An effectual Method to destroy Barberry Bushes. LET a man take a small chain with short links, and lay it on the ground round a bunch of bushes, then lay one of the hooks across the chain, and draw it as snug as he can with his hands about the bush close to the ground, then put on a sufficient team to bring it up by the roots at once. - If this be done in the months of October or November, it will never fail to finally exterminate them. Our correspondent, it will be noted, has nothing to say of the blasting powers of the barberry, but we have a very circumstantial account of them, from about the same time, in President Dwight's narrative of his journey to Berwick, Maine, in 1796. He is speaking of Eastern Massachusetts: From Marlborough Eastward, throughout a country, extending to Piscataqua river on the North, and to the Counties of Bristol and Plymouth on the South, the Barberry bush is spread; not universally, but in spots, and those often extensive. In some fields they occupy a sixth, fifth, and even a fourth, of the surface. Neat farmers exterminate them, except from the sides of their stone enclosures. Here it is impossible to eradicate them, unless by removing the walls: for the roots pass under the walls; and spring up so numerously, as to make a regular and well compacted hedge. It is altogether improbable therefore, that they will ever be extirpated. This bush is, in New-England, generally believed to blast both wheat and rye. Its blossoms, which are very numerous, and continue a considerable time, emit, very copiously, a pungent effluvium; believed to be so acrimonious, as to injure essentially both these kinds of grain. Among other accounts, intended to establish the truth of this opinion, I have heard the following. A farmer on Long-Island sowed a particular piece of ground with wheat every second year, for near twenty years. On the Southern limit of this field grew a single Barberry bush. The Southern winds, prevailing at the season, in which this bush was in bloom, carried the effluvia, and afterwards the decayed blossoms, over a small breadth of this field to a considerable distance and, wherever they fell, the wheat was blasted: while throughout the remainder of the field it was sound. This account I had from a respectable gentleman, who received it from the farmer himself; a man of fair reputation. In Southborough, a township in the County of Worcester, a Mr. Johnson sowed with rye a field of new ground, or ground lately disforested. At the South end of this field, also, grew a single barberry bush. The grain was blasted throughout the whole breadth of the field, on a narrow tract commencing at the bush, and proceeding directly in the course, and to the extent, in which the blossoms were diffused by the wind. In another field, the property of a Mr. Harrington, an inhabitant of the same township, exactly the same circumstances existed and exactly the same mischief followed. These two accounts I received from Mr. Johnson, son of the Proprietor of the field first mentioned: a student at that time in Yale College; and afterwards a respectable Clergyman in Milford, Connecticut. As no part of the grain was blasted in either of these cases, except that, which lay in a narrow tract, leeward of the barberry bushes; these facts appear to be decisive, and to establish the correctness of the common opinion. Should the conclusion be admitted; we cannot wonder, that wheat and rye should be blasted, wherever these bushes abound. A labouring man, attached to the family of Mr. Williams, our host in this town [Marlborough], informed me, that in Mr. Williams's garden a barberry-bush grew in the wall a number of years; that during this period esculent roots, although frequently planted near it, never came to such a degree of perfection, as to be fit for use; that such, as grew at all, appeared to be lean and shrivelled, as if struggling with the influence of an unfriendly climate; that the wall was afterwards removed, and the bush entirely eradicated; that in the first succeeding season such roots flourished perfectly well on the same spot, and were of a good quality; and that, ever since, they had grown, year by year to the same perfection. My informant added, that the soil was very rich, and throughout every other part of the garden was always entirely suited to the growth of these vegetables; and that it was not more highly manured, after the removal of the bush, than before. This is the only instance of the kind, within my knowledge. If there be no errour in the account; it indicates, that the barberry-bush has an unfavourable influence on other vegetable productions, beside wheat and rye.1 President Dwight, then, was familiar with the evil reputation of the barberry, but he was too philosophical a thinker to accept what he heard without scrutiny. His account of the matter is a good instance of scientific elimination resulting in a non-plus. Lieutenant John Harriott, who scrutinized New England, in 1794, with the experienced eye of a scientific farmer, thoroughly acquainted with agriculture in the mother country, was by no means satisfied with the current theory. He writes: The soil, in the interior country, is best calculated for Indian corn, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, and flax. In some of the farther inland parts, wheat is raised; but, on the sea-coast, it has never been cultivated with much success, being subject to blasts. Various reasons are assigned for this: some suppose these blasts to be occasioned by the saline vapours from the sea; but I can not agree to this, well knowing that many of the best wheats that are grown in England, in quantity and quality, are from sea-marshes and lands adjoining the sea. Others attribute it to the vicinity of Barberry-bushes, to the truth of which I cannot speak. But the principal cause appeared to me to be the poverty and sandy nature of the soil in general, together with exceedingly bad management.2 1 Travels in New-England and New-York, I, 381-3; cf. I, 376. Subsequent experiments, undertaken about 1825 by the Massachusetts Agricultural Society seemed to show that the failure of the crop was due, in part, to the kind of wheat cultivated, and that the substitution of spring or summer wheat for winter wheat would be advantageous.1 However, the course of empire soon made it clear that New England was not to be its own granary. The question ceased to be of much practical importance, and the innocent barberry bush gradually lost its bad eminence in the farmer's mind.2 1 Davis's edition of Morton's Memorial, p. 321. 2 In 1832 Wilkinson notices the belief in his History of Maine, I, 114: "Berberis vulgaris. It is said Corn will not fill well near it." W INDIAN TALK HAT kind of English did the Indians speak in New England? This is a thorny subject, but not without charms for the investigator. The Almanac for 1797 contains an anecdote which appears to have a certain. value in this regard. Anyhow, it is good enough to repeat: AN Indian who was appointed a Justice of the Peace, issued the following WARRANT.-Me High Howder, yu constable, yu deputy, best way yu look um Jeremiah Wicket, strong yu take um, fast yu hold um, quick yu bring um before me, Captain Howder. At first glance, this alleged Indian warrant looks like a bit of white man's facetiousness and nothing more. But one should not be so hasty. A little searching reveals the existence of a somewhat complicated tradition. Another version was printed by Judge John Davis, in 1826, in his edition of Nathaniel Morton's New England's Memorial: 1 At the Courts in Barnstable County, formerly, we often heard from our aged friends and from the Vineyard gentlemen, amusing anecdotes of Indian rulers. The following warrant is recollected, which was issued by one of those magistrates directed to an Indian Constable, and will not suffer in comparison with our more verbose forms. 1 P. 415. |