Table Of ContentTaking Root
d
Taking Root
The Nature Writing of
William and Adam Summer
of Pomaria
EditEd by
James Everett Kibler, Jr.
ForEword by
Wendell Berry
The University of South Carolina Press
© 2017 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-774-9 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-775-6 (ebook)
Front cover image: Birds of America. Carolina Turtle Dove (Columba Carolinensis),
1838, John James Audubon (1785–1851). Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Contents
c
Foreword ix
Wendell Berry
c
Preface xi
c
A Note on the Text xix
c
Introduction xxi
c
[A Winter Reverie] 1
c
A Wish 2
c
The Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus Tuberosus, Linn.) 2
c
The Culture of the Sweet Potatoe 4
The Season: Some Thoughts Grouped after Spending a Day
c
in the Country 9
c
Natural Angling, or Riding a Sturgeon 12
c
The Season 17
c
A Day on the Mohawk 19
c
Farm Management; or Practical Hints to a Young Beginner 24
c
The Vegetable Shirt-Tail; or, An Excuse for Backing Out 32
c
Autumn 35
c
Winter Green: A Tale of My School Master 38
c
A Chapter on Live Fences 43
c
Report on Wheat 47
c
The Misletoe 52
Address Delivered before the Southern Central Agricultural Society at
c
Macon, Georgia, October 4 [20], 1852 53
c
The Character of the Pomologist 70
v
Contents
c
The Flower Garden [I] 72
c
Plants Adapted to Soiling in the South 74
c
Plant a Tree 78
c
A Plea for the Birds 82
c
Southern Architecture—Location of Homes—Rural Adornment, &c 83
c
Plant Peas 87
c
The Forest Trees of the South.—No. 1 87
Forest Trees of the South. No. 2.—the Live Oak—
c
(Quercus sempervirens) 91
c
Forest Trees of the South. [No. 3.] the Willow Oak. Quercus Phellos 93
c
One Hour at the New York Farmer’s Club 95
c
Flowers 98
c
Satisfactory Results from Systematic Farming—True Farmer-Planter 99
c
The Crysanthemum 101
c
Saving Seed 102
c
Roger Sherman’s Plow 103
c
“The Earth Is Wearing Out” 105
c
A Rare Present.—Carolina Oranges 106
c
Agricultural Humbugs and Fowl Fancies 109
c
A Short Chapter on Milk Cows 110
c
A Plea for Broomsedge 112
c
A Visit from April 113
c
We Cultivate Too Much Land 116
c
The Proper Implements for Composting Manures: A Picture in Relief 118
c
An Editorial Drive: What We Saw during One Morning 119
c
What Should Be the Chief Crops of the South? 123
c
Northern Horses in Southern Cities 125
c
Scuppernong Wine 126
c
A Good Native Hedge Plant for the South 128
c
Soap Suds 129
vi
Contents
c
The Best Mode of Stopping Ditches and Washes 130
c
Cherries 131
c
Amelanchier: New Southern Fruit 133
c
China Berries 134
c
Barefooted Notes on Southern Agriculture. No I 135
c
Chinese Sugar Cane 138
c
Cows and Butter: A Delightful Theme 140
c
Neglect of Family Cemeteries 143
The Destruction of Forests and Its Influence upon
c
Climate & Agriculture 146
c
New and Rare Trees of Mexico 147
c
The United States Patent Office Reports, and Government Impositions 150
c
Barefooted Notes on Southern Agriculture. No III 153
c
The Guardians of the Patent Office 155
c
New and Rare Trees and Plants of Mexico. No 2 156
c
A Transplanted Pleasure 158
c
China Roses and Other Hedge-Plants in the South 159
c
Barefooted Notes on Southern Agriculture. No IV 161
c
Farm Economies 166
c
Hill-Side Ditching 168
c
Landscape Gardening 170
c
New and Cheap Food for Bees 173
c
The Profession of Agriculture 175
c
“Bell Ringing” 177
c
“Spare the Birds” 178
c
Essay on Reforesting the Country 180
c
Spanish Chesnuts, Madeira Nuts, etc. 187
c
The Grape: Culture and Pruning 188
c
Advantages of Trees 190
c
“How to Get Up Hill” 191
vii
Contents
c
Barefooted Notes on Southern Agriculture. No VI 192
c
Sheep Husbandry 195
c
Dogs vs. Sheep 197
c
Fences 199
c
Sweets for the People 201
c
Barefooted Notes on Southern Agriculture. No VIII 203
c
Peeps over the Fence [1] 206
c
Beneficial Effects of Flower Culture 207
c
Peeps over the Fence [2] 209
c
Fortune’s Double Cape Jessamine: (Gardenia Fortunii) 211
c
Wood Economy 212
c
Peeps over the Fence [3] 213
c
Home as a “Summer Resort” 215
c
Frankincense a Humbug and Cure for Saddle Galls 216
c
Who Are Our Benefactors? 217
c
Peeps over the Fence [4] 219
c
Mrs. Rion’s Southern Florist 220
c
Dew and Frost 221
c
The Flower Garden [II] 222
c
Farmer Gripe and the Flowers 227
c
Pea Vine Hay 228
c
Our Resources 229
c
Works Cited and Consulted 233
c
Index 243
viii
Foreword
WEndEll BErry
Not so long ago, this book would have been seen by almost everybody as work
of minor academic interest: peripherally historical and fringily literary. Now I
believe it will find many readers who will recognize it for what it is: a collection
of observations, judgments, and instructions permanently useful to anybody
interested—and to anybody not yet interested—in the right ways of inhabiting,
using, and conserving the natural, the given, world.
The authors—the two brothers, Adam and William Summer—were South
Carolinians of the Nineteenth Century, but they are not, for that reason, eligible
to be stereotyped and dismissed. They were literate and accomplished writers
who wrote essays for agricultural journals. They were horticulturists: Pomaria
Nurseries, founded by William, offered 1,200 varieties of fruit trees and vines.
They were farmers and students of farming, of crops and livestock, their knowl-
edge both scientific and familiar. They were sound critics of farming and of hu-
man landscapes, their standards taken properly from the natural world and from
Nature, the common mother of all us creatures, the Great Dame herself. By those
standards they were strenuously indignant in the presence of any abuse of the
land, and they were clearly in love with the works of Nature and of good farmers.
The work gathered here was written in the two decades immediately preceding
the Civil War. It has a whole-heartedness and a tone of good cheer that seem to
have been irrecoverable anywhere in our country since that war and the triumph
of industrialism and finance that followed it.
Why should a book so much about farming be called “nature writing”? To most
conservationists of our time, who seem to have read and thought no further than
John Muir, the only conservation of interest is wilderness conservation. But of
course farming and nature are inseparable. Thinking about one leads necessarily
to thinking about the other, and this is obvious to anybody who undertakes to
think fully and carefully about either one.
Farming takes place in the natural world. Where else? It depends absolutely
upon the natural endowment of topsoil and soil fertility, which were being
ix
