We continue with Dr. Jacobs Garden Journal for February 1868 and 1869.
Record of Garden Successes and Failures
February 1868
Feb. 1. Built shelter for calf. Fan is in good condition. Got first butter from cow – ¾ lbs. From 2 days’ milk. She gives about 5 quarts a day, besides what calf gets. Pigs just two months old.
Feb. 2. Began using corn in box. Got one bushel of seed oats. Rats troublesome.
Feb. 3. Ground frozen till midday. Hauled 4 loads of wood ashes, which were given me at the sawmill & scattered over Irish potato ground. Brought out “Brinly” & broke up potato ground & ½ of garden & Fan is improving on cut feed. Pruned up peach orchard. Hauled 4 loads of wood. Up to date. [NOTE: The Brinly was a plow with a wooden moldboard, and a cast-iron front, point, and heel bolt. It was invented in 1805. The Brinly-Hardy Co. is still making lawn and garden tractor accessories today.]
Feb. 4. Continued trimming trees. One load wood. With “Brinly” broke up Lucerne & Hungarian grass patch. Spaded up salad bed. Rain towards night. Second churning ¾ lb. [NOTE: Lucerne is a legume which is grown mainly for silage, although it can also be made into hay.]
Feb. 5. Raining all day. Elmore working in printing office. Took an invoice of seeds.
Feb. 6. Beautifully clear. Hens laid six eggs yesterday. Third churning ¾ lb. Elmore busy clearing. Broke wagon. Two eggs.
Feb. 7. Bought Lucerne & onion seed & onion sets. 3 loads wood hauled. Laid off one walk in garden … Long Scarlet Radish, Savoy Spinach, & set out one row of Onion sets. Put manure in drill … Bot, & put handle into field hoe. Freezing tonight … Five eggs.
Feb. 8. Pruned up the balance of fruit trees. A good saw is invaluable at this sort of work… In all the fence corners I intend having 2 hills of corn & 1 of watermelons. Elmore busy clearing this morning. 4th churning ½ lb. Average of butter per week 2 lbs. Of sweet milk used 5 quarts. Of buttermilk 25 quarts.
2 lbs butter @ .25 .50
5 quarts sweet milk at .10 .50
25 quarts buttermilk @ .05 1.25
$2.25
To 1 bushel peas .90
75 lbs. Shucks .30
$1.20
Net profit for week $1.05
Finished setting onions. Made another walk in garden. Sowed salad bed.
Feb. 10. Elmore left me this morning – reason home-sick. Set the white Holland hen on 11 eggs. Got 4 eggs today. 5th churning, 1 lb. Butter. Hired a freedman to split 600 rails at .50 & 3 lbs flour per hundred.
Feb. 11. Elmore’s leaving will materially alter my plans for this year – as yet cannot tell how. My account of eggs
Feb. 5 6 eggs
“ 6 2 “
“ 7 5 “
“ 8 2 “
“ 9 3 “
Feb. 4 4 eggs
Total 22 eggs 30 cts
Cost of corn to feed hens 5 cts
Making a profit of 25 cts.
Weather moderating.
Feb. 12. From churning got about 1 lb of butter. The cow is doing better. Rip hauled 1 load wood. I fed. Nothing done in farm. 1 egg.
Feb. 13. One load of wood. 1 egg. Nothing done in the farm. Got my scooter, shovel and shovel helve from Brinly. Also got a Dotys Clothes wringer & Washer. [NOTE: The Doty’s Clothes Washer was first manufactured by the Metropolitan Washing Machine Co. in New York in 1867.]
Feb. 14. Made places for my new machinery. Hauled 4 wheelbarrows off. My man has split 330 rails. Hauled 4 wheel barrows of wood pile stuff … Curried the cow. She liked it finely. Beautiful day. 3 eggs. ¾ lb butter.
Feb. 15. Ripley & myself busy at work in garden. Rip broke up a square in the garden with my Brinly’s scooter. I then spread over it, 1st, two wheelbarrow loads of horse manure, & over that two of unleached ashes. Rip then cross plowed it. We next laid off the furrows with our “Little Giant” garden plow, with the shovel. The first four rows nearest the house, we planted with Harrison’s seedling potato, uncut, raised by Mr. Phinney last year from Landreth’s seed. The next 25 rows were planted with seed, all uncut, & put up by myself last July 25th. They had got wet and nearly all were sprouted, some with young potatoes. About ¼ had rotted. Covered with a rake. I burnt off a square plot 4×4 feet, & sowed Latakia tobacco seed, from. Ed. J. Evans & Co., guaranteed by them to be raised from seed brought by Taylor, from Syria. Next, dug carrots. They were in fine condition. Also parsnips. Transplanted two for seed, and one carrot. 2 eggs.
Feb. 17. Hired Bluford Jones to haul leaves for me, & covered my potatoes a foot deep, then put pine brush over that to keep the leaves. Paid him .65 for the day’s work which is all that my potato patch will cost me in money. About 10 a.m., hired Meredith (??) for a week, I’m to pay him $2. We set to work immediately in the garden. I sowed three varities of onions. 1st White silver-skin, 2nd yellow Strasburg, 3d Large red Wethersfield. I next drilled a row of Early York Cabbage & a double row of English Peas (mixed). After which Meredith layed off & cleared out all the walks in the garden. I set out a few cuttings of the Black Hamburg grape. ½ lb of beautiful butter. Three eggs. The total number of eggs in the five days past is only 10.
Feb. 18. Had top-earth & manure … thrown over my patch. Ploughed it in about 2/3 of the patch. Hauled 1 load of wood. Set out two Muscadine layers.
Feb. 19. Sowed one row of Marrow Peas & had some spading done in Garden. Ploughed up the balance of patch. Manured highly a square for Irish Potatoes. Ploughed & cross-ploughed it. Drilled the potatoes in. They were Northern Pink eyes cut up. Sent out to Mr. Green & got 3 bushel seed oats. ½ lb butter. 3 eggs.
Feb. 20. Hauled out leaves & brush & covered my potato patch very nicely. Cost of this second patch
To ½ bushel seed 1.50
To ploughing & planting .40
To covering with leaves .40
2.30
Feb. 21. Raining all day.
Feb. 22. Busy fencing.
Feb. 24-27. Away from home. Hauled one load of wood. Received tea-nuts from Dr. ? [NOTE: Tea-nuts are actually the seeds of the tea plant. They are about the size of hazelnuts, and have an oily, nut-like core.]
Feb. 28. Had 1 load wood hauled. Some two dozen eggs brot in during the last 4 days.
Feb. 29. Received my ½ ton of superphosphate from Lister. Sold 1 bbl. to Phinney. [NOTE: Superphosphate is a fertilizer produced by the action of concentrated sulfuric acid on powdered phosphate rock. This process was first discovered in the 1840s.]
I am now a land owner having bought the Hitch & Hutchinson tract. I planted the tea-nuts that I got from Dr. ?, 20 in the garden & 4 in a box in the portico. The recent severe weather has injured my young plants in garden.
February 1869
Feb. 9. George is clearing. This evening dug 4 holes for vines & fig bushes. Weather still very moderate. A few plum blooms.
Feb. 15. Set out today some figs & vines, which Miss Callie Davis sent me …
I also helped George plant my first Irish potato patch. Manure – rows no. 1 & 2 & upper half of 3&4 with ashes only. The next eight rows with Stable Manure & Guano mixed. The last with Guano only. It had all been manured in the fall for Turnips with Stable Manure.
Seed. Rows 1&2 & lower end of No. 3 with Early Rose. Balance with Harrison. My plantings of seed are all up & flourishing.
Feb. 16. Today had my Irish potatoes covered with leaves & brush.
Feb. 17. Had Bill spading up the garden. Sowed:
1. Turnip, Radish & Royal Cabbage Lettuce (salt & guano)
2. Pixie Cabbage (Note for these 2 rows: fertilized with Navassa guano, St. manure) (Note in margin: doing well, May 7)
3.4.5. Turnip Beets (Note: Navassa & stable manure for rows 3-7) (Note in margin: growing well May 17.)
6. Savoy Spinach (Note in margin: a failure, May 17.)
7. Eugenie Pea (Note in margin: ruined by rabbits.)
Feb. 25. Snow fell last night. Hard freezes. Pixie Cabbage nearly killed out. Early York entirely so. Peas frostbitten.
Presbyterian College
503 South Broad Street
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