Highways and byways of the South (1904) (14598107058)

Identifier: highwaysbywaysof00john (find matches)
Title: Highways and byways of the South
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Johnson, Clifton, 1865-1940
Subjects: Southern States -- Description and travel Southern States -- Social life and customs
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company London, Macmillan and co., limited
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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somely mottled, nor the limbs so sinuous. Theground beneath was sprinkled with burrs and nuts.These might have come off a chestnut tree, exceptthat the burrs grew in larger and snugger clusters, andthe nuts instead of being flat sided were little browncones. The boy said the nuts were good to eat eitherraw or boiled, and that the children often strung themand used them for bracelets. Among the bushes in the roadside tangles I wassurprised to see clumps of real English holly and furzeand broom. My driver called the broom Indiansage, and said it was medicinal. Yo can make atea out of it dats as good as ox gall for heart disease,he aflirmed. The fields were turning sear and the autumn plough-ing was being done. The corn was cut — all of it thatwould be cut. Some farmers put the entire stalks up 320 Highways and Byways of the South in shocks, but it was more customary to cut off thetops just above the ears, and stack these tops. Afterthey had dried in the shock for about two weeks, they
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Stacking Cornstalks were carted to the barn, or perhaps were packed in asnug conical pile around a pole in the farmyard. The Round about 0)d Jamestown 321 smaller farmers not only harvested the tops of thestalks, but they picked off the leaves on the portionof the stalks left standing. As soon as the picker hadgathered an armful of the leaves, he tied them in acompact bunch which he hung on a stalk to cure, andin a few days the blade fodder was ready for stor-age. The leaves of sorghum, or molasses corn asmy driver called it, were also saved for cattle feed, andthe stalks stripped bare, leaving only the brown tuftsof seed at the top. That night I stayed at the ancient town of Williams-burg, a most interesting place, built around a large,grassy square. Here and there a sedate colonial househas survived, and best of all is the old brick parishchurch with the graves of the early inhabitants cluster-ing under the pine trees in the churchyard. At thehead of the Duke of Gloucester Street, t