The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 66, April, 1863

The harvest, which, in seed-culture, lasts for many consecutive weeks, has just commenced. The first important crop that ripens is the turnip,—which is now being cut. The work is performed by the use of grass-hooks or toothless sickles; stem after stem is cut, until the hand is full, when they are deposited in canvas sheets; as these are filled, boys stand ready to spread others; men follow to tie up those which have been filled; others succeed, driving teams, and loading wagons, with ample shelvings, with sheet-full piled on sheet-full, until the sturdy oxen are required to test their strength in drawing them to the drying-houses; arrived there, each sheet-full is separately removed by rope and tackle, and the contents deposited on the skeleton scaffolding within the building, there to remain until the seed is sufficiently cured and dry enough to thresh. These drying-houses are buildings of uniform character, two stories in height and fifty feet square, constructed so as to expose their contents to sun and air, and each provided with a carefully laid threshing-floor, extending through the building, with pent-house for movable engine. When the houses are full and the hulm in a fit state for threshing, the engine is started and the work begun. One man, relieved by others from time to time, (for the labor requires activity, and consequently is exhausting,) feeds the thresher, which, with its armed teeth, moves with such velocity as to appear like a solid cylinder. Here there is no stopping for horses to take breath and rest their weary limbs,—puff, puff, onward the work,—steam as great a triumph in threshing as in printing or spinning. Men and boys are stationed at the rear of the thresher to remove the straw, and roughly separate the seed from the shattered hulm,—others again being engaged in thrusting the dried crop from the scaffolds, and placing it in suitable position for the feeders. When one drying-house has thus been emptied, the engine is removed to another; the same process is pursued until the circuit of the buildings has been made, and thus the ceaseless round (ceaseless at least for a season) is continued. As soon as the crop in the first house has been threshed, the work of winnowing is commenced, and skilled hands thus engaged follow on in the track of the engine. As each crop is cleaned and put in merchantable order, it is placed in bags of two bushels each and carried to the storehouses and granaries, there to await a requisition from the city-warehouse.

We have just witnessed the process of saving the crop of turnip-seed. And how much may that reach? is a natural inquiry. Of all the varieties, including the ruta-baga, about one thousand bushels, is the response. We should have thought a thousand pounds would supply the entire Union; but we are reminded it is in part exported to far distant lands. And what is the crop so much like turnip, but still green, and apparently of more vigorous growth? That is one of the varieties of cabbage, of which several standard kinds are under cultivation. Another adjoining is radish; still another, beet; and thus we pass from kind to kind, until we have exhausted a long catalogue of sorts.

Let us stop our walk over the grounds for a few moments, taking seats under the shadow of a tree, and make some inquiries as to the place itself, its extent, the course of culture, the description of manures used, etc. Our cicerone assents to the proposal, and proceeds to answer our general inquiries. Bloomsdale contains in round numbers four hundred acres; it has a frontage on the Delaware of upwards of a mile, is bounded on the west by the Delaware Canal, and is divided into two nearly equal parts by the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad. The soil is a light loam, easily worked, suited to rapid percolation, admitting of labor immediately after heavy rain, and not liable to suffer by drought. The manures used are principally crude, obtained from the city, and landed on the premises from shallops continually plying, laden with the "sinews of farming." Street-scrapings are more used than stable-manure; bone-dust and guano enter largely into the account; and the aggregate annual expenditure foots up a sum almost equivalent to the fee-simple of an ordinary farm. The culture is that denominated drill; but of course much of it is simply straight lines drawn by the plough, in which the roots for seeding are planted by hand. The ground, with the exception of the lawn and a portion occupied from time to time by grass for home use, is divided by wagon-roads into squares and parallelograms; cross fences are not used; and each crop forms a distinct feature, accessible at any stage of growth. The several varieties of each kind, as, for instance, those of turnip, cabbage, beet, lettuce, are planted widely apart, to guard against possible admixture; but the chances of that result must be much less than is popularly supposed, efforts having been used experimentally to test its practicability, and that between kindred closely allied, without success. Although the extent of the grounds would appear to be formidable, even for a farm conducted in the usual mode, it is insufficient for the demands on the proprietors, without diligent exertion and prompt recropping,—two crops in each year being exacted, only a small part of the land escaping double duty, the extent annually ploughed thus amounting to nearly twice the area of the farm. The heavy hauling is performed by oxen, the culture principally by mules, which are preferred to horses, as being less liable to injury, and better adapted to the narrow drill culture practised.

The seeds of Bloomsdale have attained a world-wide reputation, and, to quote an expression used in reference to them, "are almost as well known on the Ganges as on the Mississippi or Ohio." They are regularly exported to the British possessions in India, to the shores of the Pacific, throughout the West Indies, and occasionally to Australia. The drier atmosphere of this country ripens them better than the humid climate of England, adapting them to exportation; and it is no slight triumph to see them preferred by Englishmen on English soil. At home, thousands of hamlets, south and west of Philadelphia, until interrupted by the war, were supplied with Landreth's seeds. The business, founded nearly three-quarters of a century ago, is now conducted by the second and third generations of the family with which it originated. Thus has success been achieved through long and patient industry steadily directed to the same pursuit, and a reputation built up for American seeds, despite the want of national protection.

THE EAST AND THE WEST

[This poem was written by THEODORE WINTHROP seven years ago, and after his death was found among his unpublished papers.]

We of the East spread our sails to the sea,
You of the West stride over the land;
Both are to scatter the hopes of the Free,
As the sower sheds golden grain from his hand.

'Tis ours to circle the stormy bends
Of a continent, yours its ridge to cross;
We must double the capes where a long world ends,
Lone cliffs where two limitless oceans toss.

They meet and are baffled 'mid tempest and wrath,
Breezes are skirmishing, angry winds roar,
While poised on some desperate plunge of our path
We count up the blackening wrecks on the shore.

And you through dreary and thirsty ways,
Where rivers are sand and winds are dust,
Through sultry nights and feverish days,
Move westward still as the sunsets must:

Where the scorched air quivers along the slopes,
Where the slow-footed cattle lie down and die,
Where horizons draw backward till baffled hopes
Are weary of measureless waste and sky.

Yes, ours to battle relentless gales,
And yours the brave and the patient way;
But we hold the storms in our trusty sails,
And for you the life-giving fountains play.

There are stars above us, and stars for you,—
Rest on the path, and calm on the main:
Storms are but zephyrs, when hearts are true;
We are no weaklings, quick to complain,

When lightnings flash bivouac-fires into gloom,
And with crashing of forests the rains sheet down,—
Or when ships plunge onward where night-clouds loom,
Defiant of darkness and meeting its frown.

These are the days of motion and march;
Now we are ardent, and young, and brave:
Let them that come after us build the arch
Of our triumph, and plant with the laurel our grave.

Time enough to rear temples when heroes are dead,
Time enough to sing paeans after the fight:
Prophets urge onward the future's tread;
We,—we are to kindle its beacon-light.

Our sires lit torches of quenchless flame
To illumine our darkness, if night should be;
But day is a friend to our standards, and shame
Be ours, if we win not a victory!

Man is nobler than men have been,
Souls are vaster than souls have dreamed;
There are broader oceans than eyes have seen,
Noons more glowing than yet have beamed.

Creeping shadows cower low on our land;
These shall not dim our grander day:
Stainless knights must be those who stand
Full in the van of a world's array!

When shall we cease our meagre distrust?
When to each other our true hearts yield?
To make this world an Eden, we must
Fling away each weapon and shield,

And meet each man as a friend and mate,
Trample and spurn and forget our pride,
Glad to accept an equal fate,
Laboring, conquering side by side.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE

Cairo, Egypt, February 6th, 1862. I am afraid I repeat myself in talking about the beauty of the climate here, but to-day is so lovely that I cannot refrain from recurring to the subject. While you are shivering under the blasts of winter, we have a genuine June morning: the air soft and pure, the atmosphere clear, innumerable birds chirping in the trees opposite the windows, (for the Arabs never interfere with birds,) and the aspect of things from our balcony overlooking the Esbekieh, or public square, as pleasant as one could wish. The beautiful weather, too, is constant.

But I must tell you of my dining yesterday with Mrs. R., to meet Mr. Buckle, the author of the History of Civilization, who has just returned from his two or three months' voyage upon the Nile, in which he pushed as far as Nubia. He is now staying for a little while in Cairo, or rather in his dahabieh, or boat, (which he says is more comfortable than any hotel,) moored in the river at Boolak, the port of the town. Mrs. R., the daughter of Lady Duff Gordon, and granddaughter of Mrs. Austin, is a most attractive and accomplished young lady; her husband is the manager in Egypt of the great banking-house of Briggs and Company, in which he is a partner. Their usual residence is at Alexandria; but at this season "all the world" of Egypt comes to Cairo, to enjoy the beautiful weather here, while it is raining incessantly in Alexandria, only a hundred and thirty miles distant. Mrs. R. in asking Mr. Thayer, our Consul-General, to meet Mr. Buckle, with very great kindness included me in the invitation. The only other lady present was Miss P., a niece of the late Countess of Blessington, herself the author of several pleasant stories, and of a poem which gained a prize in competition with one by Mrs. Browning and another by Owen Meredith: she is spending the winter with Mrs. R. There were also present C., who conducts the house of Briggs and Company in Cairo; O., another banker; and Hekekyan Bey, an Armenian, a well-read and intelligent man, formerly Minister of Public Instruction under Mehemet Ali, and still, I believe, in receipt of a pension from the Viceroy's government, in consideration of his public services, which have been valuable.

The dinner was at an hotel called the Restaurant d'Auric. We assembled in Mrs. R.'s drawing-room, an apartment in the banking-house at a little distance, and walked to the hotel. The company fell into two groups, each lighted by a swarthy boab or lackey carrying a mushal or lantern; and I happened to walk with Mr. Buckle, so that I had a brief talk with him in the street, before the general conversation began at the table. He remarked upon the extraordinary devotion exhibited by Delane of the London Times to the interests and politics of Lord Palmerston. Becoming interested in our conversation, we strayed away from the rest, and were walking about a quarter of a mile down the bazaar, when (are you surprised to hear?) Mr. Buckle was missed, the two boabs came running after us, and we were cited to the dinner-table.

Buckle, of course, was the card. He talked with a velocity and fulness of facts that was wonderful. The rest of us could do little but listen and ask questions. And yet he did not seem to be lecturing us; the stream of his conversation flowed along easily and naturally. Nor was it didactic; Buckle's range of reading has covered everything in elegant literature, as well as the ponderous works whose titles make so formidable a list at the beginning of his History, and, as he remembers everything he has read, he can produce his stores upon the moment for the illustration of whatever subject happens to come up.

In the first place, let me say how delightful it was to discover his cordial interest in our own country. He expresses a strong hope that England will take no part against us, and do nothing to break the blockade. He is going to write about America; indeed, his next volume, besides containing a complete view of the German philosophy, will treat of the United States. But he will visit us before he writes. Although appreciating the great work of De Tocqueville, he complains of the general inadequacy of European criticism upon America. Gasparin's books, by the way, he has not seen. For his own part, he considers the subject too vast, he says, and the testimony too conflicting, to permit him to write upon it before he has seen the country; and meanwhile he scrupulously refrains from forming any conclusive opinions.

Subject to this reservation of judgment, however, he remarked that he was inclined to think that George III forced us prematurely into democracy, although the natural tendency of things both in America and England was towards it; and he thought that perhaps we had established a political democracy without having yet achieved an intellectual democracy: the two ought to go hand in hand together. The common people in England, he said, are by far the most useful class of society. He had been especially pleased by the numerous letters he had received from working-men who had read his book. These letters often surprised him by the acuteness and capacity displayed by their writers. The nobility would perish utterly, if it were not constantly recruited from commoners. Lord Brougham was the first member of the secular peerage who continued after his elevation to sign his name in full, "H. Brougham," which he did to show his continued sympathy with the class from which he sprang. Buckle remarked that the history of the peasantry of no European country has ever been written, or ever can be written, and without it the record of the doings of kings and nobles is mere chaff. Surnames were not introduced until the eleventh century, and it is only since that period that genealogy has become possible.