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Mr. G. 0. Dunnell Hay. Grain
Ana_E21.4_Mala
Paper 12
STATE MASSACHUSETTS
NAME OF WORKER ROBERT WILDER
ADDRESS NORTHFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS
SUBJECT LIVING LORE
NAME OF INFORMANT G. O. DUNNELL
ADDRESS NORTHFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS
DATE OF INTERVIEW June 12, 1939
Name: Hobert Wilder Assignment: Northfield
Title: Living Lore
Topic: 9. 9. Dunn911 Hay,
Grain and Feed _Man
raper 12
I was working in the little plot that we call "the garden"
putting in some squash seeds when Mr. Dunnell happened by on his way
to his "office". Without wasting time on a preliminary greeting, he
began:
*Yer don't want to plant squash nor punkin seeds too deep.
Just give 'em enough dirt to cover 'em and they'll grow. And the more
manure they is around the better. Don't need to worry about 'burning'
them and all that scientific clap trap.
"Louis Webber, him that runs the Belding farm on Great Medder
is a scientific feller. Went to the state agricultural college where
they learned him to do things jest so. But I notice he leaves his
machinery out to rust just the same as if he never went to no agricultural
college. He figgered one year that there was going to be money in squashes.
I will say that he figgered it out right. They learned him that much.
But he didn't make no money. He set the Beldings back good and plenty
and dumb near lost his job.
"I heard he was going to put all them acres into squashes so I
went down one day to watch 'em work plantini. They was a feller went
ahead with a stick that he jabbed into the ground every so often. And
his job was to do that. And to keep in a straight line across the field.
Then corm a feller with a bag of seed. He dropped one seed in each hole.
That was all he did. Behind him come another feller with another bag of
-2
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: jorthfiel4
Topic: G. O. Dunnell Halr,
Grain and Feed Mtn
paper 1R.
seed to give to the plantin' feller when he needed it. And his job
was to kick dirt inter the holes and step on it. I watched the feller
jabbing. He was jabbin' holes three inches deep. I sez to Louis,
'Ain't yer plantin' them seed too deep?' 'No,' he says, 'They're
plantin' jest right.'
'Well, Mister,' I says, 'the society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Seeds, or Squashes, or suntin' ought to get after you. Here
you be plantin' them poor seeds three inches under ground. And then, as
if that 't wan't enough work for 'em to climb out, what do you do, by
G- but tamp 'em in their graves! They'll never be able to get Out
not one in a hundred. Yer couldn't do it yerself,' I says, 'Get planted
in the ground way over yer head,' I says, 'And have somebody tamp down
the ground and you get out. Yer're expecting something of them seeds
that ain't natural. They grow in a big, fleshy mess of a squash,' I
says, 'that rots and manures up the ground. And the seeds just lie on
top, or get covered with such dirt as blows on tem. They don't have to
have no hole dug for 'em. But they do need soft earth and plenty of
manure.' Well, I guess he thought I was an uneducated old fool that
never heard of the scientific way of doing things. And he was pretty
proud of the 'efficiency method' he'd thought up, so I come away and
left him.
"But I kept an eye on that field just the same. Maybe I could
learn suntini. But I see hardly any squash plants, so I inquired about
Name: Robert Wilder Assignment: Northfield
Title: /dying Lore
Topic: q4 0. Dunnell Hay,
Grain and Feed Man
raper 12
it. It seemed that the seed was no good: That seemed kinder funny,
for the handful of seeds I took out of the plantin' feller's bag grew
all right in my garden. And it seemed queer, that a scientific feller
should be stuck with poor seed. But Louis didn't want to talk about it.
Be said it was poor seed, and an ignorant, uneducated cuss like me,
should take his word for it. Be replanted with other seed. But he
didn't get no crop to amount to anything. And squashes was 'r out of
sight that fall, too.
"So, if you are plantin' squashes, pick out some good, rich
ground, and sock the fertilizer to it. Work it up in good shape so's
there's a good soft seed bed. Then put yer seeds in a foot or so apart
just under the surface. And, if you want to hurry 'em up; plant 'em
with the eyes up. When the plants get big enough so's the bugs won't
kill 'em, clear 'em out so's they are a good four feet apart, and kind
of work up the soil around 'em into hills. This helps the gound hold
water it won't run off the way it mould if you let the ground bake hard.
And it discourages the bugs and weeds. Don't do any monkeying with the
plants that you can help. Just keep its enemies away from it. And,
o'course, train it to go the way you want it to, so's it won't get
stepped on accidental. But it's a good thing to remember that all
plants like to grow towards the light, so if you can scheme it so
that you want the plant to grow towards the south, you and the plant
will probtly agree. And they won't be no trouble about trainin'.
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: ;Aving Lore
Assignment: Forthfiel4
Topic: q. O. DuunIll HAW,
Grain and Feed Mark
kauer 12
But don't forget that you can't make it grow into the shade. And
if you've planted suntin' to the south that casts a Shedder, the plant
will want to grow some other way.
*Sure, you can sprinkle 'em with this and squirt 'em with that.
But those things were mostly made to sell. You have good healthy plants,
and the bugs don't stand much of a chance. It's the puny, sickly plants
that the bugs finish.
wYer know yer can train a squash vine to run up a chicken wire
screen, and shade yer porch, if yer want. They got things to hang on
with like porch vines have. But yer got to figger on taking the weight
of the squashes off the vine with a piece of string, or suntins. If yer
don't they'll pull the vine down. They make real pleasant shade. And
yer can look after the vine handy.
"I don't see why people fool so much with flowers, lay 'em
out in beds and all that. Flowers has got to be sunthin' the wimmen
can do. But the man raises the vegetables. Most men won't touch a
flower bed 'cept to spade it. And women won't monkey with vegetables.
I say that vegetables is just as good looking as flowers if you give
'em a chance. Dollard that lived up near me laid out what he called
a 'formal garden', that was all vegetables. They was a bush squash
in a round bed in the center, and all the other kinds of vegetables
in different shaped beds all around. They was a border of string
Name: Robert *ildsr
Title: LiVira Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: G. o. Dunnell HAY,
Grain and Feed Man
Paper 12
beans one year. And chard, and beets. The tall vegetables was in
back. Termatters on poles. And cucumbers and squash on chicken wire
fences. He kept the grass mowed on the paths between the beds. And
the beds cut out sharp and neat on the edges, like the vegetables was
regular flowers. Warn't no weeds anywhere 'round. Yer see, that way
the plants got what yer might call 'individual attention'. The way
most farmers ridge stuff is to be sure that they plant enough so's
if the bugs eat up a few of the plants so that they'die, they'll be
enough left for what the farmer wants. That way, it takes a lot of
land. And you most need a horse to plough and harrer and cultivate
even a small gardin. But Dollard's way, you raised just as much stuff,
but 't warn't such hard work. Yer'd think more people would raise
vegetables instead of flowers.
*Lots of people move in here thinkin' a home in the country
is just what they want. They're anxious to raise stuff, and can it and
have it for winter. But they don't know enough to even look after a
lawn. They haven't been raised to it. They spend a lot of time on same
dam bush, snipping here, and peckin' there. And first things you know
the bush dies. They can't understand it. They've done everything they
is to do. And the bush died. They don't know that Nature has a way of
lookin' after growin' things herself. That you can do a lot to help
Nature. But you can't go agin her nor matter how good your intentions
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: Q. Dunn911 Hay,
Grain and Peed Man
Paper 12
is. You want to do most of your snipping in the spring or in the fall.
You don't want to spend your summer at it, 'cept to take off dead
or diseased stuff.
*They keep cuttin' their lawns, too. Cut the grass so dum short
that the grass plants has to struggle for breath. They cut the lungs out
of it 'most. And then they rake up all the grass they cut real careful,
so's the roots don't have hardly any covering at all. And then they
wonder how it happens that their lawns burn up in the hot sun when other
people's don't. And how it happens that their grass winter kills. They
talk about haw much time they put in fussing with their lawns. And they
get all discouraged. If a feller tries to tell 'em anything and halp
'em out, they don't like what he says. He sounds like a lazy cuss to
them when he tells 'em to leave the plants alone and give Nature a
chance. Yer see, they want ter fuss. That's the way they've pictured
living in the country was like. They've got their own ideas in their
heads and 't ain't worth while to tell 'em better.
s'pose they have their troubles with us, too. When they
do ask a question a feller can't believe his ears. He thinks they
are trying to kid him. They ask questions such as we know the answers
to ever since we knew anything. And the questions sound childish and
silly. Sound as if the feller didn't have all his buttons. But maybe
he's a city feller and all he had to play on when he was little was
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: living Lore
Assignment: Northfield,
Topic: HAY,
Paper 12
Broadway, or Wall Street. fle don't know that you have to rake a lawn
even, 'cause the grass can't grow healthy under a lot of leaves. And
the leaves is acid, too. When they rot they sour the ground, and
weeds and sorrel and stuff like that grow instead of grass. And he don't
know that you ought to take a lawn broom, that we call scratchers'
and rake up the old twigs and stones and stuff that'll ketch in the mower.
That, if you do that, you'll kill a lot of bugs and caterpillers that
make their nests on 'em. If the grass is thin, then is the time to sow
some grass seed just before a rain. And run a roller over it after-
wards. They don't even know that they's grass seed for shade and grass
seed for sun. And then they don't want to let the grass get too long
before mowing it. But they want to give it a chance to grow between
mowings. And they want to leave the
falls. It is natural fertilizer for
doesn't rot makes turf and keeps the
can't tell a feller all that, for it
it yourself you wouldn't do it quite
was all run out. That you couldn't
lawn. Sheep manure is the beat cure
grass they cut off right where it
the grass when it rots, and what
sun off the growing roots. Yer
depends. Maybe, if you was doing
that way. You'd see that the soil
grow witch grass, let alone a
for that. And maybe, you'd fill
in places with loom and seed it down, If yer stop to think, you'll
realize that you've been all your life learning what you know. And you
can't tell it to somebody who's a big executive, maybe, and fires
-.8
Name; Robert Wilder Assignment: prthfie14_
Title: Living Lore
Topic: Qr. GP. Dunntll Hay,
Grain and Feed Van
PaDer 12
questions at yer. And expects yer to give him yer life's secrets
in five minutes. You figger that if he don't know enough to grow
grass, he probably ain't as smart as folks think he is. That he may
know how to gyp people out of their money, or how to hang on to what
his grandfather made. But that's about the limit of his intelligence.
And that it is lucky fer him that he has that much, 'cause on his own
power, he'd starve to death on the best farm in the country.
*Say, somebody ought to start a school, or ,Gomethin', for
gentleman farmers. Teach 'em not to plant razzberries where the snow
is going to slide off the roof onto 'em. And to build garages that their
caretakers can get the cars out of in the winter without diggin' a
tunnel, by G-1 And Lalp.ot of sensible things like that, that would make
the country 'a better place to live in, Don't suppose the Government
would consider it, do yer? I'll be seem' you.*
As quickly as he had arrived, Mr. Dunnell was on his way.