July 2012

During this time of transition in the Archives, we will continue with Dr. Jacobs’ garden journal entries for July 1868-69.

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Special thanks go out to Nancy Griffith for transcribing Dr. Jacobs’ Garden journals for us during her tenure in the Archives-the originals are not easy to decipher! The punctuation and spellings are taken verbatim from the notebooks he kept and clarifying information may be included [in brackets within the text].

Record of Garden Successes and Failures

July 1868

Jly. 4. Cotton blooms noticed first time today. First mess of Okra from sowing of April 18.

Jly. 6. Good rain today.

Jly. 8. Ran around Sweet potatoes and broke out middles of Goober & Cotton patches.

Jly. 10. Okra in abundance. First sowings of Beans & Arbor beans all dead. Bore very well, but the drouth cut them off to a half crop. Saved enough seed for next year. Rode up to my Hitch place. The oats sown made 43 dozen. Cotton is doing splendidly. The place is improving very rapidly.

[“Hitch place” described in 2 March 1868 Garden Journal entry, Blue Notes, March 2009.]

Never plant any more Turtle-soup beans. They are valueless. Stowells Evergreen corn was planted too late to do much good. Watermelon & muskmelon vines are looking well. Beans with corn are shabby. Lower row of Okra not bearing yet. A few raspberries, first fig, first peach.

Jly. 16. Everything abt. Burnt up. Saving seed of Parsnips. Raised onion sets.

                                  July 1869

July 4. My sow “Ugly” had 11 pigs today. 3 have since died leaving eight – all of wh. I think will live. They are half Chester Whites. My Chester White Sow “Beauty” lost her pigs.

July 5. I finished ploughing my crop over for the 4^th time. It is standing the drouth pretty well.

July 7. Hauled a load of Oats from the Hitch place today.

July 8. Began hauling oats from the M’Clintock place. Mrs. Byrd presented me with 8 of the Multiplier onions [a variation of common green onion that produces more than one bulb per plant-if allowed to mature, will produce a cluster of onion bulbs] Garden badly dried up. Little Pixie cabbage is a great acquisition.

July 29. Today it rained. We have had very severe drouth.

July 30. Everything is in a finely flowering condition. I have given to my cotton its last plowing with the Brinly sweep [Brinley Co. in business since 1839; sweep is a type of garden cultivator]. It left the ground in beautiful fix behind it. The rains have brought the crops out wonderfully. I am in much better heart about my poor land. It will not be hard as I feared to bring up to a standard of fertility.

This day I fenced in my front yard. Cost as follows:

600 feet lumber                       12.00

31 posts                                          3.10

1 lb. Nails                                      1.00

2 days worth of 2 hands         2.50

Peter’s making of gate              .50

$19.10