Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farm. It was both inspiring and depressing. Inspiring because they achieved such amazing results on the worn-out farms they started with, but depressing because most of the problems that Bromfield saw in agriculture of the time were not solved and indeed continue to be even worse problems now. It was also depressing because some of the techniques that Bromfield was so enthusiastic about in the 1940s have turned out to cause even bigger problems than they solved. For example, Bromfield was a huge proponent of specialization, because it allowed for economy of scale and more efficient mechanization. Now that most agriculture in the United States is specialized, we can see how unstable a system it is.

Apple Seeds

Last fall, I collected seeds from as many different local apples as I could. Some were cultivated, grafted varieties, some were wild pippins (grown from seed), and some were rootstock that had grown up when the top died. I read on the internet that the proper way to store them was in moist sand in the refrigerator, since they need a period of cold in order to germinate.

Yesterday, my plan was to pull the jar of seeds out and set it in a warm place until they started to germinate, and then plant them in seed starting soil. The seeds had other ideas. Even though the jar was at the back of the refrigerator (cold enough to freeze entire gallons of milk), all of the seeds had already started to germinate. Unfortunately, there was also a little bit of mold beginning to form on the top, so I don't know if all of the seeds are still viable. At any rate, I've planted them in flats and we'll see what happens. Next year, I obviously need to modify my seed storage system. More research is in order.

In other apple related news, yesterday my Anyone Can Build a Whizbang Apple Grinder & Cider Press book came in the mail. Last year we were buried in apples that were too small and irregular to be worth peeling and processing, and I really wanted a way to make cider from them. I've been hearing about the Whizbang plan books for years, but this will be the first one I try. I also have my eye on the garden cart plans.

Seed Catalogs...

...from the 1930s.

My dad gave me a stack of old seed catalogs, and it's really interesting to look through them. On the surface, they look pretty similar to modern catalogs, except there is more text and fewer pictures. However, the plant descriptions betray different attitudes and priorities of the gardeners of the time. One of the catalogs says of a variety of sweet pea, "This is the most vigorous Early Spencer Sweet Pea I have ever grown, and constitutes the richest tone of rose-pink ever produced in a Sweet Pea." Do many people even grow sweet peas for flowers anymore? I imagine that in 75 years there could be similar incredulity over our current catalogs, with all their lawn care gadgets and chemicals.

There was also an old almanac-type book from Better Homes and Gardens, which I haven't had a chance to look through yet.

Finally, my dad took me to a bookstore in Salt Lake City called Ken Sanders Rare Books. There was unfortunately no agriculture section, but I did find an old book on tanning leather in the craft section. I already have a book (Tan Your Hide!) but I've read reviews that say that it's not very accurate or useful as an instruction book. I hope that this one will be better.

As an aside, in March Wendell Berry will be at Ken Sanders. When I saw that, I immediately wished I had scheduled my trip for March instead of February. I haven't read any of his fiction, but his agricultural essays are thought-provoking and beautifully written.

Evolution of Design

Several weeks ago, I sketched out my first ideas for the part of our land that we call the Pond Pasture. It doesn't actually have a pond yet, just a low area that is a seep. We're working on directing most of the drainage from that half of the farm into it, and plan to dig out a pond to catch it. Here is a rough map of the area. The pond and the hedge (the hatched part near the top) don't exist yet, the drainage stream and the fence and gate do. Click for a larger, easier to read version.


We want to put the pond, hedge, and fruit trees in this area. It would also be the recreational part of the farm, with picnic tables, a fishing spot, and other enjoyable activities available. In that same vein, I wanted to put in a labyrinth for meditation. I made one out of large rocks in Arizona and really enjoyed using it.


However, even using a small design, I figure that I need a 30' diameter circle for a labyrinth, and the Pond Pasture just isn't large enough to justify using that much space for something mostly decorative. My first design did include a labyrinth, though. Even with a cherry tree in the middle and the outer edge surrounded by blueberries, it was an inefficient use of space.


After creating this first design, I read the book Forest Gardening, by Robert Hart. I realized that I could fit many more plants into the space by using the principles in the book. I also thought deeply about my desire for a labyrinth, and I began to see that a winding path through a forest would offer a similar meditative setting. So I decided that in my next design I would attempt to incorporate the elements of the labyrinth in the entire area, rather than concentrating them into a small part.

To help me organize my thoughts and what I had learned, I made lists of the crops and uses I wanted for each environment on the farm.

Pond

• fish (food and recreation, duck feed)
• aquatic plants (food, fish and duck feed)
• water storage
• ice production?

Pond Edge/Marsh

• willow coppice (baskets and other crafts)
• rushes/reeds (thatching)
• cattails (edible parts and basket-making)
• blueberries, cranberries, etc (food)

Open Land (in Pond Pasture)

• fruit trees (apple, pear, plum, peach, cherry, etc)
• nut trees
• bramble bushes (raspberry, blackberry, etc)
• other fruit shrubs (gooseberry, currant, etc)
• herbs
• roots
• vines (grapes, beans, squash and gourds?)

Current Forest

• fine timber (black walnut and maple, already established, intermediate crops of nuts and syrup)
• fruit and nut trees in more open areas
• shade-loving plants and fungus under maples

Hedgerow

• construction coppice (osage orange, black locust, cedar?)
• Bouché-Thomas* pippins** (apple tree hedge, apples for cider and livestock feed)
• willows? (allowed to grow larger than in marsh)

Taking all of that into consideration, here is my most recent sketch. About the only thing it has in common with the first one is that the foot-bridge over the drainage ditch is in the same place. That's because we normally cross in that spot when walking across the field.


The double line of willows at the south end of the pond are to collect winter snow drifts so that they can melt into the pond in spring. The Rs and Cs in the pond are reeds and cattails, and the boundary between pasture and orchard is made with bricks. There is a whole pile of yellow bricks in the forest that I could salvage for that. I think everything else is labeled. I don't expect this to be the final design, as things will change as we actually start to implement them, but I think it is much closer than my first one.

*Bouché-Thomas is a method of growing apples where the trees are planted slanted so that the branches interlace and form a hedge. It was mentioned and briefly described in Forest Gardening, but I can find very little additional information on the web.

**This is probably just a British usage, but Hart defined a pippin as an apple grown from seed (or pips). I'll need to differentiate between the seedling-apples and grafted apples, and pippin is not a commonly used word in American English, so I have adopted his definition.

#40 Become Certified to Compost Dead Livestock

Today I took the course to become certified to compost dead livestock in Ohio. Most of the material in the lecture was familiar to me from my own studies of composting, but it was good to have a refresher. I also got a manual that I plan to study in more depth. My official certificate will be coming by mail, but we also received unofficial ones at the class. With as few animals as we have, there aren't many mortalities, but it will be nice to be able to legally compost them on our farm.

One item down, 100 to go.

Old Farm Resources

Back in November, I visited the Barnesville Antique Mall and cleaned them out of old agriculture books. I got a chance to go back today. The box of Jersey cattle registries was still there, but I was far less tempted to buy it this time. There were only a few new agriculture books.

The New Agriculture, by Henry Jackson Waters. 1924. A textbook covering crops, livestock, soil management and bookkeeping, complete with questions at the end of each chapter.

Horticulture Enterprises, edited by Kary C. Davis. 1929. Another textbook, discussing various crops: fruit trees, strawberries, grapes, onions, beets, asparagus, rhubarb, horseradish, celery, and mustard, as well as woodland management. Not only does this one have questions at the end of each chapter, but it also has field and laboratory exercises to complete. The book also came with a USDA Farmer's Bulletin tucked into its pages, titled "The Farm Garden in the North" (1922).

After picking through the book room, I wandered downstairs to the farm implements closet. There were some interesting old tools there, but nothing really caught my eye. I had hoped to find something useful in there, at the very least as a model.

The last section I looked in was the basement, where a lot of the things that weren't nice enough to go upstairs were stored. Boy, what a treasure trove down there. I found a sickle that was only $5. It was a bit rusty, but otherwise in pretty good condition. I didn't think to take a picture of it before I started cleaning it up, but here it is after sanding most of the rust off and applying a few layers of linseed oil. It still needs to be sharpened, although it's already sharp enough to decapitate a burdock plant.



I also found an ox yoke, but it was $65 so I didn't buy it. It was nice to be able to hold one in my hands and really inspect it; I now have more confidence that I can carve one based on instructions I found online. It was very small, so I guess it was for training young cattle. I don't know, if it's still there next time I visit I might go ahead and buy it, now that I've seen some of the prices for yokes and yoke components online. It would cost $200 dollars just to buy the curved bows that hold the yoke onto the oxen's necks! I guess $65 is a steal for a yoke in reasonably good condition.



There was also a hay rake leaning up against one wall. It had been broken and repaired with electrical tape, and there wasn't a price tag on it. I don't know how well it would stand up to actual use, but again, it was nice to be able to see how a hay rake is put together. That's something else I intend to try to make at some point.



All in all, it was a great trip to Barnesville.

Agriculture Resources

After reading some great excerpts from old agriculture books, I've decided to collect as many as I can find that are pre-1940. I found some very promising ones at the Antique Mall in Barnesville.

Agriculture Yearbook, 1924. Topics include hay, poultry, and weather, as well as the agricultural statistics for the year.

Yearbook of Agriculture, 1935. Includes the previous year of agriculture, new developments, and statistics.

Yearbook of Agriculture, 1936. Topic: Genetics and the improvement of plants and animals. No statistics, because this was the first year that they were moved to their own volume.

Pork Production, by William W. Smith. 1937. Extensive information on all phases of pork production, including several chapters on forage and several more on feeding other agricultural by-products (skim milk, whey, etc).

Old McDonald Had A Farm, by Angus McDonald. 1942. This one is actually a biography, but I couldn't resist after reading the author's note at the beginning.

"This book is about my father, James Angus McDonald, and how he labored to make a good farm out of a poor one. I lived on this farm with him and my brother, sister, and mother from 1912 to 1922, near Sallisaw, Oklahoma."

I have no idea if it will be any good, but there might be some agricultural gems hidden in the prose.

There was also a cardboard box filled with herd registry books for the American Jersey Cattle Club from the 1890s. The entire box was $50 and I was really tempted to buy it, just because I like poring over that sort of thing. Plus, if I ever get into full-sized dairy cattle, Jerseys are probably what I would get. I managed to restrain myself, although if the box is still there next time I go down there, I may not be able to resist again. Other than the registry books, I pretty much cleaned them out of agriculture books.