Crops, 1857-1864

[vbetts]

In getting ready to head back over to Corsicana tomorrow to continue transcribing the Fanning diary, I did a tally of all of the different garden plants, orchard varieties, and field crops that James Fanning at least tried to grow in Gonzales County, Texas, 1857-1864. Here's the list:

Corn, sweet potatoes, apples, orange--sweet and sour, citron, cabbage, beets, peas, lettuce, thyme, sage, peaches, grapes, figs, pomegranates, Japanese mulberry, butter beans, snap beans, okra, roquette, cow peas, spinach, blackberries, pumpkins, sweet and bell peppers, Chinese cane, mustang grapes, sugar cane, Hungarian rice, popcorn, gourds, tomatoes, bunch beans, running beans, watermelons, cantaloupes, dwarf peas, marrow fat peas, squashes, cucumbers, lettuce, summer savory, sweet marjoram, peppers, millet, artichokes, pecans, wild plums, quince, hickory, turnips, muskmelons, Sicily wheat, English peas, creole cabbage, Peabody corn, parsnips, tobacco, pie melons, Bermuda grass, almonds, peanuts, Egyptian corn, Japanese plums, Spanish chestnuts, Irish potatoes, mustard, "prolific" corn, Nicaragua cotton, pears, field peas, eschalottes, blood beets, carrots, hay, El Paso onions, prickly pear cactus (gathered in wild and thorns burned off), wheat, Malaga grapes, Cibolo grapes, Palencia Port watermelons, sorgho, Chinese peas, coffee beans (not *the* coffee beans, but would grow in corn field), radishes, "French" apples, oats, kershaws, and broom corn.

To me that's an amazing variety of things to at least try to grow, if not always successfully because of leaf cutter ants, grasshoppers, drought, flood, moles, gophers, bag worms, web worms, bud worms, cut worms, frost, weeds, and his own livestock getting in and eating things down. Fanning is a yeoman type farmer, owned one slave for a while and the rest of the time hired out slaves or other laborers, swapped labor with neighbors, his wife did some of the gardening, and he did a lot of the work himself. I think he is probably out of the ordinary, but it will eventually be interesting to compare his diary with others to see just how much. It's also been interesting to track his quotations from the Bible, Shakespeare, Byron, Bryant, and Thomas Campbell, which may also make him unusual.

Vicki Betts
vbetts@gower.net

[DougCooper]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

Saw the ref to Okra, and here is another from Wikipedia I found interesting:

Okra seeds may be roasted and ground to form a non-caffeinated substitute for coffee.[2] As imports were disrupted by the American Civil War in 1861, the Austin State Gazette noted, "An acre of okra will produce seed enough to furnish a plantation of fifty negroes with coffee in every way equal to that imported from Rio."

Anybody ever seen a period reference to cooking fried Okra? Please say yes...:D

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

Saw the ref to Okra, and here is another from Wikipedia I found interesting:

Okra seeds may be roasted and ground to form a non-caffeinated substitute for coffee.[2] As imports were disrupted by the American Civil War in 1861, the Austin State Gazette noted, "An acre of okra will produce seed enough to furnish a plantation of fifty negroes with coffee in every way equal to that imported from Rio."

Anybody ever seen a period reference to cooking fried Okra? Please say yes...:D

During the CW, okra was a common coffee substitute and was considered one of the best tasting.

As for the fried okra, do an advanced search in Google Books for "fried okra" and there are some recipes. In Feeding America, most of the okra recipes used it in soups and in gumbo.

[Stephen Shepherd]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

I find this stuff very interesting. Here is a list of produce available out West during the time period.

Foods available and imported in Utah in 1857
Introduced Species:

Apples (Mountain Chief-large, won prize in 1856)
Apricots from Malta
Beets
Carrots
Catawba grapes from the States
Cherries
Corn
French & California Grapes
Hooker Strawberries ($5.00 per plant)
Isabella grapes from the States
Madeira grapes from Franciscan missions in California
Melons (including Watermelon)
Onions
Peaches
Pears
Plum trees from Kew Gardens (Royal Botanical Gardens in London)
Potatoes
Quinces
Raspberries
Sorghum
Sugar Beets
Turnips
Walnuts

Native plants:


Buffalo berry
Chokecherry
Gooseberry
Mountain currants; black, white, red & yellow
Serviceberry
Wild Plums

Equipment:

Corn shellers
Grain threshers & Cleaners
Smut machines
Mills
July 16, 1856 Deseret News reported McCormick’s Reaper & Mower in Farmington, Utah


$60.00 – 90.00 per yoke of Cattle
$4.00 per head of Sheep

Stephen

[amity]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

Vicki, don't some of these seem to be livestock fodder? Sorgho for example? I assume that is sorghum?

[nrandolph]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

I'm really curious to know what varieties of apples were raised, pre- CW, out in Texas (other than what Stephen had mentioned in a previous post). One of my areas of interest, so if anyone has that information I'd be glad to hear it!

Thanks,
Neil Randolph
1st WV

[Hank Trent]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

Vicki, don't some of these seem to be livestock fodder? Sorgho for example? I assume that is sorghum?

Yep, both the sorgho and Chinese cane would refer to the same general thing, what we usually call sorghum, and they also called it that too occasionally. You'll sometimes also see a very closely related type called imphee.

In the east, the primary use was as a sugar or molasses substitute. There was a get-rich-quick period when it was first introduced in the mid to late 1850s and people thought it could be finished easily into granular sugar. Fodder was also a secondary consideration, either feeding the aftermath or growing it only for fodder.

There was a bit of controversy about its use as fodder, since it was so new that there wasn't a good understanding about when the danger of hydrocyanic acid would develop. As the 1862 Ohio Ag report stated, in a reprint from an 1859 Belgium publication,

The sorgho at first was praised beyond measure [as a forage plant]; then it was declared to be poisonous, and that it diminished the quantity of milk. In short, after repeated experiments made by very distinguished farmers, it was considered as one of the best fodder plants we can cultivate... Sorgho cultivated on some lands imbibes poisonous qualities, for which it has been rejected by certain farmers. The accidents caused by sorgho might have been prevented at first by prudent and judicious experiments. If it produces a bad effect it may be mixed with other ingredients. If it is not injurious administer it confidently--and this is nine-tenths of the case.

What have you-all found in Texas? Was it primarily a fodder there, or did the sorgho-sugar boom hit there too, and was there any problem with poisonous qualities as fodder?

I'm curious about the Hungarian rice. There was a fad for Hungarian millet around this time period, but is Hungarian rice a variety of true rice?

Okay, hold on, found something:

Fundi, Fundungi. Paspalum exile. Hungary rice. A gramineous annual plant growing 18 inches high, and producing an abundance of inute seeds, which are used in Africa as rice. It is sown on dry natural soils in May, and reaped in September, the seeds being readily thrashed out." (The Farmer's Dictionary, 1854)

Is that it?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[LindaTrent]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

In addition to Stephen's find: The following is from the list of premiums at the fair in SLC UT Sept. 11, 1861.

FIELD CROPS
Sugar Cane, Wheat, Field Corn, Turnips, Beets for saccharine, Carrots, Beans, Peas, Flax
Hemp, Clover, Potatoes, Hungarian Grass, Lucerne Grass, Cultivated Trespass Grass, Giant Rye, Cotton, Tobacco, Madder, Indigo.

VEGETABLES
Beans, Beets, Broccoli, Cabbages, Canteloupes, Carrots, Cauliflowers, Celery, Cucumbers, Egg Plant, Lettuce, Silver Onions, Red Onions, Yellow Onions, Parsley, Parsnips, Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Pumpkins, Radishes, Rhubarb, Squashes, Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes, Water Melons, Vegetable Marrow and Kaoul Rabbi.

FRUITS
Apples, Apricots, Cherries, Currants, Gooseberries, Grapes, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Raspberries, Strawberries, Chestnuts, Walnuts.

With the exception of a few things like cotton, sugar cane, and indigo maybe a grass or two, this list is identical to what we grow in Ohio, despite being 2000 miles away! Maybe different varieties, but still... :)

Linda

[amity]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

Don't know about central Texas (soybeans do grow here now), but in northern Kansas where my folks have land, sorghum is one of the three crops they grow in rotation, along with wheat and soybeans. Out of three quarter-sections of sorghum you MIGHT process 3 quarts of thick, sticky, brown treacle-like sorghum syrup or whatever it is for human consumption, but the rest of all those MANY TONS of sorghum is cattle fodder. Humans could not possibly consume one-millionth of it. So whenever I hear of an entire field of sorghum I think fodder first. No other reason to grow it that I know of.

P.S. I am also surprised to hear of apples being grown in Texas. There are some recently developed varieties grown in the hill country that I know of. They are grown espalliered like grapevines! Strange looking sight. But I think again (as with the recent discussion of cherries) old-style apples need a certain number of "chill hours" to set fruit? So apples may have been another 1860s experiment destined to ultimately fail?

[Stephen Shepherd]

Apples

Here is a list of heirloom varieties of apples as of 1857:

1. American Golden Russett
2. American Summer Pearmain
3. Baldwin
4. Bell Flower
5. Belleflower (yellow)
6. Belmont
7. Belmont
8. Benoni
9. Bevan's Favorite
10. Big Red
11. Black's Annett
12. Bohannon
13. Broadwell
14. Buckingham
15. Caroline Greening
16. Carthouse
17. Cooper
18. Danvers Winter Sweet
19. Dominie
20. Dutch Mignonne
21. Earlier Chandler
22. Early Ive
23. Early Pennock
24. Early Strawberry
25. Fall Cheese
26. Fall Pippin
27. Fameuse (snow apple)
28. Findley
29. Fort Miami
30. German Bough
31. Golden Sweet or Sweet Harvest
32. Gravenstein
33. Green Newtown Pippin
34. Green Winter
35. Harvest (Yellow H, Early H)
36. Hawley
37. Holland or Golden Pippin
38. Hubbardston Nonsuch
39. Jeniten
40. Jersey Blue
41. Jersey Sweet
42. Jonathan
43. July Apple
44. Keswick Codlin
45. Ladies' Sweeting
46. Lady Apple (Pomme d'Apie)
47. Large Fall
48. Large Sweet Bough
49. Large Yellow or Sweet Bough
50. Late Strawberry
51. Limber Twig
52. Lowell
53. Maiden's Blush
54. Michael Henry Pippin
55. Milam
56. Minister
57. Newown Spitzenberg
58. Northern Spy
59. Ortley ( White Belleflower)
60. Pennsylvania Read Streak
61. Phillips' Sweating
62. Pryor's Red
63. Rambo
64. Rawles' Janet
65. Red Astrachan
66. Red Canada
67. Red Juneating or Strawberry Apple
68. Rhode Island Greening
69. Ripston Pippin
70. Rome Beauty
71. Roxbury or Boston Russett
72. Roxbury Russet
73. Sine qua Non
74. Small Fall
75. Smith's Cider
76. Smokehouse
77. Sour Harvest
78. Spitzbergen Esopus
79. Stoneburg
80. Summer Pairmain
81. Summer Queen
82. Summer Rose
83. Talman's Sweeting
84. Tart Bough
85. Vandervere
86. White June (Juneating)
87. William's Favorite
88. Willow Twig
89. Wine Apple
90. Winter Brown
91. Yellow Harvest or Prince's Harvest
92. Yellow Newtown Pippin


Stephen Shepherd
In the State of Deseret

[amity]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

BTW, what is a "pie melon?" A melon to make "melon pie" out of, or a melon shaped like a pie?

[KarinTimour]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

Terrific discussion everyone. Stephen, I'm printing out that list and taking it with me to the farmer's market next fall. i've been trying heirloom apples for taste, and I warn anyone, it's very dangerous. They taste so much better, and so different from each other that you're ruined for apple eating during the rest of the year. I never was a Red Delicious fan, and now I'm reduced to MacIntoshes and Red Roans as the only even slightly non-tinkered with taste apples the rest of the year.

With regard to sorghum, Terre, I grew up in Southern Indiana, and sorghum is seriously marketed there as "old timey" sweetener. There were sorghum "mills" (one horse harnessed to a beam, walking in endless circles) and it was often seen in farmer's markets. In our period would it take tons of sorghum to make a jug of sweetener? Or is it the case that there would have been refinements over the years, so that the modern sorghum your parents are raising would be different in the amount of syrup you could get out of a given amount of cane?

Hank, with regard to the controversy surrounding sorghum -- is this something we should be cautious about when eating it at the table? Or was this just a worry for livestock eating large amounts of sorghum? I'm also intrigued with the Hungarian millet issue -- would that just have been a different type of millet? Was it meant for human consumption or was it a foder crop as well?

Fascinating discussion,
Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Sleeping Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: ktimour@aol.com

[amity]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

Hmmm, Karin, I just have the feeling that speculating that a significant part of the sorghum crop was being eaten on biscuits is akin to saying that cotton is grown for Q-tips! The sense of proportion is what I am questioning, not the fact that people in 1860s were so extremely sweet-challenged that they were reduced to eating sorghum molasses.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

Don't know about central Texas (soybeans do grow here now), but in northern Kansas where my folks have land, sorghum is one of the three crops they grow in rotation, along with wheat and soybeans. Out of three quarter-sections of sorghum you MIGHT process 3 quarts of thick, sticky, brown treacle-like sorghum syrup or whatever it is for human consumption, but the rest of all those MANY TONS of sorghum is cattle fodder. Humans could not possibly consume one-millionth of it. So whenever I hear of an entire field of sorghum I think fodder first. No other reason to grow it that I know of.

I'm not really sure what the amount of modern acreage of sorghum in Kansas, let alone soybeans, has to do with the period. Could you provide some period evidence of sorghum's typical uses, either in Texas or Kansas?

For example, from the History of Bourbon County Kansas, by T.F. Rob Ley, 1894 p. 208:

During the fiscal year of 1865 there was harvested and manufactured the amounts and articles following : Wheat harvested, 28,676 bushels. Rye, 3,621; Corn, 206,297; Oats, 15,352. Irish potatoes, 5,591; sweet potatoes, 821. Butter, 14,498 Ibs. Cheese, n,907 pounds. Sorghum molasses, 7,606 gallons. Hay, 15,565 tons.

Sorghum was primarily grown for making molasses in many parts of the country in the period. It was newly introduced in the 1850s, useful as a sugar substitute during the war, fell from favor afterwards, was revived with better varieties in the 1880s, etc. So I don't think we can extrapolate directly backwards, as if nothing has changed in the last 140+ years.

If Texas and Kansas were different in the period and used sorghum primarily for fodder, which certainly may be true, why not find out from period sources?

But I think again (as with the recent discussion of cherries) old-style apples need a certain number of "chill hours" to set fruit? So apples may have been another 1860s experiment destined to ultimately fail?

Again, why hypothesize?

Of fruits, apples, pears, quinces, and plums, ripen to perfection. Industrious emigrants from the older States will better their conditions amazingly by seeking homes in Middle Texas. (Braman's Information About Texas, 1857)

Peaches, apples, and grapes are very abundant in Texas. I have never seen larger or finer apples and peaches grown anywhere than in Texas (History of Texas, J.M. Morphis, 1875)

In nearly all of the settled portions of Texas, pears, peaches, apples, and plums can be grown. Apples do well in the northern and north-eastern part of the state... Our ripe apples can be sent to St. Louis, and Chicago in the latter part of May or first of June, when their apple trees are scarcely out of bloom. This is the great advantage that we have in Texas in fruit-growing, as well as in raising wheat, and the orchardist as well as the wheat-raise should iimprove this advantage by raising fruit and grain mostly for the earliest market season. (A Description of Texas by O.M. Roberts, 1881)

Someone more interested in Texas regional history can surely come up with more information on the varieties, areas of the state where apples were grown, profitability, etc., but my initial impression would be that apple trees planted in the 1860s would be successful in at least some parts of Texas

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[amity]

Re: Crops, 1857-1864

I am doing that right now, but can't find specific information on the chill hours needed for the different varieties posted. They seen to mainly all be descendants of a small number of earlier cultivars, none of which would do well in any parts of Texas that were widely settled at that point.

But that doesn't mean that at least some varieties had not been developed. Again, Hank, why hypothesize? Let us know what you find.

Here, to get you started:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/apple/apple.html

See map at bottom. These zones are as you know based on temperatures essentially. The crescent shape slicing through Texas is the escarpment. The "zone 1" areas in blue were only thickly settled in the eastern half of the state (which includes ironically Corsicana, where Vicki found the Fanning diary). They might have grown apples successfully and it would not surprise me so much if they did. Gonzales Co that Vicki is speaking of, where Fanning did his growing, is south of me:

http://www.co.gonzales.tx.us/ips/cms

so definitely in zone 3, red zone, rarely freezes at all. I can't find any varieties of apples grown in "early America" (i.e. before the war) that could produce fruit that far south. It is just difficult to know when specific varieties were developed, and I have not found info on that yet. The two varieties which are at present recommended for zone 3 are both descendants of the Gala variety developed in Israel within the last three decades. I could just get in touch with A & M Extension Service.

Or maybe you can help, Hank?