Go and see (Cumberland Saga)

Sig caught up with Roger as Roger was walking back from his morning trip to the outhouse.

“You're up early” Roger noted.

“Ain’t been to bed, yet” Sig said, sourly.

“Then you need a cup of coffee” Roger said. He figured Sig had some issue that he wanted to bounce off an older, maybe wiser head.

Roger didn’t need to ask if Alice, his wife, was decent. The house was just a tad over 50 degrees inside and she would be wearing a house-dress, a robe and slippers until the wood stove warmed it up.

Hearing the two men enter the house, Alice knew that Sig had come back with Roger by the sound. Maybe it was the sound of his breathing. Maybe it was the cadence of the steps. Somehow she knew.

Turning from where she was feeding splits into the wood-stove, she got a good look at Sig.

“How are ya feelin’” she asked “cause you don’t look too good?”

“Mornin’ Miss Alice” Sig said, dutifully.

“Mornin’” she replied back.

“It will take a few minutes before the coffee is ready” she added as Roger pulled another mug out of the cupboard.

“I could use a drink of water” Sig admitted.

Roger worked the handle of the cistern-pump and let the first few slaps of water go down the drain. Then he filled the mug and handed it to him.

He drank deeply and sighed. “I didn’t wanna wake up Ellie. Seems like I need to grease the handle of the pump and I just ain’t got around to it yet.”

Alice put the makings into the old fashioned “camp” percolator and put it on the stove where it would heat up quickly. She added a couple of extra cups of water and grounds to match. It looked like Sig was going to need it.

“I was wondering if I could borrow Roger for a couple hours this morning for a farm-walkabout?” Sig said, addressing Alice.

“I don’t mind” Alice said.

Roger nodded his head in agreement. “Been a while since we did that. Whaddle we be lookin’ at?”

Sig very briefly explained that he was rethinking his position on fertilizing and that he needed to pick Roger’s brain about what had really happened in the past. For instance, had the newcomers who insisted on fertilizing left out the squash and beans.

“Oh, I can answer that” Alice interjected. “We almost didn’t have punkin pie that Thanksgiving ‘cause so few folks planted punkins. They said they didn’t need to ‘cause there would be so much corn to feed the pigs and corn kept better and was easier to store.”

“What about the beans?” Sig asked.

“Nope. I don’t think they planted them, either” Alice said, not quite as sure about that.

An hour later, Roger and Sig were trudging around the perimeter of the cultivated area.

Specifically, they were looking for the “line” where the black, manure-rich soil ended and the red-clay began. They found ample evidence of what Blain said he had seen. Corn growing on black-dirt.

“But why didn’t it fall down” Sig wondered out-loud.

They were walking through a punkin-patch between the pasture and the corn, looking at a lusty stand of harvested corn. The ears had been twisted off by hand and the bean-vines stripped off for later processing but the dead, standing corn plants had not yet been cut and fed to the cow.

Roger point to a few of the dead punkin vines. “Maybe cause of those” he said as he pointed to some punkin vines that had climbed the stalks on the edge of the field.

Sig walked over and gently rocked the plant. The vine tightened up as the downward arch where it turned upward was pulled out of it. It straightened and the tendrils remained firmly wrapped around the thick stalk, not letting go. 

"Kinda like the cables bracing a tall antenna, ain't they" Roger observed.

Looking along the edge of the field, Sig could see that the harvesters had either cut or walked through many more of the ropy vines although a few, like the one he had tested still remained.

“Have we ever lost corn to wind on a plot where we had punkins?” Sig asked.

“I lost some when I planted some Purple Proven* corn. Danged stalks grew 15’ tall” Roger informed him.

Sig nodded. He kinda remembered that although he didn’t remember any specifics. Most of the stalks in the field they were next to were 8’-to-10’, not counting the tassels, easily twice as tall as the commercial hybrids growing in the valley.

“Any advantage to growing short corn?” Sig asked.

Roger shrugged. Every family in the Cove had their own strain of field corn and they all fiercely guarded it and insisted that it was “the best”. In a way, it was laughable because the plots were so close together there was a lot of cross-pollination. You could even see that some of the “pure seed lines” had some sweet-corn genes creeping in. Hybrid sweet corn was one of the few kinds of seeds that folks in the Cove bought.

“I know that if you don’t stay right on top of the weeds that tall corn does better” Roger said. “Unless we are gonna start spraying herbicide then I think we are better off with what we have.”

Sig nodded. It was about the conclusion he had come to as well. One of the consequences of the introgressing genes from the sweet-corn was that the plants were shorter. If the families who were the custodians of those strains of corn continued to select based on how well the ears filled, they would also be selecting for plants tall enough to shade out the Giant Foxtail, Lambsquarters and other tall weeds.

The two men walked the field for another hour and talked about this-and-that.

Roger observed that the corn closest to the edges that were fertilized were more vigorous and had thicker stalks. “I never really noticed the difference” he admitted. “I think the fact the ground slope downward kinda hides the fact the corn is taller cause the tops don't look no taller than the ones in the middle.”

Sunday’s sermon was shaping up to be a long one.

 

*"Proven Purple": Corruption of Peruvian Purple corn, used to make Chicha Morada one of Peru's national drinks. Seed-savers are very generous in sharing seeds but not always rigorous in documenting names. There are many synonyms for popular seed-lines. In fact, the number of synonyms is a good proxy for how widely adaptable a seed-line is. The names morph as the variety's range expands.

While the farmers of Copperhead Cove seem "backwards" and resistant to change, they are constantly bringing in (relatively) small numbers of different seed-lines and new crops. Every year, they increase what works and shrink what did not work as well. Nearly all of the corn they grow is white-corn which makes it easier to rouge-out seeds pollinated by failed experiments as the color of the kernels is influenced by the pollen parent.

Note from the author: I owe a huge debt to Steve Todd, an organic gardener and grower of heirloom varieties. Steve farms in Neubert Springs, Tennessee just south of Knoxville and sells his seeds through Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and at various "swap-and-sell" meets within 150 miles of Knoxville.

Steve guided me through some of the ins-and-outs of Three Sisters plant-guilds as it was historically exercised in the area where this story takes place.

The world is a better place because there are passionate people like Steve keeping information like this alive.