I was browsing the shelves in an old antique store while visiting Missouri when I discovered a book printed in the early 1940's about natural fertilizers and farming techniques.
Had I not been in the midst of my Master Gardener course I doubt it would have caught my eye. We were in the process of studying fertilizers and pesticides. Flipping through the book I recognized many of the terms we had been discussing. That started me into a new shift in reading. Since then, I have totally nerded out, digging up books on farming in the early to mid-1900's.
The latest book I found was titled Front Porch Farmer by Channing Cope. I came across it at an estate sale north of Tylertown. There were several books on this subject, but it was the titles of his chapters that caught my attention. They were titles such as The Prevailing Sin, The Miracle Vine, Ours is a Hungry World, and All Flesh is Grass. The author wrote this book on the principle that if you farm correctly, smartly, and efficiently one can basically farm from their front porch. It took me some time to figure out his farm was north of Atlanta, Georgia along the Yellow River.
The book was copyrighted in 1949 at a local printing company in Atlanta. And as I read through these pages it occurred to me that I had not really developed an obsession with farming information, but reading great writing written by men and women close to 100 years back who shared my same love of digging in the earth. There seems to be a mutual respect for the land that draws like-minded people together.
Channing Cope writes: “As I sit down to type this chapter, it is five o'clock on a cold morning. A roaring fire is going in the fireplace, too much fire, indeed. Old Will Johnson, our man-of-all-work and weather prognosticator, as he is known to thousands of radio friends must have gathered a load of fatwood up on Dried Indian Mountain, as he does when time permits, and his instincts point to a cold spell coming. Drops of fire are spilling down on the hearth below the grate as our Scotties, Missy and Jock, and our time-worn cat, Dinty, are all stretched out on the divan before the fire, more or less asleep but sufficiently alert to the call for their morning run.
Ours is a hungry world, and everything on the farm needs feeding, even the land itself. Indeed, even the fire we sit by. The bees, the birds, the flowers, the field crops, the shrubs, trees, animals, rodents, reptiles, insects; all trace their source of food back to the land. We will feed the land; it will feed the rest of us. It is not exactly true that if we make the land rich it will make us rich, but it is positively true that poor land will keep us poor. So then, our immediate and constant concern is to make and keep the land productive.”
Perhaps it is a deep connection to my ancestors who farmed. Maybe it is the shared love of planting seeds and watching them grow or feeling productive dwelling on ancient soil that will only know me for a short season of decades, ten at most. But when I read through these old pages typed out on a manual typewriter with portions likely even handwritten, I feel a sense of fellowship with those who came before me plowing, tilling, planting, and thriving among loved ones. Ours is a hungry world and we are blessed by the bounty it provides.
Mr. Channing Cope said it best: “I am inclined to believe that if a fellow will poke around in the soil, he will not worry about his neighbors, and he will sing at his work, naturally. I have been poking in the soil for twenty years now, and I am singing louder, if not sweeter, year by year. Thanks for following us to the conclusion of the story of Yellow River Farm with the promise and challenge it offers.”
