The Story of the Soil Part 3

"It need not have been," he repeated to himself; "surely, it need not have been, "and then he wondered if these were not much sadder words than the oft repeated "it might have been."

"May I ask where your people came from, Mrs. West?" he questioned.

"Where we came from?" she repeated, "I don't quite understand."

"Excuse me," said Percy, "but in the West it is so common to ask people where they are from. You know the West is settled with people from all sections of the East, and many from Europe and from Canada, and I thought your ancestors may have moved here from some other state, as from Pennsylvania for example, where my mother's people once lived."

"Let me advise you, Young Man," said the grandmother briskly, and in a tone that reminded Percy of the twinkle he had at times noticed in her eyes when she seemed young again--"Let me advise you never to ask a Virginian if he was born in Pennsylvania. That's more than most Virginians can stand. Once a Virginian, always a Virginian,--both now, hereafter, and hitherto. It's mighty hard to find a Virginian who came from anywhere except from the royal blood of England; although some may condescend to acknowledge kins.h.i.+p to the Scottish royalty."

The grandmother's voice was raised to a pitch which commanded the attention of the other members in the carriage and a hearty laugh followed her jovial wit, to the full relief of Percy's temporary embarra.s.sment.

"Well," she continued, "to answer your question: my husband and my children are direct descendants of Colonel Charles West, a brother of Lord Delaware, who was Sir Thomas West, whose ancestry goes back to Henry the Second, of England, and to David the First, of Scotland; and my granddaughter is the great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry. So now you know where _we _came from," and she laughed again like a girl. "Yes," she added, "we have a family tree six feet from branch to branch, but it is stored in a back room where I am sure it is covered with cobwebs, for we have no time to live with the past when the summer boarders are here."

As the carriage stopped at the side gate, the children's voices could be heard in the rear; for Mr. West had been living over again his younger days with his sweet-faced wife, and the farm team had taken its own time.

CHAPTER VII

A BIT OF HISTORY

"NOW, I shall be at home to-day and glad to a.s.sist you in any way possible," announced Mr. West at the breakfast table.

"That is very kind of you," Percy replied. "I want especially to learn some of the things you know about the soils of Westover. Can you show me the best land and the poorest land on the estate?"

"I think I can." said Mr. West. "We have some land that has not grown a crop in fifty years, and we have other land that still produces a very fair crop if properly rotated."

"And what rotation do you practice?"

"Well, the system we have finally settled into and have followed for many years is to plow up the run-out pasture land and plant to corn.

The second year we usually raise a crop of wheat or oats and seed down to clover and timothy. We then try to cut hay from the land for two years, and afterward we use the field for pasture for six or eight years, or until finally it produces only weeds and foul gra.s.s.

Then we cover it with farm manure, so far as we can, and again plow the land for corn. Wheat and cattle are the princ.i.p.al products sold from the farm."

"In this way," said Percy, "you grow one crop of corn on the same field about once in ten or twelve years."

"Yes, about that, and also one, or sometimes two, crops of small grain. We usually have about seventy-five acres of corn, nearly a hundred acres of small grain, and we cut hay from somewhat more than hundred acres, thus leaving perhaps five hundred acres of pasture land, besides about two hundred acres of timber land which has not been cultivated for many years."

"Was the timber land that we see about here formerly cultivated?"

asked Percy.

"Oh, yes, nearly all of it was under cultivation when I was a boy, although some had been allowed to go back to timber even before I was born. On our own farm we have some timber land that, so far as I have been able to learn, was never under cultivation; and the character of the trees is different on that land. There you will find original pine, but on the worn-out land the 'old-field' pine are found. They are practically worthless, while the original pine makes very valuable lumber.

"With our system of rotation we keep about all of our farm under control; but the smaller farms were necessarily cropped more continuously to support the family, and they became so unproductive that many of them have been completely abandoned for agricultural purposes; and even some of the large plantations were poorly managed, one part having been cropped continuously until too poor to pay for cropping, while the remainder was allowed to grow up in scrub brush and 'old-field' pine; and, of course, the expense of clearing such land is about as much as the net value of the crops that could be grown until it again becomes too poor for cropping."

"Then the recleared lands are not as productive as when they were first cleared from the virgin forest?"

"Oh, by no means. In the virgin state these lands grew bountiful crops almost continuously for a hundred years or more. Virginia was famed at home and abroad for her virgin fertility. Great crops of corn, wheat, and tobacco were grown. Tobacco was a valuable export crop, and there were many Virginians whose mothers came to America with pa.s.sage paid for in tobacco. History records, you may remember, that it was the custom for a time to permit a young man to pay into a general store house a hundred pounds of tobacco,--and this was later increased to one hundred fifty pounds,--to be used in payment of pa.s.sage for young women who were thus enabled to come to America; and there was a very distinct understanding that only those who had come forth with the tobacco were eligible as suitors for the hand of any 'imported' maiden. As a matter of fact some such arrangement as this was almost a necessity," said Mr. West, as he noted Adelaide's almost incredulous look. "Among the first settlers in Virginia, young men greatly predominated; and in the main the people in the home country were themselves in poverty. Under the hereditary laws of England the father's estate and t.i.tle became the possession of his eldest son; and in large measure the other children of the family were thrown absolutely upon their own resources, so that many, even with royal blood in their veins, were very glad to embrace any opportunity offered to seek a new home in this land of virgin richness.

"Of course," he continued, smilingly and in direct answer to Adelaide's inquiring look, "those young women were in no sense bound to accept the attention or the offer of any man; but naturally most of them did become the wives of those who were able to offer them a husband's love and a home with more of life's comforts perhaps than they had ever known before. They were at perfect liberty, however, to remain in the enjoyment of single blessedness if they chose, and I doubt not," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, "that some of them had no other choice."

CHAPTER VIII

WESTOVER

WITH an auger in his hand, by means of which a hole could be quickly bored into the soil to a depth of three or four feet, Percy joined Mr. West for the tramp over the plantation.

In general the estate called Westover consists of undulating upland.

A small stream crosses one corner of the farm bordered by some twenty acres of bottom land which is subject to frequent overflow, and used only for permanent pasture. Several draws or small valleys are tributary to the stream valley, thus furnis.h.i.+ng excellent surface drainage for the entire farm. In some places the sides of these valleys are quite sloping and subject to moderate erosion when not protected by vegetation. Above and between these slopes the upland is nearly level. As they came upon one of these level areas, grown up with small forest trees, Mr. West stopped and said:

"Now right here is probably as poor a piece of land as there is on the farm. This land will positively not grow a crop worth harvesting unless it is well fertilized."

"If we were in the Illinois corn belt," replied Percy, "I should expect to find the land in this position to be the most productive on the farm. Our level uplands are now valued at from one hundred fifty to two hundred dollars an acre. A farm of one hundred eighty acres, five miles from town, sold for two hundred and fourteen dollars an acre a few days before I started east."

"Well," said Mr. West, "this may have been good land once, but if so it was before my time. Of course most of our uplands here have been cropped for upwards of two hundred years; and about all that has ever been done to keep up the fertility of the soil has been to rotate the crops. To be sure, the farm manure has always been used as far as it would go, but the supply is really very small compared to the need for it."

"Do you think that the proper rotation of crops would maintain the fertility of the soil?" asked Percy.

"No, I have tried too many rotations to think that, but I suppose it is a help in that direction, don't you?"

"I would say that crop rotation may help to maintain the supply of some important const.i.tuents of a fertile soil, but it will certainly hasten the depletion of some other equally essential const.i.tuents."

"Well, that's a new idea to me. I may not quite grasp your meaning; but first tell me about these tests you are making."

When they stopped on the area of poor land as designated by Mr.

West, Percy had turned his auger into the earth and drawn out a sample of moist soil, which he molded into the form of a ball. He broke this in two, inserted a piece of blue paper, and pressed it firmly together. He then laid the ball of soil aside, secured another sample with the auger, and formed it into a cake with a hollow in the upper surface. He took from his pocket a slender box or tube of light wood, removed the screw cap, and drew out a gla.s.s-stoppered bottle.

"This bottle contains hydrochloric acid," said Percy. "It is often incorrectly called 'muriatic acid.' It consists of two elements, hydrogen and chlorin, from which its name is derived. But you are perhaps already familiar with the chemical elements."

"Well, I heard lectures at William and Mary for four years, and they included some chemistry as it was then taught; but they certainly did not include the application of chemistry to agriculture, and I am greatly interested to know the meaning of these tests you are making here on our own farm under my own eyes. You may take it for granted that I know absolutely nothing of such use of chemistry as you are evidently turning to some practical value."

"Any other farmer can make these tests as well as I can," said Percy. "This bottle of acid cost me fifteen cents and it can be duplicated for the same price at almost any drug store. The acid is very concentrated, in fact about as strong as can easily be produced, but it need not be especially pure. Some care should be taken not to get it on the clothing or on the fingers, although it is not at all dangerous to handle, but it tends to burn the fingers unless soon removed, either by was.h.i.+ng with water or by rubbing it off with the moist soil."

"I use this acid to test the soil for the presence or absence of limestone. Ordinary limestone consists of calcium carbonate. Here, again the chemical name alone is sufficient to indicate the elements that compose this compound. It is only necessary to keep in mind the fact that the ending _-ate_ on the common chemical names signifies the presence of oxygen Thus calcium carbon_ate_ is composed of the three primary elements, calcium, carbon and oxygen.