Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Yellow jessamine, alas! is fading. The ground is strewn with pale-yellow trumpets, as if the elves had had a concert and thrown down their instruments, and fled. Now the vines throw out young shoots half a yard long, and infinite in number; and jessamine goes on to possess and clothe new regions, which next February shall be yellow with flowers.

  Farewell for this year, sweet Medea of the woods, with thy golden fleece of blossoms! Why couldst thou not stay with us through the year? Emerson says quaintly, “Seventy salads measure the life of a man.” The things, whether of flower or fruit, that we can have but once a year, mark off our lives. A lover might thus tell the age of his lady-love: “Seventeen times had the jessamine blossomed since she came into the world.” The time of the bloom of the jessamine is about two months. In the middle of January, when we came down, it was barely budded: the 25th of March, and it is past.

  But, not to give all our time to flowers, we must now fulfil our promise to answer letters, and give practical information.

  A gentleman propounds to us the following inquiry: “Apart from the danger from frosts, what is the prospect of certainty in the orange-crop? Is it a steady one?”

  We have made diligent inquiry from old, experienced cultivators, and from those who have collected the traditions of orange-growing; and the result seems to be, that, apart from the danger of frost, the orange-crop is the most steady and certain of any known fruit.

  In regard to our own grove, consisting of a hundred and fifteen trees on an acre and a half of ground, we find that there has been an average crop matured of sixty thousand a year for each of the five years we have had it. Two years the crop was lost through sudden frost coming after it was fully perfected; but these two years are the only ones since 1835 when a crop has been lost or damaged through frost.

  Our friend inquires with regard to the orange-insect. This was an epidemic which prevailed some fifteen or twenty years ago, destroying the orange-trees as the canker-worms did the apple-trees. It was a variety of the scale-bug; but nothing has been seen of it in an epidemic form for many years, and growers now have no apprehensions from this source.

  The wonderful vital and productive power of the orange-tree would not be marvelled at could one examine its roots. The ground all through our grove is a dense mat or sponge of fine yellow roots, which appear like a network on the least displacing of the sand. Every ramification has its feeder, and sucks up food for the tree with avidity. The consequence is, that people who have an orange-grove must be contented with that, and not try to raise flowers; but, nevertheless, we do try, because we can’t help it. But every fertilizer that we put upon our roses and flower-beds is immediately rushed after by these hungry yellow orange-roots. At the root of our great live-oak we wanted a little pet colony of flowers, and had muck and manure placed there to prepare for them. In digging there lately, we found every particle of muck and manure netted round with the fine, embracing fibres from the orange-tree ten feet off. The consequence is, that our roses grow slowly, and our flower-garden is not a success.

  Oleanders, cape-jessamines, pomegranates, and crape-myrtles manage, however, to stand their ground. Any strong, woody-fibred plant does better than more delicate flowers; as people who will insist upon their rights, and fight for them, do best in the great scramble of life.

  But what a bouquet of sweets is an orange-tree! Merely as a flowering-tree it is worth having, if for nothing else. We call the time of their budding the week of pearls. How beautiful, how almost miraculous, the leaping-forth of these pearls to gem the green leaves! The fragrance has a stimulating effect on our nerves, — a sort of dreamy intoxication. The air, now, is full of it. Under the trees the white shell-petals drift, bearing perfume.

  But, not to lose our way in poetic raptures, we return to statistics drawn from a recent conversation with our practical neighbor. He has three trees in his grounds, which this year have each borne five thousand oranges. He says that he has never failed of a steady crop from any cause, except in the first of the two years named; and, in that case, it is to be remembered the fruit was perfected, and only lost by not being gathered.

  He stated that he had had reports from two men whom he named, who had each gathered ten thousand from a single tree. He appeared to think it a credible story, though a very remarkable yield.

  The orange can be got from seed. Our neighbor’s trees, the largest and finest in Mandarin, are seedlings. Like ours, they were frozen down in 1835, and subsequently almost destroyed by the orange-insect; but now they are stately, majestic trees of wonderful beauty. The orange follows the quality of the seed, and needs no budding; and in our region this mode of getting the trees is universally preferred. Fruit may be expected from the seed in six years, when high cultivation is practised. A cultivator in our neighborhood saw a dozen trees, with an average of three hundred oranges on each, at seven years from the seed. Young seedling plants of three years’ growth can be bought in the nurseries on the St. John’s River. 147

  Our young folks have been thrown into a state of great excitement this afternoon by the introduction among them of two live alligators. Our friend Mr. P —— went for them to the lair of the old alligator, which he describes as a hole in the bank, where the eggs are laid. Hundreds of little alligators were crawling in and out, the parents letting them shift for themselves. They feed upon small fish. Our young protégé snapped in a very suggestive manner at a stick offered to him, and gave an energetic squeak. We pointed out to the children, that, if it were their finger or toe that was in the stick’s place, the consequences might be serious. After all, we have small sympathy with capturing these poor monsters. We shall have some nice tales to tell of them anon. Meanwhile our paper must end here. 148

  LETTER-WRITING.

  April 14.

  OUR Palmetto correspondence increases daily. Our mail comes only twice a week; and, as the result of the two last mails, we find fifteen letters, propounding various inquiries about Florida. Now, it would be a most delightful thing to be on sociable terms with all the world; and we would be glad to reply to each one of these letters. Many of them are sprightly and amusing: all are written in good faith, containing most natural and rational inquiries. But, let any one attempt the task of writing fifteen letters on one subject, and he will soon find that it is rather more than can be done by one who expects to do any thing else.

  Some of the inquiries, however, we may as well dispose of in the beginning of this letter.

  And first as to the little boy who has lost his cat, and wishes to know if we cannot spare Peter to take her place. Alas! we have a tale of sadness to unfold. When we began our “Palmetto-Leaves,” we were the embarrassed possessor of four thrifty cats: now every one of them has passed to the land of shades, and we are absolutely catless. Peter, we regret to say, was killed in consequence of being mistaken for a rabbit, one moonlight night, by an enterprising young sportsman; Annie was unfortunately drowned; and ‘Cindy fell victim to some similar hallucination of the young son-of-a-gun who destroyed Peter. In short, only our old family mother-cat remained; but, as she had a fine litter of kittens, there was hope that the line would be continued. We established her sumptuously in a box in the back-shed with her nurslings; but, as cruel Fate would have it, a marauding dog came smelling about, and a fight ensued, in which Puss’s fore-leg was broken, or, to speak quite literally, chewed up.

  Wounded and bleeding, but plucky to the last, she drove off the dog with a “predestined scratched face,” and, taking up her kittens one by one in her mouth, traversed a long veranda, jumped through a window into the bed-room of one of her mistresses, and deposited her nurslings under the bed.

  All agreed that a cat of such spirit and gallantry had shown that she ought to vote by her ability to fight, and that she was at least worthy of distinguished attention. So the next day the whole family sat in council on the case. Chloroform was administered: and, while Puss was insensible, a promising young naturalist set and bandaged the limb; but, alas! withou
t avail. The weather was hot; and the sufferings of the poor creature soon became such, that we were thankful that we had the power, by a swift and painless death, to put an end to them. So a pistol-ball sent Puss to the land where the good cats go; and the motherless kitties found peace under the blue waters of the St. John’s. The water-nymphs, undoubtedly, “held up their pearled wrists and took them in,” and doubtless made blessed pets of them. So that is the end of all our cats.

  Phœbus rejoices now; for there is none to molest or make him afraid. His songs increase daily in variety. He pipes and whistles; occasionally breaks forth into a litany that sounds like “Pray do, pray do, pray do!” then, suddenly changing the stop, he shouts, “De deevil! de deevil! de deevil!” but, as he is otherwise a bird of the most correct habits, it cannot be supposed that any profanity is intended. This morning being Sunday, he called “Beecher, Beecher, Beecher!” very volubly. He evidently is a progressive bird, and, for aught we know, may yet express himself on some of the questions of the day.

  The next letter on our file wants to know the prices of board at Green-Cove Springs, Magnolia, and Hibernia. The prices at these places vary all the way from twelve to thirty-five dollars per week, according to accommodations. The higher prices are in larger hotels, and the smaller in private boarding-houses. “The Florida Guide” says board can be obtained in Jacksonville, in private families, at from eight to ten dollars per week. 153

  There are three more letters, asking questions about the culture of the orange; to which the writers will find answers, so far as we can give them, when we come to speak of the orange-orchards up the river.

  A lady writes to ask if we know any way of preserving figs.

  Practically, we know nothing about the fig-harvest, having never been here when they were ripe. Our friends tell us that they are not successful in preserving them in cans. They make a delicious though rather luscious preserve done in the ordinary way, like peaches. But we will give our inquiring friend the benefit of a piece of information communicated to us by an old native Floridian, who professed to have raised and prepared figs as fine as those in Turkey. His receipt was as follows: “Prepare a lye from the ashes of the grape-vine; have a kettle of this kept boiling hot over the fire; throw in the figs, and let them remain two minutes; skim them out and drain them on a sieve, and afterwards dry in the sun.” Such was his receipt, which we have never tried. Probably any other strong lye would answer as well as that from the grape-vine.

  As to those who have asked for flowers from Florida, we wish it were in our power to grant their requests; but these frail beauties are not transferable. We in our colony have taxed the resources of our postal arrangements to carry to our friends small specimens, but with no very encouraging results.

  We have just been making the grand round, or tour up the St. John’s to Enterprise, across to St. Augustine, and back; which is necessary to constitute one an accomplished Floridian sight-seer: and it had been our intention to devote this letter to that trip; but there is so much to say, there are so many wonders and marvels to be described, that we must give it a letter by itself. No dreamland on earth can be more unearthly in its beauty and glory than the St. John’s in April. Tourists, for the most part, see it only in winter, when half its gorgeous forests stand bare of leaves, and go home, never dreaming what it would be like in its resurrection-robes. So do we, in our darkness, judge the shores of the river of this mortal life up which we sail, ofttimes disappointed and complaining. We are seeing all things in winter, and not as they will be when God shall wipe away all tears, and bring about the new heavens and new earth, of which every spring is a symbol and a prophecy. The flowers and leaves of last year vanish for a season; but they come back fresher and fairer than ever.

  This bright morning we looked from the roof of our veranda, and our neighbor’s oleander-trees were glowing like a great crimson cloud; and we said, “There! the oleanders have come back!” No Northern ideas can give the glory of these trees as they raise their heads in this their native land, and seem to be covered with great crimson roses. The poor stunted bushes of Northern greenhouses are as much like it as our stunted virtues and poor frost-nipped enjoyments shall be like the bloom and radiance of God’s paradise hereafter. In April they begin to bloom; and they bloom on till November. Language cannot do justice to the radiance, the brightness, the celestial calm and glory, of these spring days. There is an assurance of perpetuity in them. You do not say, as at the North, that a fine day is a “weather-breeder,” and expect a week of storms to pay for it. Day after day passes in brightness. Morning after morning, you wake to see the same sunshine gilding the tops of the orange-trees, and hear the same concert of birds. All the forest-trees stand in perfected glory; and the leaves have sprung forth with such rapidity and elastic vigor as gives the foliage a wondrous brightness. The black-jack oaks — trees which, for some reason or other, are apt to be spoken of as of small account — have now put forth their large, sharply-cut, oak-shaped leaves. We say this because it is the only one of the oak species here that at all resembles the oaks we have been accustomed to see. The pawpaw-bushes are all burst out in white fringes of blossom; and the silver bells of the sparkle-berry are now in their perfection. Under foot, a whole tribe of new flowers have come in place of the departed violets. The partridge-berry or squaw-berry of the North grows in the woods in dense mats, and is now white with its little starry blossoms. Certain nameless little golden balls of flowers twinkle in the grass and leaves like small constellations. We call them, for lack of botanic language, “sun-kisses.” Our party, the other night, made an expedition to the “second branch,” and brought home long vines of purple wisteria, red trumpet-creeper, and some sprays of white blossoms unknown to us: so that our house still is a flower-show. Spring is as much a pomp and a glory here as in Northern States; for although the winter is far more endurable, and preserves far more beauty, yet the outburst of vividness and vigor when the sun begins to wax powerful is even greater and more marked than at the North. The roses are now in perfection. Ours have not thriven as they might have done were it not for the all-devouring orange-trees; but still they give us every morning, with our breakfast, a comforting assortment. La Marque, Giant of Battles, Hermosa, a little cluster rose, and a dozen more, have brightened our repast. This is the land to raise roses, however; and we mean yet to have a rose-garden at a safe distance from any orange-trees, and see what will come of it. Here are no slugs or rose-bugs or caterpillars to make rose-culture a burden and a vexation. Finally, as we have had so many letters asking information of us, we wish somebody who is wise enough would write one, and give us some on a certain point. One of our orange-trees has become an invalid. The case may be stated as follows: Early in the season, Mr. F., in looking over the grove, found this tree, then loaded with fruit, dropping its leaves; the leaves curling, or, as they say here, “rolling,” as is the fashion of orange-trees when suffering from drought. Immediately he took all the fruit from the tree, pruned it, dug about the roots, and examined them to find something to account for this. For a while, by careful tending, the tree seemed to be coming to itself; but, when the blossoming-time came round, half its leaves fell, and it burst into blossoms on every spray and twig in the most preternatural manner. It reminded us of some poor dear women, who, when they lose their health, seem resolved to kill themselves in abundant good works. It was really blossoming to death. Now, we ask any wise fruit-growers, What is this disease? and how is it to be treated? We have treated it by cutting off all the blossoms, cutting back the branches, watering with water in which guano and lime have been dissolved; and the patient looks a little better. A negro workman testified that a tree in a similar state had been brought back by these means. Can any fruit-grower give any light on this subject? 161

  MAGNOLIA WEEK.

  April 20.

  IT is vain to propose and announce subjects from week to week. One must write what one is thinking of. When the mind is full of one thing, why go about to write on
another?

  The past week we have been engrossed by magnolias. On Monday, our friend D —— , armed and equipped with scaling-ladders, ascended the glistening battlements of the great forest palaces fronting his cottage, and bore thence the white princesses, just bursting into bud, and brought them down to us. Forthwith all else was given up: for who would take the portrait of the white lady must hurry; for, like many queens of earth, there is but a step between perfected beauty and decay, — a moment between beauty and ashes.

  We bore them to our chamber, and before morning the whole room was filled with the intoxicating, dreamy fragrance; and lo! while we slept, the pearly hinges had revolved noiselessly, and the bud that we left the evening before had become a great and glorious flower. To descend to particulars, imagine a thick, waxen-cupped peony of the largest size, just revealing in its centre an orange-colored cone of the size of a walnut. Around it, like a circlet of emeralds, were the new green leaves, contrasting in their vivid freshness with the solid, dark-green brilliancy of the old foliage. The leaves of the magnolia are in themselves beauty enough without the flower. We used to gather them in a sort of rapture before we ever saw the blossom; but all we can say of the flower is, that it is worthy of them.

  We sat down before this queen of flowers, and worked assiduously at her portrait. We had, besides the full blossom, one bud of the size and shape of a large egg, which we despaired of seeing opened, but proposed to paint as it was. The second morning, our green egg began to turn forth a silver lining; and, as we worked, we could see it slowly opening before us. Silvery and pearly were the pure tips; while the outside was of a creamy yellow melting into green. Two days we kept faithful watch and ward at the shrine; but, lo! on the morning of the third our beautiful fairy had changed in the night to an ugly brownie. The petals, so waxen fair the night before, had become of a mahogany color; and a breeze passing by swept them dishonored in showers on the floor. The history of that magnolia was finished. We had seen it unfold and die. Our pearly bud, however, went on waxing and opening till its day came for full perfection.