PICTURE OF BEN DOUGLASS
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CHAPTER XXV.
BIRD'S-EYE AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
Occupation of the People.—Agriculture. —The rural inhabitants of Wayne county are emphatically an agricultural population, the term agricultural having reference to husbandry, tillage or culture of the earth. Of Agriculture Rollin speaks :
It may be said to be as ancient as the world, having taken birth in the terres-
trial paradise itself, when Adam, newly come forth from the hands of his Creator, still possessed the precious but frail treasure of his innocence ; God having placed him in the garden of delights, commanded him to cultivate it ; ut operaretur illium to dress and keep it. Genesis ii., 15. That culture was not painful and laborious, but easy and agreeable; it was to serve him for his amusement, and to make him contemplate in the productions of the earth the wisdom and liberality of his Master.
The sin of Adam having overthrown this order, and drawn upon him the mournful decree which condemned him to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow ; God changed his delight into chastisement, and subjected him to hard labor and toil, which he had never known had he continued ignorant of evil. The earth became stubborn and rebellious to his order s, to punish his revolt against God, and brought forth thorns and thistles. Violent means were necessary to compel it to pay man the tribute of which his ingratitude had rendered him unworthy, and to force it by labor to supply him every year with the nourishment which before was given him freely and without trouble.
From hence, therefore, we are to trace the origin of Agriculture, which, from the punishment it was at first, is become, by the singular goodness of God, in a manner the mother and nurse of the human race. It is in effect, the source of solid wealth and treasures of real value, which do not depend upon the opinion of men —which suffice at once to necessity and enjoyment, by which a nation is in no want of its neighbors, and often necessary to them—which make the principal revenue of a State and supply the defect of all others when they happen to fail. Though mines of gold and silver should be exhausted, and the moneys made of them lost—though pearls and diamonds should remain hid in the womb of the earth and sea —though commerce with strangers should be prohibited—though all arts, which have no other object than embellishment and splendor, should be abolished, the fertility of the earth alone would afford an abundant supply for the occasions of the public, and furnish subsistence both for the people and armies to defend it.
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It was the noblest of the Roman pursuits in the days of Roman prosperity. It was diffused everywhere they went and followed in the train of their victories. Princes and ministers supported and encouraged it. The descendants of Numa, next to the adoration of the gods and reverence for religion, recommended nothing so much to the people as the cultivation of lands and the propagation of cattle. Books were written and precepts on agriculture were given by kings to posterity. Pliny says :
The earth, glorious in seeing herself cultivated by the hands of triumphant heroes, seemed to make new efforts, and to produce her fruits with greater abundance; that is, no doubt, because those great men, equally capable of handling the plough and their arms, of sowing and conquering lands, applied themselves with more attention to their labor, and were of course more successful in it.
Consuls, dictators, even the great Cincinnatus, "in whose breast the destinies of a nation lay dormant," were taken from the plow. The rustic Cato applied himself with industrious ardor to his farm. His neighbor, Valerius Flaccus, one of the most powerful men of Rome, would go to the cities in the morning to plead the causes of those who employed him, and then would retire to the fields, where in dingy clothes he would toil with his servants, sit down with them at the table, eat of their bread and drink of their wine. A Roman Senator once said to Appius Claudius, by way of contrasting the farm upon which they then stood with the magnificence of his country houses :
Here (said he) we see neither painting, statues, carving, not Mosaic work; but to make such amends, we have all that is necessary to the cultivation of lands, the dressing of vines, and the feeding of cattle. In your house everything shines with gold, silver and marble; but there is no sign of arable lands or vineyards. We find there neither ox, nor cow, nor sheep. There is neither hay in the cocks, vintage in the cellars, nor harvest in the barn. Can this be called a farm? In what does it resemble that of your grandfather and great-grandfather?
Cicero asserted "that the country life came nearest to that of the wise man ; that is, it was a kind of practical philosophy."
In exalted strains, in his Georgics, Virgil celebrates its pleasures:
Ah! the too happy swains, did they but know their own bliss ! to whom, at a distance from discordant arms, earth, of herself most liberal, pours from her bosom their easy sustenance. If the palace, high raised with proud gates, vomits not forth from all its apartments a vast tide of morning vigilante; and they gape not at porticos variegated with beauteous tortoise-shell, and on tapestries tricked with gold, and on Corinthian brass ; and if the white wool is not stained with the Assyrian
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drug, nor the use of the pure oil corrupted with Cassia's aromatic bark ; yet there is peace secure, and a life ignorant of guile, rich in various opulence ; yet theirs are peaceful retreats in ample fields, grottos and living lakes ; yet to them cool vales, the lowings of kine, and soft slumbers under a tree are not wanting. There are woodlands and haunts, for beasts of chase and youth patient of toil and inured to thrift ; the worship of the gods, and fathers held in veneration ; Justice, when she left the world, took her last steps among them.
We thus perceive that with the ancients it was catalogued with the most honorable and dignified of human employments. That it should constitute the employment of more modern people is but natural ; and especially so when we consider that the fertile regions of the New World embrace the new Egyptian corn-fields and wheat ranges of Mesopotamia. But to preserve the vitality and insure the fecundity of the soil the care and wisdom of the Romans must be observed. Soils are not depleted of their fertility by changeable seasons, intemperate airs, or transformations of their constituent parts, or even a continuous and excessive tillage. Their weakness and exhaustion is the result of our own neglect, and is brought about by a reckless cultivation, an absence of necessary stimuli, and too frequently by passing the lands to careless and injudicious tenants. Hence we offer a word on
Fertilizers.—We presume there is no farmer in the county but makes more or less use of them. In reference to guano as a fertilizer, the great difficulty is the expense of procuring it, the principal sources of supply being the Peruvian Islands and British West Indies. During the decade ending June 30, 1870, there was imported into the United States 387,585 tons, valued at $5,992,325, or at a cost of over $15 per ton at the port of shipment. Many years will doubtless elapse before it will be accepted by the farming community. In some of the States bone meal is substituted, and it has many eulogizers as an effective and profitable stimulant of the soil. But its production is accompanied with a large expense, as mills are to be built, the bones crushed by iron teeth or prongs arranged as in a bark-mill, and again run through a finer set of teeth. Leached ashes are excellent fertilizers for clover, and render more mellow and friable all heavy clay lands. Statistics demonstrate that when applied to wheat, at the rate of 200 to 300 bushels to the acre, they increased the yield 100 per cent. Marl, which is simply an earth containing more or less carbonate of lime, is highly recommended, large quantities of which are found throughout the State of Mississippi. Germany supports by Gov-
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ernment the manufacture of artificial fertilizers, and Chicago for the last few years has been producing them and shipping East and South annually, from 6,000 to 8,000 tons. They are mainly prepared from material supplied from the slaughter-houses of the city. Swamp-muck is used in many localities, and with very gratifying and compensatory results. When spread upon grass lands in the fall it induces an early and more vigorous growth in the spring, and materially augments the crops. Plaster is likely the cheapest of the fertilizers. It will even redeem lands that are so impoverished as to hardly produce any crops—to the extent, at least that the clover plant will take root, it being the great restorative of enfeebled soils. It is no longer a debatable question that clover, as a soil-stimulant, is indispensable to every system of rational husbandry. It has achieved the enviable reputation of being, not only an eminent fertilizer, but a consummate restorative to exhausted soils, and capable of resisting the storms and frosts of a Borean winter. It occupies an equality with the richest composts and strongest manures of the barnyard. It leaves the soil in a loose and loamy condition, and divests it of many foreign and extraneous growths.
Nothing is more appropriate, or better grounded in good sense, than the practice of plowing down a clover crop preparatory to the growing of wheat. For it is asserted, that the growing of clover is equal to deep plowing, as its long roots penetrate deeply in search of food for the stems and leaves, which, if plowed into the land, will undergo decomposition and leave near the surface elements taken from the subsoil. Its leaves take carbonic acid from the atmosphere, and the plowing in of the crop augments the carbon of a soil very materially, which changes the color and gives it greater capacity to absorb solar heat, and to retain moisture, manures and ammonia, whether resulting from their decomposition, or absorbed from the atmosphere.
Aside from the clover-plant, our farmers rely chiefly upon the products of the stable and barn-yard for their fertilizers. These, if properly managed, would be far more valuable and available than they are. In many cases, they are not saved with that measure of care that their value demands ; nor is that amount or quality of manure made from the straw and other debris of the barn-yard that could be from a more skillful management. Its value is deteriorated by rains falling on it and washing out its soluble fertilizing constituents. By analysis it is established, that this crude water-
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soaked material possesses less than one-half the money value and vitalizing power of the sheltered accumulations of the stable and barn. It is gratifying to note that our farmers are devoting needful attention to it, and realize the importance of this subject. It is an axiom that they are beginning to understond, that constant abstraction, without the pro quid quo, or putting back an equivalent to what is taken from the soil, must ultimately deplete and enfeeble it.
Primitive Plows and Plowing. —The plow is doubtless the creature of a very hoary antiquity. It was sometimes formed of the limb of a tree, and sometimes of the body and tough root of a sapling, the lower end being hewed to a wedge. The plowman occasionally worked the implement himself, but was oftener assisted by a team composed of a grown daughter and her mother, attached to the plow by rawhide or hempen thongs. The Egyptians, it is supposed, first made use of it. The plow of the ancient Britons was a rude and uningenious contrivance. When in use it was fastened to the tails of oxen and horses, and in this wise the the poor beast was compelled to drag it through the ground. An act of the Irish Legislature was passed in 1634, entitled, " An act against plowing by the tails," which forbade the barbarous custom, but it was still practiced in some parts of the island as late as the present century. The draft-pole was lashed to the tail of the animal, and as no harness was employed, two men were necessary— one to guide and press upon the plow, the other to direct the animal, which he did by walking backwards in front of the miserable creature, beating him on the head on either side, according to the direction required.
Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, was among the first to suggest improvements upon the plow in this country, and in a paper addressed to the French Institute, attempted the solution of the problem of the true surface of the mould-board and the establishment of rational and practical rules for its structure and form. In 1793 he made practical experiments upon his theories, and had several plows made in pursuance of them, and put them into use on his estates in Albemarle and Bedford counties, Va., with most satisfactory results.
In 1837, Daniel Webster invented a plow for work twelve and fourteen inches deep, cutting a furrow twenty-four inches wide, which is still in existence and was at the Centennial Exposition at
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Philadelphia. It is twelve feet long, with a landside four feet long. The mould-board it of wood, plated with thin iron straps, the beam being twenty-eight inches from the ground. It was intended for his farm at Marshfield, and required six or eight men, besides himself, to manage it. He spoke of it in this way :
When I have hold of the handles of my big plow in such a field, with four pairs of cattle to pull it through, and hear the roots crack, and see the stumps all go under the furrow out of sight, and observe the clean, mellowed surface of the plowed land, I feel more enthusiasm over my achievements than comes from my en. counters in public life at Washington.
The results of modern invention have put such a variety of them in the market, and such is the degree of perfection and skill attained in their manufacture, that there is but little hardship associated with their application to lands. The ordinary cast-iron plow, with a span of horses, is usually sufficient for the purpose unless when the ground is baked and dry. In many places sheet-steel is substituted for cast-iron, with patent advantages in certain respects, as the weight of the plow can be reduced without much impairment of strength, but then they lack durability and become necessarily expensive to farmers. The cast-steel plow is also introduced, and its friends clamor for its ease of draft, durability, and its many valuable and economic points. The old barshare has become a fossiliferous relic of a past period. Sub-soiling has its champions, whose theories concerning this method of soil-procedure seem tenable, if not strictly practical. It is asserted that where the sub-soil plow has been used for four or five years following, the land is very perceptibly improved, and is more mellow, and holds moisture better. Investigation on this question, we imagine, has not been pushed to the extent that the magnitude of it demands, nor will it likely be until the State shall do its duty by establishing an Agricultural College and Experimental Farm. The kind of plow, time of plowing, depth of same, etc., are conducted by our farmers, with but little regard to rule or system, as each one inclines to champion his own views, and be governed by his own experience.
Rotation in Crops.—As we have before stated, along the lowlands of the streams of the county, and especially the bottoms that are subject to occasional overflow, the same crops can be produced for an indefinite number of years without serious mischief to the soil. On the farm of the late Lewis Thomas, west of Woos-
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ter, corn was produced on a tract of meadow for over twenty years without any sensible diminution of yield. Our farmers, however, pretty generally adopt the wiser plan of a judicious rotation, or alternation of crops. There is in this, not only common sense but much obvious philosophy, if pursued to its consequences, but which is beyond the scope and purpose of our work.
Architecture and Building.—The first mention of edifices that we have is found in Genesis, where Cain is represented as having "builded a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch." It was built after the Lord had pronounced upon him the curse for the murder of his brother, and likely when he was a dweller in "Nod, on the east of Eden." Architecture, it may be said, is as old as the history of man, and the progeny of Cain, to whom the Bible refers the mention of most of the arts, carried this, undoubtedly, to a state of great perfection. Protection from oold, heat, rain, winds and storms were primal necessities of the human race. The first buildings were but small huts, composed of branches of trees and imperfectly covered. The cottage of Romulus was thatched with straw. Afterward structures of wood were erected which suggested the idea of columns and architraves. Then came stone and brick for foundations and walls, and boards and tiles for roofs. The workmen became skilled, their tastes became educated, and they began to comprehend the rules of proportion and the beauties of symmetry. Health, durability, convenience were chiefly consulted at first; then ornamentation and order, on a reasonable basis, and finally, pomp, grandeur, magnificence, highly laudable on many occasions, but soon strangely abused by luxury.
The architecture and the buildings of the county, while they compare favorably with the other counties of the State that are not older in organization, are not what they should be, when we consider the comfortable situations and wealth of the owners of the soil. It is true the log cabins have sunk to decay ; that the wing-less, bay-window-less, piazza-less habitations of an intermediate period are disappearing, but they are far from being succeeded by models of refined taste, good design, or any manifest expression of art. Many of our barns are as good, commodious and constructed with as much breadth of plan and convenience as could be desired, but there is great room for improvement here. They are better than our houses. The architecture, with a few
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exceptions, in Wooster and the villages of the county is no better. The furniture of the dwelling is often in contrast with the dwelling itself—frequently superior in value to it. Our churches, as a rule, are intended for our best edifices, but they are too generally combinations of copied beauties and borrowed styles, which become mere incongruities in the midst of their surroundings. Emerson says of the English that " Their architecture still glows with faith in immortality."
Our School-houses.
Our school-houses, and they are as good, probably, as can be found in any county in Ohio, are built to convenience, but are almost invariably destitute of taste. Outside, they have a sort of dock-yard, heavy, warehouse-like look, while the inside is uninviting and cheerless. Badly indeed are they calculated to inspire any idea of design or impression of beauty, or gratify the slightest desire for art ; and yet in these very schoolhouses the eyes which are to drink of nature's beauties, and the tender minds which are to receive the inspiration of a future life, are expected to obtain their earliest impressions and most fervent impulsions. A fair share of this culpability attaches to architects and artists themselves. They must go to France and England, visit Rome, and pace all Italy, spurred by an ambition that most of them are incompetent to gratify. Hence art at home is neglected, for in a country where architecture is slighted, painting and sculpture will have but a slender footing. The cultivation of art must begin with our own buildings, and first of all with our dwelling- houses and school edifices. If they are small, let them be of good design, tasteful and picturesque ; if large and imposing, let the same care, thought and painstaking prevail. Every stone, brick, panel, niche and column may be made a delight. Money is well spent when moderately used to beautify a home, for it is said that the character of a man can be told by seeing the house he lives in. A nation defines its individuality by its architecture.
We do not want bigger houses, but their plans and appointments should be in higher consonance with art. We want ventilation, warmth and more light. " Let there be more light" is the first recorded fiat of God. In the dark gorges of the Swiss valleys, where direct sunlight never reaches, the awful presence of idiocy appalls the traveler. We want more sunshine in the dwelling, more lighted houses and fewer dungeons.
Number of Acres in the County—Size of Farms, etc. —In Wayne
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county there are 346,491 acres of land, valued, by the Board of Equalization, at $11,106,514, at its session of 1870-71 in Columbus, Ohio, with an average value per acre of $32.06. The buildings of the county were estimated at $1,205,552, making an aggregate value of lands and buildings, $12,312,066, which would increase the average value of lands, buildings inclusive, per acre, to $35.53.
There were then 219,770 acres of arable or plow lands in the county ; 31,788 acres of meadow or pasture land, and 94,933 acres of uncultivated or wood-land. The aggregate value of all lots, lands and buildings in the county, as equalized by the State Board, was $14,652,256.
In 1872 there were in Wayne county 3,153 farms of all sizes, which, by division into the number of acres in the county, would make an average size of farms to be a trifle over 109 each. But the distribution of the lands is not so uniform or generous. In the great ocean we have the seasoning anchovy as well as "the sea- shouldering whale ; " on the great earth we have the elephant as well as the plowing mole. The statistics of the year 1872 exhibit 120 farms of 3 and less than t0 acres ; 180 of t0 and under 20; 554 of 20 and under 50; 1,320 of 50 and under t00 ; 978 of t00 and under 500 acres. In the county, including the city of Wooster, is $774,746 worth of real estate exempt from taxation. By the census of 1870 the assessed valuation of real and personal estate was $17,269,399, and its true value $28,213,234. Well improved lands, under good cultivation, are worth from $75 to $125 per acre. Quality, location and improvements govern prices.
Fences and Timber.—A great investment in this county and an expensive production of human industry is the common fences which separate the fields and divide them from the highways and roads. No man has any correct idea of their costliness—not even the remotest dream—unless he has investigated the subject. The wealth of our villages and cities is scarcely to be compared with it. It was asserted by a practical writer of Baltimore, some years ago, that the fences of this country have cost more than twenty times the specie there is in it ; and that in some of the counties of the Northern States the fences have actually cost more than the farms and fences are worth. It constitutes a burden to the farmer, and interferes, to some extent, with the agricultural interest of the country. In the north of Europe, with a worse climate and an in-
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different system of cultivation, they are able to undersell us in the English markets, and there fences are almost unknown. The fields and flocks are under the care of herdsmen, and thus an untold expense is economized, aside from the loss of land which the fences occupy. A farmer has eighty acres of land, 80 x 160 rods. To enclose that simply requires 480 rods, or 1 1/2 miles of what we call "worm fence." To make that the customary hight, including riders, requires i6 rails to the rod, and each rod requires 4 stakes, which are nearly equivalent to rails, and which we will call such, making 20 rails to the rod. It will thus require 20 times 480, or 9,600 rails simply to enclose his 80 acres. We will leave him with 20 acres of timber land enclosed, but with the remaining 60 acres divided in 6 fields of 10 acres each. These will require 360 rods of additional fence, or 7,200 more rails, making a total for enclosing his 80 acres of 16,800 rails, which are worth, at the lowest estimate, $20.00 per thousand. At this rate the rails for 80 acres are worth $336.00. He has 840 rods of fence, which would employ one man 20 days to build, at an additional expense of $20.00, making a total of over $350.00 to simply fence his farm. To similarly improve a section would cost $2,800.00, and therefore a like distribution of fences throughout the country would swell the sum to over $1,500,000.
And this old time, old-fashioned " wiring in and wiring out" Virginia rail fence has the supremacy throughout the county. Post and rail and board fences are used in the suburbs of villages, around private dwellings in the county, and frequently along the public roads, but have not fallen into any general use. There are some hedge-rows in the county, but the question of their growth or adaptability to this region is question for future experiment. Originally the county was well-timbered. The uplands that produced it most luxuriantly are denominated by J. H. Caldwell in his Atlas of Wayne County, in a wholesale plagiarism from Knapp's History of Ashland County, "the refused lands" of the county. Hickory, walnut, beech, oak, chestnut, ash, elm, maple, butternut, poplar, sycamore, Linn, wild cherry, locust, buckeye, ironwood, dog-wood, constitute the chief varieties. As in the last few years many portable saw-mills have occasioned severe assaults upon the forests, it is probable that but a little more than one-fourth of the area of the county can be classed with the wood or uncultivated
lands.
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Our Forests.—If the rate of destruction which for the last two decades has been practiced is continued upon our forests, it will interfere with our material prosperity. A certain proportion between the timbered and cleared lands must be maintained in order to preserve a good degree of productiveness in the soil. If some of our farmers had observed this fact, or had removed the forests with more judicious regard to a protection of the spaces cleared, their lands would have been more fertile and their sources of profit greatly multiplied. It is, moreover, the injunction of a sound wisdom for farmers to husband well their forests. There is no greater necessity than wood, not simply for fuel or as a means of warmth, but as a source of employment and industry.
This makes it both the duty of patriotism and the promptings of self-interest to promote the production of timber. This is the opportune time for the undertaking. It is none too soon to make a beginning; it is not too late if the work is commenced in earnest. The decrease of consumption of wood for fuel in all our cities and towns, and on our railroads and steamboats, will aid not a little in the preservation of our forests. It is important that trees which are under size for making lumber should be suffered to grow on. There is now less temptation to cut down forests promiscuously than formerly, when wood for fuel was so much in demand. Where the best trees have been cut out for sawing into lumber, and the growth is thinned, something should be done to replace those trees which have been removed.
Planting of trees is recommended and practiced in many places. It is a niggard, contemptible and selfish argument that runs, "It takes too long for them to mature; I will be dead before they are
trees."
Washington planted a Republic upon the virgin soil of a new continent with no hope of beholding its consummation. Posterity has a claim upon all true men that can not be ignored. "Stick in a tree now and then, Jack," said the Scotch laird, "it will be growing while ye are sleeping." The author of Waverly, when ridiculed for his supposed weakness in this regard, replied, "No matter, posterity will thank me for it." An old legend has it that "Abraham planted a Cyprus and pine, and a cedar ; and that these three incorporated into one tree, which was cut down for the building of the temple of Solomon." The necessary 'consumption of the trees will speedily enough produce scarcity, and then they are subject to the devastating commotions of the elements, which frequently disfigure and destroy great numbers of them. Worms riot upon them, frosts scorch them, fires coil around them, storms ride them down, ice crushes them, nor are they even spared of
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Jove. The destruction occasioned to forests in January, 1874, by the ice amounted, to tens of thousands of dollars to the land owners of Wayne county alone. The 6th and 7th of January, 1874, will be as memorable as the frost morning of June 5, 1859.
Protect the groves--they were "God's first temples"--spare the tree; God breathes upon it and it grows ; from its acorn cups will spring the masts of admirals, the ribs of navies and mighty ships. Plant the oak, and then the tulip, the cedar and walnut, and then the rose and lily. Plant them in the church-yard, by the school-house, in the open fields, and in the cemetery ; and with the evergreens of your mansion lawn; one for your birth, and one for your bridal.
GRAINS.
Wheat.—This grain, once stigmatized by the inhabitants of India as barbarian food, is the most important cereal of the county, and, for all that, of the continent, both as a basis of prosperity and an element of commerce. We have no very positive knowledge of its origin, or where it was first cultivated, or its chronological order in the history of grains. That it was produced extensively and in immense quantities in Egypt at an early period we have assuring and convincing proofs. But a few years prior to the birth of Christ, when Augustus had reduced the country to a Roman province, Rollin asserts that there came regularly from Egypt every year twenty million bushels of wheat. The wheat-bearing regions of Mesopotamia, an ancient name of the country between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, are eulogized by Herodotus, and their yield of the grain is extravagant, if not fabulous. No other cereal has been discovered possessing so many qualities combined to render it suitable and salubrious for food. The spring and winter wheats are nothing less than different conditions of the same species, producing each by proper treatment in the times of sowing; and varieties indicated by the color of the chaff or of the seeds are traceable to contrasts of soil, or, perhaps, to circumstances of a chemical nature, like the distinctions of color in the husks and grains of our Indian corn. The soil best suited to wheat seems to be one of an argillaceous nature, but not too stiff and rich in alkalies and salts. Light, spongy and porous soils, whether silicious or calcareous, are the least suitable, and those representing a variety of constituents are, perhaps, the more preferable. It has been the principal crop of the county since its first
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settlement, and one of its most reliable sources of revenue. The pioneers found it ready to grow and produce on their half-cleared, half-plowed enclosures, though fields of what was called " sick wheat" was no uncommon occurrence. Of late years farmers find it necessary to more carefully guard its cultivation and adopt more systematic principles in its production. Different varieties are annually tested, but the Mediterranean wheat, for the last twenty years, has proven in the end to be the most profitable, It yields a white, excellent flour, is a hardy cereal, and resists the assaults of fly, weevil and other insidious foes, combining withal the desirable vitality to endure our bitter winters. The methods of preparing the soil for its reception are as numerous as the caprices of the farmers themselves, and since modern agriculture has taken on tone, each prince of the manor is his own authority. In 1875 Wayne county was the second wheat-yielding county in Ohio, producing from 44,043 acres 682,445 bushels of wheat, or an average of less than sixteen bushels to the acre.
Corn.—" Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn ;
No richer gift hath Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn." — Whittier.
In 1621 the Pilgrims, at Plymouth, found this grain flourishing as the field-vegetable of the Indian tribes, and raised by them for food. It has a remarkable inclination to adapt itself to circumstances of climate, in that it produces great and distinct varieties ; and therefore it is a most valuable and priceless agricultural plant. It has the stately aristocratic port of tropical vegetation and is one of the tallest of our growing annuals. Its foliage is large, leaves dark green, with clean bright stems and joints well-defined. We are not certain but that this grain takes precedence over the other cereals in point of value and general utility. With the farmers the failure of this crop is regarded as a calamity, A cornless or half-filled crib suggests an imperative economy, short rations to the stock and general curtailment to the tenantry of the farm. Not only the grain but the bladed stems constitute, a most valuable feed for cattle. In case of a failure of the wheat it is a most important substitute, when its multifold value is appreciated.
" Then richer than the fabled gift,
Apollo showered of old,
Fair hands the broken grains shall sift,
And knead its meal of gold."
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It requires a rich, stimulating soil, and one that will only laugh to the tickle of the plow when the conditions of its own nature are complied with. Corn planters, corn cultivators, and various other devisements are employed by the farmers in the production of it, all of which are useful or otherwise, according to the preparation of the soil. The nutritive qualities of the diversified varieties of this grain are quite similar, as chemical analysis has determined. There was raised, in the year 1875, in Wayne county, from 33,398 acres, 1,466,553 bushels of the cereal, or less than 44 bushels to the acre.
Oats.—Mesopotamia is probably the native country of oats. It grows in incongenial localities and where other grains do not. It flourishes best in the colder latitudes and degenerates in the warm. Oatmeal formed of this grain is a very valuable food for man. In Scotland, Ireland, Sweden and Norway it is a great source of maintenance. It is a desirable staple in agriculture; can be drilled or sown broad-cast to equal advantage, and is dependent wholly upon the season for its prosperity. Wayne county in 1875, from 26,317 acres produced 951,464 bushels, averaging over thirty- six bushels to the acre.
Rye. -The native region of this agricultural cereal is undetermined. At a very remote period it was cultivated in Britain, and the practice obtained of sowing it mixed with the wheat. In sections of Europe it is exalted in domestic economy and by the peasantry. "Rye bread" occupies pre-eminence as a promoter of strength and physical soundness. Its culture is much neglected, and when sown it is given to second-rate lands late in the season. It is frequently sown in mid-summer for winter and early pasture in the spring, when calves and sheep can be seen " Comin' through the rye." In 1875 the acreage was 758 in the county, and the yield 12,503 bushels, an average of less than seventeen bushels to the acre.
Barley. —This cereal grows wild in Sicily and Asia, but its original country is unknown. Pliny speaks of it as " the first grain cultivated for nourishment." It flourishes in hot as well as cold climates. It makes a coarse, heavy bread, and is excellent food for cattle. In the materia medica it is presented as possessing emollient, diluent and expectorant qualities, and since the time of Hippocrates and Galen it has been in good repute in febrile and inflammatory complaints. It requires the best land, shortly depleting it,
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and hence not a popular grain with land owners. But 340 acres were cultivated in 1875, yielding 7,917 bushels.
Buckwheat is supposed to be indigenous to Asia. The Moors introduced it into Spain. It is emphatically a flowering plant, and it blooms a long time. Its growth is destructive to weeds and other pestiferous intruders of the farm. Its flowers secrete honey, and until they fade are swarming with bees intent on improving "each shining hour." In some localities it is cultivated exclusively for bee-food. The flour of the grain furnishes a bread highly valued, and a breakfast cake of continental popularity. Its culture has grown into comparative disuse, as the cutting and threshing of it is disagreeable and unpleasant. Two hundred and one acres were sown in 1875, yielding 2,508 bushels.
Flax is claimed to be a native of Egypt, or possibly the elevated plains of Central Asia. It seems to be most prosperous in the warm latitudes. Its fibre is said to obtain its best firmness in the temperate regions. In the United States in 1853 there were produced 8,000,000 pounds. At an exceedingly early date it was raised in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. Belgium and Holland produce it extensively. The filaments or threads taken from the fibrous casing of its hollow stems have been used from the remotest periods in the manufacture of linen thread. Its fibers may be so separated as to be spun into threads as fine as silk. Cambric, lawn and lace are made from them. The coverings of the ancient mummies witness that the linen mentioned by the ancient writers was produced from the fibres of the flax plant. Its seed furnishes linseed-oil, and the residue, after its expression, is made into the oil-cake, so healthful for feeding and so valuable for fattening cattle. On account of its mucilaginous character, physicians use it for its soothing effects in certain inflammations. Good land is required to produce it, and it greatly debilitates and exhausts the soil. The acreage in Wayne county in 1875 was 654 ; bushels, 6,800 ; pounds of fibre, 295,900.
Meadow and Clover Lands.—In 1875 there were 31,759 acres of meadow in Wayne county, yielding 36,334 tons of hay , 1,954 acres of clover, producing 2,098 tons of hay and 1,601 bushels of seed.
Timothy.—This is a hay-plant much in use in New England, where it is known as Herd's grass, so named from a Mr. Herd, who, it is claimed, found it in a swamp near Piscataqua.
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Authorities, however, conflict in regard to its origin, some asserting it to be ap American, and others a European growth. In old England it is called the meadow's cat's tail. Among horse-raisers and turf-men it is esteemed the most valuable fodder. Many of our best farmers cultivate it.
Hungarian grass and millet have each their random votaries in the county.
FRUITS.
No portion of Ohio produces superior fruit to that of Wayne county. Every farmer has his orchard of fine, select trees, so that an absolute failure of the fruit crop is almost an impossibility. The productions of the Ohio orchards have achieved deserved popularity in the Eastern markets.
The Apple.—The origin of the apple is not definitely known. Insomuch as mention is made of it in the Scriptures, it may have been a native of Palestine. If the ancestral tree was the one which stood "in the midst of the garden," and which "the woman " believed "was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," then we are justified in defining its origin in " regretted Eden." Pomologists, however, incline to the belief that the wild crab tree of Europe is the parent of all our apples. Pliny mentions it as "a wilding, which had many a foul and shrewd curse given it," on account of its sourness. We have not the space in this survey to enumerate the many varieties produced in this county, but nearly every species known to fruit-growers is found in the orchards of the county, which cover about 7,000 acres of the surface.
The Peach.—This delicious fruit originated in Persia, It was cultivated in Britain in 1550, but not in this country till 1680. It flourishes best under cultivation between latitudes 30 and 40, but attains a rich maturity farther north in the United States. The first fruit raised in Wayne county was peaches, and it is the most easily propagated of all our domestic varieties and well adapted to our soil. Our orchards embrace nearly every species worth cultivating.
The Pear.-A native of Europe, it is traced from Sweden to the Mediterranean, and as far east in Asia as China and Japan. It is the favorite fruit of modern times. The Greeks, Syrians, Romans and Egyptians cultivated it, but its juicy, aromatic deliciousness was not developed until the seventeenth century. In Cali-
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fornia it attains the highest perfection. In some localities the tree grows to an enormous size and is remarkable, in some instances, for its longevity, reaching the great age of four hundred years. One of these trees, still growing in England, is said to cover a quarter of an acre of ground. Another is growing in Illinois, ten miles north of Vincennes, that measures ten feet around the trunk, its branches extending over an area of sixty nine feet in diameter. The Stuyvesant pear tree, planted by the doughty Governor of the Dutch Colony of New York, over two centuries and a half ago, in the city of New York, is still thrifty and vigorous and bearing fruit. The cultivation of the pear is receiving more attention throughout the county than formerly, and standard trees are almost exclusively planted.
The Quince is claimed to be a native of Crete, although it grows spontaneously in the south of France and on the banks of the Danube. The ancients held it in veneration and regarded it as emblematic of happiness and love. Rabbinical writers invested it with numerous myths, some even having thought it might have been "the forbidden fruit." It is a popular fruit, does moderately well, yet its culture is neglected.
Plums, Apricots and Nectarines are nearly stung out of existence by the curculio, and as yet no successful resistance has been made to its insidious invasions. The delicious wild plum, ever growing in such abundance at the time of the first settlement of the county, has substantially disappeared.
Cherries. -This fruit we have in great abundance, and all the varieties congenial to this climate are cultivated ; and currants, gooseberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries, in indescribable varieties are the precious gods of every house-keeper and command their legion of worshipers.
The Grape.—This fruit, produced from a well-known tree-like vine, is a native of Greece, Asia Minor and Persia, and is cultivated in endless varieties for the table and for the manufacture of wine. The discovery of the process of manufacturing this beverage is attributed to Noah*, and according to the Bible testimony the old Ark-builder got drunk, had to go to bed, and either permitted himself to be "uncovered," or lay "uncovered within his tent," and shamefully exposed himself. His youngest boy, Ham, made fun of him for getting intoxicated, whereupon the old Agri-
* Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.
43
674 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
culturalist, Noah, became violently exasperated and declared that a curse should vest upon the sons of Ham." It should be regretted that an old settler like Noah, a leading and influential citizen before the Flood, divinely commissioned to navigate the waters of the Deluge, and who did save eight souls and considerable live stock from destruction, should have thus indulged in excessive vinous imbibitions to the extent of gross inebriety and recklessly and disgracefully exposing his body.
Says Smith : "The vines of Palestine were celebrated both for luxuriant growth and for the immense clusters of grapes which they produced." To illustrate the size of these clusters, it is recorded, Numbers xiii, 23, that when the spies were sent out to view the promised land:
They came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut, down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff.
The treading of the wine-press was a great occasion, and we are told that "they encouraged one another by shouts," and that " their legs and garments were red with the juice." The process of expressing the wines by treading of the feet by women and girls, has long been practised in Oriental, as well as in some European countries. Macaulay in his " Lays of Ancient Rome," and his poem, Horatius, has the following stanza :
" The harvests of Arretium
This year old men shall reap;
This year young boys in Umbro
Shall plunge the struggling sheep;
And in the vats of Luna,
This year, the must shall foam
Round the white feet of laughing girls
Whose sires have marched to Rome."
From Anacreon to Thomas Moore and Dr. Holmes, of Boston, the juice of the grape and the treading of the press have been the theme of song.
Holmes, in addressing the contents of the wine cup, says ;
"It filled the purple grapes that lay
And drank the splendors of the sun,
Where the long summer's cloudless day
Is mirrored in the broad Garonne ;
It pictures still the bacchant shapes
That saw their hoarded sunlight shed—
The maidens (lancing on the grapes—
Their milk-white ankles splashed with red."
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The Isabella is said to have originated in South Carolina, and is a universal favorite in the North, and the Catawba is a product of Maryland. The grape delights in strong, rich soils, is a swift and rapid grower, and in the woods climbs to the top of the tallest trees. The wines of California take rank with the best products of the vineyards of Europe. The successful culture of the vine in Wayne county has been demonstrated, the condititions of our climate and soil being well adapted to its cultivation. No physical obstacle interposes to its production, and upon the sunny slopes of our hills, why should it not be grown, and wines manufactured of the richness and smoothness of the Rhine ?
Butter, Cheese, Sorghum, Maple Sugar.—The Auditor's books of Wayne county for the year 1875 show that there was produced 946,614 pounds butter, 47,621 pounds cheese, 298 pounds sorghum, 1,501 gallons syrup, 13,742 pounds maple sugar, and 5,330 gallons syrup.
Cultivated, Pasture, Wood and Waste Lands.—By the Auditor's Report of 1876 there were within the county 165,052 acres of cultivated land, 50,006 acres of pasture land, 67,622 acres of wood land and 7,214 acres of "other lands lying waste."
Potatoes and Tobacco.-Our modern potato is said to have been carried to England by Sir Walter Raleigh from Virginia in 1586. With the laboring classes of Ireland it is the principal diet, though partial failures of the crop are of frequent occurrence upon the island. Its failure in 1847 produced the famine of that year with its terrible horrors. There are over fifty varieties, all having particular merit. When planted on new ground, or lands fertilized by vegetable substances, they are more healthy than when raised from soils invigorated from the exuvia of the barn-yard—the latter being liable to produce rot and disease. A great many different varieties are cultivated in the county, but the commercial idea too often enters the head of the farmer ; hence quantity instead of quality governs him. In Wayne county, in 1875, from 2,361 acres planted there was produced 287,874 bushels. The sweet potato is a creeper with angular and variably-shaped leaves, is difficult of production, not particularly congenial to our soil, and generally can be purchased cheaper than raised. The yam that resembles it most is anything else than a sweet potato.
Tobacco.—This plant was unknown to Europeans until the discovery of the American continent, it first being discovered on the
676 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
island of Cuba. It requires a deep, rich, mellow soil, or sandy loam. By the Auditor's books of Wayne county, in 1875, from 42 acres was produced 49,885 pounds.
Domestic Animals.—In 1876 there were listed for taxation in Wayne county, by reference to the Auditor's books, 12,014 head of horses, valued at $709,303; 29,772 head of cattle, valued at $441,699 ; 2 II head of mules, valued at $15,713 ; 40,224 head of sheep, valued at $90,629; 24,339 head of hogs, valued at $07,690. In 1875 there were produced in the county 159,719 pounds of wool; there were 2,453 dogs in the county ; 281 sheep killed by dogs, worth $926; 149 sheep injured, the estimate of the injury being $268, or a total injury by dogs to sheep of $1,194.
Poultry has no place in the county statistics, yet a poultry breeding association exists in Wooster, and considerable attention is given to the cultivation and propagation of the better species.