Corner Clamps For Woodwork Reaction,Wood Countersink Bit With Depth Stop Yellow,Navigation Drawer Under Status Bar Position,Wood Mailbox Plan Online - Easy Way
16.08.2020
They planted the seeds and waited anxiously, as farmers do, to see how the plants matured. Besides seed yield, they were also looking for agronomic characteristics important to a farmer: reduced seed shattering so seed heads don't break open and spill their grain before harvest , uniform time of maturity, ease of threshing, and large seed size.
The four most promising candidates for perennial domestication turned out to be eastern gamagrass Tripsacum dactyloides , a sprawling warmseason grass that is a relative of corn; Illinois bundleflower Desmanthus ittinoensis , a legume that grows tall and produces a baby rattle of seed pods; mammoth wildrye Leymus racemosus , a stout cool-season relative of wheat that the Mongols used to feast on when drought claimed their annuals; and Maximilian sunflower Helianthus maximilianii , a composite that yields oilrich seeds, which could be pressed to create vegetable oil diesel fuel for tractors.
The second approach-starting with an annual and hybridizing it with a perennial-led to the mix of milo grain sorghum, which is already used as a crop, and perennial Johnsongrass. Now that The Land has its lineup, the breeding has begun in earnest. The very best individuals from each species are grown together in one plot so that they can cross-pollinate. When two promising strains "mate," the hope is that even more bodacious offspring will follow.
The seeds from each trial are planted out in various kinds of soil to make sure the differences are truly genetic, or inheritable, and not just environmental , and the best individuals are selected to cross-pollinate once again. This process is repeated until the improvements due to crossing show signs of diminishing returns. Only then will the breeders call them good and begin the fine-tuning process to bring out each strain's best features.
So far, optimism at The Land is high, which means a slightly deeper nod from the incredibly modest Jon Piper when I ask whether he's pleased with their progress. He walks me among the monoculture and polyculture plots where the best of the best are showing their stuff. Some collections of eastern gamagrass are bravely resisting various leaf diseases, and certain collections of bundleflower and gamagrass are yielding well despite some drought.
The most vigorous crosses between Johnsongrass and grain sorghum are showing both high seed yield and good rhizome production. Rhizomes are the underground runners that allow plants to store starch for winter, and thereby survive. In terms of seed yield, there are already some superstars.
Even though its food value has yet to be explored, says Piper, Illinois bundleflower is yielding seed quantities that approximate the typical yield of nonirrigated soybeans in Kansas. For eastern gamagrass, which can be ground into a cornmeal and baked into a palatable bread, the potential to improve seed yields is great, thanks to a variety that was discovered along a Kansas roadside.
The collector noticed that instead of the normal flower stalk, which is composed of about one inch of female flowers topped by four inches of male flowers, this sport had all female parts which turn into seeds except at the very tip. If all yielded, the sport could produce up to four times the normal amount of seeds.
As Piper shows me one of the stalks, I notice that the female organs are green. That's what we'll be trying to show. The only plant in their lineup that isn't native is mammoth wildrye. Though native stock seems an obvious choice, it hasn't been to other breeders.
Most of our crops are exotics, brought over in our traveling bundles from Mexico and Europe. The only native plants that we have ever domesticated in this country are sunflowers, cranberries, blueberries, pecans, Concord grapes, and Jerusalem artichokes. The Land Institute is trying to lengthen this short list, knowing that natives are tuned through evolution to sing in harmony with the melody of local conditions.
While coaxing agronomic manners from these plants will be a Pygmalion task, growing them in monocultures at least gives breeders a chance to compare apples with apples. Unfortunately, says Jackson, we can't stay with monocultures. The real Holy Grail is to grow them in polyculture-mixed species plots-since, as nature has shown us, only poly cultures are able to pay their own bills.
When you are working in a polyculture, you take all the difficulties that you encounter in monoculture breeding and multiply them. You are not only selecting for high yields, large seed size, uniform maturation time, easily threshed seeds, low shattering, winter hardiness, disease and pest resistance, and climate tolerance, but also for compatibility-a plant's ability to perform well or even exceed performance when grown next to other plants.
The Land Institute staff was essentially faced with designing an agricultural dinner party, deciding who should be seated next to whom to maximize the beneficial interactions and minimize the detrimental ones.
Nature arranges these kinds of matchups all the time through the slow culling of natural selection. Could The Land somehow mimic and speed up this process?
Just as Piper and his colleagues started questioning this reductionist approach, they began to read about recent developments in the field of community assembly.
James Drake and Stuart Pimm of the University of Tennessee study what it takes to arrive at an assembly of species that remain in equilibrium, a condition farmers would obvously want for their domestic prairie.
Unlike The Land staff, they do their experiments with ecosystems in a computer artificial life and with aquatic organisms in glass tanks real life. They begin by adding species in various combinations and then letting them work out who will survive and in what ratio.
Eventually, without intervention, the community shakes down into something that is both complex and persistentorder for free. In his famous "Humpty Dumpty" hypothesis, Pimm maintains that once you destroy a finished product of community assembly, such as a prairie, you can't just plant those same species and expect to put it back together again.
There's no such thing as an instant prairie. A prairie restorationist must give the prairie a successional history, that is, actually grow the prairie over a trajectory of years.
Some plants will blow in and others will drop out, but as those facilitating species change the soil and the fauna and flora around them, they make it possible for the final assembly to be there. They warm up the crowd for the real act. We're not in the business of creating prairies over a thousand years. What we want to do is build complex, persistent systems that shake down within a very few years.
What Piper and company have decided to try, in addition to their more reductionist experiments, is a "shakedown" like those that occur in Pimm's and Drake's experiments. First, they laid out sixteen plots sixteen meters by sixteen meters , then randomly broadcast seeds that represented the prairie's four "suits": warm-season grasses, cool-season grasses, legumes, and composites.
In some plots they sowed only four species, in others eight, twelve, and sixteen. There are four replicates of each treatment. Half of the plots are being left alone to develop as they will, and the other half are called "replacement" plots. After two years, any species in the replacement plots that have dropped out or failed to germinate will be replaced. All the while they will be tracking changes in the communities and looking for rules and patterns about how stable communities assemble.
Within a few growing seasons, they want their target perennial grains to be well represented, and to yield abundantly year after year without weeding or seeding. If a few other noncrop species are present in the mix, so be it.
Eventually, the "recipe" or trajectory the researchers discover will be something they can offer to farmers. Though they don't know all the particulars, Piper thinks a typical recipe may work like this: You throw in the recommended mix of species more than you need , making sure that all important plant groups are represented.
Then you sit back and watch the trajectory unfold. The trajectory might take five years, say, but you would be rewarded with a complex, persistent system.
The fields look awful at first, like a total failure, but the perennial seeds are in there and by the second or third year, they just go whoosh and come into their own.
Somehow, the environment filters out what works from what doesn't work, so you are left with the most stable combination. We're studying how this happens, and what steps we might take to help it to happen. The resultant recipe might include a recommendation to burn in year two, mow in year three, or graze livestock in year four. They'll also be thinking about the equipment that will be needed to harvest the different crops at different times of year.
Also as with forestry, you can't just start over each year. You can't decide to grow another crop because pests are bad or the weather doesn't cooperate. Instead, you'll have to plan up front for multiyear conditions-weather, markets, et cetera. Your best hedge against disaster is going to be variety, just as the prairie teaches-lots of paints in your palette so that no matter what the conditions, some species will still flourish.
It has to compete reasonably well with what farmers are now growing. The final three questions that occupy Piper and company have to do with the polyculture performance from that pragmatic point of view. Can the polyculture yields stay even with or actually overyield those of monocultures?
Overyielding is the phenomenon by which a crop yields more per unit acre when it's growing in a polyculture than when it's in a monoculture. Turns out that plants grown next to different but complementary neighbors don't have to compete the way they do when grown next to an identical plant. They're not jostling root elbows for the water in a particular level, for instance. Nor are they competing for the same plane of sunshine. As a result, the members of a diverse community are actually capturing more resources and yielding more than they would under constant same-species competition.
The literature is replete with examples of overyielding when complementary annuals such as maize, beans, and squash are planted together. Piper's charge was to show that overyielding could happen with perennials as well. When compared with their performances in monoculture, plants in mixtures have consistently overyielded.
Studies at The Land are showing that when plants are grown in bicultures and tricultures, they're better able to fight off insects and diseases than when they're grown in monocultures. It makes sense if you think about it. Plants defend themselves against insects with chemical "locks," and at most, an insect carries only one or two "keys" to the plants it is adapted to eat.
An insect that finds itself in a field of nothing but its target plant is like a burglar with the key to every house in the neighborhood. In a polyculture, where all the locks are different, finding food is more of a chore. A mixed neighborhood is equally frustrating for diseases that specialize in one plant. A fungus may fester on an individual, but when it releases its spores, the leaves of invulnerable plants act as a flypaper, bringing the fungal rampage to a halt.
That's why, although pests exist in prairie polycultures, you don't see the runaway decimation that you see in monocultures. Invasions are contained. Just as with overyielding, most of the experimental evidence for resistance comes from studies on annual plants in polycultures.
In , Cornell biologists Steve Risch, Dave Andow, and Miguel Altieri reviewed such studies and found that 53 percent of the insect pest species were less abundant in annual polycultures than in annual monocultures. Similarly, Australian ecologist Jeremy Burdon summarized studies of twocomponent mixtures and found that there were always fewer diseased plants in the polyculture.
So far, the same seems to hold true for the perennial polycultures planted at The Land. But only in the monocultures. The bundleflower that was grown with gamagrass was fine.
Polycultures also seem to reduce or delay the onset of maize dwarf mosaic virus, which can be a problem on eastern gamagrass. With the thought of pesticides gone, Piper and his colleagues began fantasizing about eliminating another petroleum-based crutch: nitrogen fertilizer. Can the polyculture sponsor its own nitrogen fertility?
The question of how much nitrogen fertilizer a domestic prairie would need has not been definitively answered as of this writing. So far, though, signs are pointing to little or none.
In experiments conducted with annuals, soil fertility always looks stronger in a polyculture, especially when legumes are in the plot. Tiny balls on the roots of a legume such as Illinois bundleflower are home to bacteria that have the ability to turn atmospheric nitrogen into plant food. As a result, legumes find a niche in nitrogen-poor soils, thriving where other plants falter.
Plants growing near the self-sufficient legumes may also benefit from stored nitrates that return to the soil when the legume sheds a leaf, turns over a portion of its roots, or lays down its last. In initial investigations of polycultures that include Illinois bundleflower, Piper found that, as predicted, bundleflower can grow beautifully and yield well even in poor soil, leaving the soil character actually improved.
As Piper relates in scientific papers, "The soil nitrate concentration in four-year-old Illinois bundleflower stands at the poorer soil site was nearly identical to that on the better soil site despite very different initial nitrogen conditions.
Which is why, of course, no prairie would be without them. Despite the promise of The Land Institute's work, we're a long day away from finding gamagrass bread in our local supermarkets-twenty-five to fifty years, if these researchers are the only ones working.
In Eugene, Oregon, I saw Wes Jackson give an audience goosebumps with this statement: "After seventeen years of scientific research in pursuit of answers to four basic biological questions, The Land Institute is ready to formally state that our country can build an agriculture based on a fundamentally different paradigm than the one humans have featured for the last eight to ten thousand years.
If the eroding Breadbasket is to be transformed by the work at The Land Institute, it will have sweeping repercussions. But our Breadbasket is only one small part of the world's agricultural land. What Piper and Jackson and the rest would never dream of doing is importing prairie agriculture everywhere. The natural systems farm, designed in nature's image, would not look the same in all corners of the world, because ecosystems differ so drastically across the globe.
In the droughty plains, you want water hoarders. What can be imported from The Land Institute, Jackson says, is its methodology-its approach to learning a native system, intuiting its "rules," and then slowly trying to raise a stable community of crops that mimics the structure and performs the functions of the wild one.
As the following stories will show, the investigation is already under way. As he strolled along a rural road, he spotted a rice plant in a ditch, a volunteer growing not from a clean slate of soil but from a tangle of fallen rice stalks.
Fukuoka was impressed by the plant's vigor and by the fact that it was up earlier than those in all the surrounding cultivated fields. He took it to be the whisper of a secret revealed to him.
Over the years, Fukuoka would turn this secret into a system he calls "do nothing" farming because it requires almost no labor on his part, and yet his yields are among the highest in Japan. His recipe, fine-tuned through trial and error, mimics nature's trick of succession and soil covering. In early October, Fukuoka hand-sows clover seeds into his standing rice crop. Shortly after that, he sows seeds of rye and barley into the rice.
He coats the seeds with clay so they won't be eaten by birds. When the rice is ready for harvest, he cuts it, threshes it, and then throws the straw back over the field.
By this time, clover is already well established, helping to smother weeds and fix nitrogen in the soil. Through the tangle of clover and straw, rye and barley burst up and begin their climb toward the sun. Just before he harvests the rye and barley, he starts the cycle again, tossing in rice seeds to start their protected ascent.
On and on the cycle goes, self-fertilizing and self-cultivating. In this way rice and winter grains can be grown in the same field for many years without diminishing soil fertility. The neighboring farmers are curious. Whereas they spend their days cultivating, weeding, and fertilizing, Fukuoka lets the straw and clover do the work.
Instead of flooding his fields throughout the season, Fukuoka uses only a brief dousing of water to head off weed germination. After that he drains the fields and then worries about nothing, except an occasional mowing of the paths between fields. On a quarter acre, he will reap twenty-two bushels of rice and twenty-two bushels of winter grains. That's enough to feed five to ten people, yet it takes only one or two people a few days of work to hand-sow and harvest the crop.
Natural farming has spread throughout Japan and is being used on about 1 million acres in China. People from around the world now visit Fukuoka's farm to learn both farming techniques and philosophies. The allure of this system is that the same piece of ground can be used without being used up, and yields can be consistently good. Instead of pouring money and energy into the farm in the form of petroleum-based inputs, most of the investment is made up front-in the farm's design.
Instead of working harder, he whittled away unnecessary agricultural practices one by one, asking what he could stop doing rather than what he could do.
Forsaking reliance on human cleverness, he joined in alliance with nature's wisdom. As he says in his book, One Straw Revolution, "This method completely contradicts modern agricultural techniques. It throws scientific and traditional farming know-how right out the window. With this kind of farming, which uses no machines, no prepared fertilizer, and no chemicals, it is possible to attain a harvest equal to or greater than that of the average Japanese farm.
The proof is ripening right before your eyes. Australian ecologist Bill Mollison, like Wes Jackson, advocates keeping some crops on the land for many years, to bring farming as close as it can come to nature's efficiency.
For years, Mollison has worked on perfecting a system whereby small-scale farmers would set up a low-maintenance garden, a woodland, and an animal and fish farm and then become self-sufficient-fed, clothed, and powered by local resources that are literally right at hand. Designing with nature's wisdom is at the core of this farming philosophy, which is called permaculture, for permanent agriculture.
In permaculture, you ask not what you can wring from the land, but what the land has to offer. You roll with the weaknesses and the strengths of your acreage, and in this spirit of cooperation, says Mollison, the land yields generously without depletion and without inordinate amounts of body work from you. The most laborious part of permaculture is designing the system to be self-supporting.
The idea is to lay out crops so that those you visit most frequently are close by your dwelling Mollison calls it edible landscaping and those that require less vigilance are set out in concentric circles farther from the house. Everywhere, there are plants in two-or three-canopy schemes, that is, shrubs shaded by small trees, which are shaded by larger trees.
Animals graze beneath all three canopies. Dips and furrows in the land are used to cache rainwater and to irrigate automatically. Wherever possible, permaculturists invite external forces such as wind or flooding to actually help do the work. They build windmills, for instance, or plant crops on floodplains, where they can enjoy a yearly pulse of alluvial sediment.
Choosing synergistic planting arrangements-using "companion plants" to complement and bring out the best in one another-is key to a successful agriscape. To maximize these beneficial unions, the permaculturist creates a lot of edge-transition zones between two habitats that are notoriously full of life and interaction. Mollison is also fond of using interactions between animals in place of high-energy inputs or machinery.
The chickens roost on the benches at night, enjoying the warmth left over from the day's solar radiation. They add to the heat with their own bodies, helping the plants survive the frosty dawns.
In the morning, when the greenhouse becomes too hot, the chickens move into the forest for grazing. As they search for nuts and acorns shed by the planted trees, they comb the ground like rakes, aerating and manuring the soil while snatching up tree pests.
Humans eat the eggs and eventually the flesh of these chickens, but in the meantime, they enjoy their services as cultivators, pest controllers, greenhouse heaters, and self-fed fertilizers. Mollison learned this ballet of efficiency firsthand when he worked in the forests of Australia in the late sixties.
As a researcher, he was trained to describe the biological world and leave it at that. But Mollison took the next step that is crucial in biomimicry: He saw lessons for streamlined living emerging from the forest and vowed to apply them to a new kind of agriculture.
Today in Australia many farms are now working according to the permaculture principles he has popularized, and an international permaculture institute, with branches throughout the world, is training people to disseminate the technique. By mirroring nature's most stable and productive communities, and then living right in the middle of them, Mollison believes, human communities can begin to participate in their beauty, harmony, and Earth-sheltering productivity.
New Alchemy Farm on Cape CodAnother example of ecoculture sprouting in place of agriculture can be found on Cape Cod, at the offices of two of the country's most innovative bioneers, John and Nancy Todd. They formed the New Alchemy Institute in to design living spaces and food producing systems that would use nature as a model. The forest-in-succession was the conceptual guide for their totally self-sustained farm.
It then rises through the shrub layer to the canopy formed by the trees that produce fruit, nuts, timber, and fodder crops.
Following this plan we are hoping to maintain the farm in a dynamic state of ongoing productivity while it continues to evolve ecologically in the direction of a forest," Todd writes in his book, From Ecocities to Living Machines. Like Mollison's permaculture, New Alchemy's farm is designed so that every living component has a multiple functionshading and fertilizing, for instance, as well as yielding an edible harvest.
Wherever possible, the work of machines and, by extension, humans is replaced by the work of biological organisms or systems. One of the Todds' inspirations was Javan farms in Indonesia, where unconventional to us, anyway agriculture has thrived for centuries. The Javanese farm is nature in miniature, and it shows the restorative processes of planned succession. In early phases, annual crops and fish ponds might dominate the landscape, but as the landscape grows and matures, a third dimension develops as tree crops and livestock come into their own.
The key is to mirror the natural tendency of succession which, over time, creates ecosystems that are effective and stable utilizers of space, energy, and biotic elements. The tropical forests here are paradises-cornucopias of irrepressible vegetation and edible foods ripening under a natural heat lamp and mister.
It's therefore all the more ironic, and perhaps telling, that jungles like this have made such poor sites for growing conventional crops. It makes sense if you realize that the same force that creates the jungle-deluges of rain-can also leach nutrients from unprotected jungle soil after clearing, when there are no plants around to soak up water. Crop harvests also remove even more nutrients from the site. After a few years of this nutrient extortion, the soil quickly tires.
Natural clearings in the jungle meet an entirely different fate. They are quickly revegetated by a parade of species that take over one after another, sinking roots, spreading canopies, shedding leaves, and restoring fertility to the site.
Nutrients in the system are kept in play in the green growing biomass -nutrients "on the stump. Ewel, a botany professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville, hypothesized that if you could simulate a natural regrowth of jungle using domestic crops as stand-ins for the wild species, you could achieve the same fertility-building phenomenon and actually improve the system rather than deplete it.
The trick is to start with crops that mimic the first successional stage grasses and legumes , and then add crops that mimic the next stage perennial shrubs , all the way up to the larger trees-nut crops, for instance. To test their hypothesis, Jack Ewel and colleague Corey Berish cleared two plots in Costa Rica, letting them naturally reseed to jungle.
In one of the plots, every time a jungle plant sprouted, they would dig it up and replace it with a human food crop that had the same physical form. Annual for annual, herbaceous perennial for herbaceous perennial, tree for tree, vine for vine-it was as if nature were guiding the hands of the agronomists.
The parade of volunteers to the natural system Heliconia species, cucurbitaceous vines, Ipomoea species, legume vines, shrubs, grasses, and small trees were replaced by plantain, squash varieties, yam, and by the second or third year fast-growing nut, fruit, and timber trees such as Brazil nuts, peach, palm, and rosewood.
This domestic jungle of crops looked and behaved like the real jungle in the plot next door. Both plots had similar fine root surface area and identical soil fertility. The researchers also put in two control plots: a bare soil plot and a plot planted in a rotating monoculture-maize and beans followed by cassava, followed by a timber crop.
While the bare soil and the rotating monoculture lost their nutrients very rapidly, the "domestic jungle" remained fertile. Several years before Ewel's paper came out, British permaculturalist Robert Hart also published some concrete recommendations for cropping systems that would mimic the jungle ecosystem. They included cassava, banana, coconut, cacao, rubber, and lumber crops such as Cordia species and Swietenia species.
At the end of its succession, Hart's cropping system would be a three-tiered canopy, mimicking the structure of the jungle as well as its nutrient cycling, natural pest control, and water-purging function. The trick to keeping the soil fertile, says Hart, is to choose perennial crops with lots of leaves and roots, so they can protect the soil from hard rains, store nutrients in biomass, and put organic matter back into the soil when they shed.
Hart also found it important to use plants that form symbiotic associations, as well as deep-rooted plants that pumped nutrients from different depths of the soil. In this way, the ground was kept continually covered, yields were provided throughout the year, and each set of new crops prepared the soil physically and even chemically for the next stage. Once the succession progressed to tree crops, farmers could selectively harvest timber and burn the perennials every few years to start the cycle again.
Besides supporting local farmers, this sustained usefulness may also help to slow the relentless clearing of primary jungle. Sir Alfred Howard, whom many credit with the invention of organic agriculture, talked about farming to fit the land in his book, An Agricultural Testament, as did J. Smith wanted to see eastern hillsides replanted with tree crops, which seemed to suit the hills better than the erosion-causing row crops planted after the great green wall of New World forest was torn down.
Smith looked to the eastern deciduous forest as a model of diversity and stability. He described the great number of niches provided by the various tree-canopy levels as well as shrubby and herbaceous understories. Thanks to the diversity, he wrote, pests are kept under control and birds and browsing animals are given many places to make a living.
Fine fibrous roots of woody understory plants act like a prairie's sod to hold soil and retain nutrients. Fallen leaves and debris are slowly and steadily recycled into new plant life, preventing leaching and downslope loss of critical nutrients. The organic litter also encourages the growth of mycorrhiza-fungi that form associations with roots and further extend their water-searching power.
Every now and then, wind or disease or lightning takes out a tree, creating a gap where succession and renewal can begin again. Early agriculture on these soils, practiced by Native Americans, was also successional in nature. The tribes practiced small-patch agriculture, raising beans, squash, corn, and tobacco on twenty-to two-hundred-acre plots.
After eight to ten years, the native farmers would move on and allow the land to lie fallow. In the twenty-year hiatus before the farmers returned, succession would resume and fertility would be restored. This shifting method required tribes to be nomadic, but it mimicked the natural forest dynamism by creating small patches that were allowed to revert to forest.
In his book, Smith bemoaned the loss of soils and productivity that occurred when white settlers began to farm more permanently on these sites, deforesting hillsides and planting row crops. The farming didn't fit the land, he claimed. Instead, he proposed planting structural analogues-nut-and fruitbearing trees as the only fitting crops for forest-growing land. One scheme that bore out his dream was a farm of honey locust trees which bore seed crops with an understory of Chinese bush clover a perennial legume suitable for grazing and haying.
This system yielded crops and supported animals, all with minimal labor, low management costs, and good weed control. He reported returns of 4, pounds of hay per acre per year, 2, pounds of honey locust nuts per acre per year on average, with a peak of 8, pounds of nuts per acre in eight-year-old trees. The features that made the hardwood forest sustainable in the wild were repeated here: a tree crop in the overstory, a stable understory to protect the soil and retain nutrients, a biological nitrogen source, and a grazing or browsing animal component.
Unfortunately, Smith's recommendations fell largely on deaf ears when his report was first issued. The fact that his work has been republished by Island Press recently, with a foreword by Wendell Berry, is a hopeful sign that the idea of nature-based farming is sprouting once again.
The Desert SouthwestWhere prairies and forests fear to tread, the model for farming is an unlikely one-the scrubby, spiny desert of the American Southwest. Across the Sonoran, the Chihuahua, and the Mojave, rainfall is erratic and strongly seasonal, and soils may vary every few feet.
These uneven conditions lead to a patchiness of vegetation-plants cluster in fertile alluvial fans, while on more barren stretches, they space themselves out to get all the water they can. Besides dividing up the space, they also divide up the season. Many species bloom and set seed only when water is available, becoming dormant as the summer blisters on.
These strategies, which allow plants to take advantage of ephemeral resources and to endure long dry spells, were mirrored in the farming methods of original peoples who flourished here for thousands of years. The Papago and Cocopa peoples continue to live here, gathering their foods from both wild plants and cultivated desert plants and legumes, all of which are native to the place, thus adapted to making the most of limited resources.
Ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan made readers aware of their agricultural practices in his book Gathering the Desert. To the extent possible, writes Nabhan, the Papago synchronize their agriculture with the local seasonal clock. Planting, for instance, is timed to the emergence of desert annuals-right before or after nourishing rains.
By planting only on flood-watered alluvial fans, they avoid having to intensively irrigate, which in that climate of excessive evaporation would leave poisoning salt in the upper registers of the soils. Besides annuals, the Papago also sow succulents, grasses, and woody plants for food and fiber. Interspersed with the crops are wild mesquite trees, left in the fields because they can fix nitrogen and gather deeply stored soil nutrients.
Long before agronomists knew why this companion planting worked, the Papago were practicing it, having taken their cue from the "genius of the place. Like Mollison's permaculture, Rodale's "regenerative agriculture" uses biological structuring to increase the efficiency of nutrient and energy flows so that low-energy inputs are leveraged into high productivity. Succession is also used strategically. Crops are carefully chosen to change the soil flora and fauna in a way that anticipates the needs of the next crop.
For instance, practitioners may plant a crop that causes the weed community to shift toward species that are not a problem for the next crop. Or they might emphasize nitrogen and soil-carbon buildup in one part of the rotation cycle to increase the productivity of subsequent crops.
Finally, researchers at Rodale have spent some time, as Jackson has, looking for perennial replacements for annuals such as wheat, rice, oats, barley.
Letting the Cows Out in the MidwestCrop growers are not the only ones caught in the box canyon of industrial farming. For years now, dairy farmers in the upper Midwest have been cutting hay with machines instead of letting the cows graze it. They've been tractoring the fifty-pound bales into their artificially lighted and heated suction-milking barns. Now all that is changing. Dairy farmers are opening the doors to both their minds and their barns in a nature-based movement called "grass farming.
They report that they enjoy the work of bringing the cows to their food rather than the other way around. Grass farmers also find that their cows are healthier and their bills are slimmer. Manure in the fields means they can pare back their fertilizer bills, and because they hay with machinery only twice, they also save money on fuel and machine wear.
After a few years, many of the farmers are shifting to an even more natural cycle. Instead of milking their cattle year-round, they "dry them off" during the winter, so they can calve all at once in April and be ready to go back to the grass in the spring.
This dry-off allows the grass farmers to do what had been unthinkable in the old system-take a vacation. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13, people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease.
Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country.
I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress—white undergarment with long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty.
He went, but immediately returned with a letter:—. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you.
At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.
This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further.
It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask any one else, for it was all very mysterious and not by any means comforting. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again:. She shook her head as she said again:. I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is? Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?
Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to? Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it.
I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind.
I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my neck. If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye. Here comes the coach! The Castle. I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally I write till sleep comes.
There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who reads them may fancy that I dined too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my dinner exactly. The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable. I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else. When I got on the coach the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him talking with the landlady.
I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out.
When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye.
This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man; but every one seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn-yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard.
I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road.
There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter snows.
In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point. Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves.
Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly.
Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water.
One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us:—. As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink.
Here and there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent.
By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me: for instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves.
On this were sure to be seated quite a group of home-coming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their coloured, sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion their long staves, with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to get very cold, Corner Clamps For Woodwork Zip Code and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snow.
Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys.
I wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of it. When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the passengers, and they kept speaking to him, one after the other, as though urging him to further speed. He lashed the horses unmercifully with his long whip, and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on to further exertions.
Then through the darkness I could see a sort of patch of grey light ahead of us, as though there were a cleft in the hills. The excitement of the passengers grew greater; the crazy coach rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a stormy sea. I had to hold on.
The road grew more level, and we appeared to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each side and to frown down upon us; we were entering on the Borgo Pass. One by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial; these were certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing, and that strange mixture of fear-meaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at Bistritz—the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye.
Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward, and on each side the passengers, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the darkness. It was evident that something very exciting was either happening or expected, but though I asked each passenger, no one would give me the slightest explanation.
This state of excitement kept on for some little time; and at last we saw before us the Pass opening out on the eastern side. There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one.
I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness; but all was dark. The only light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud.
We could see now the sandy road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock my own disappointment.
The Herr is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return to-morrow or the next day; better the next day. I could see from the flash of our lamps, as the rays fell on them, that the horses were coal-black and splendid animals.
They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us.
He said to the driver:—. You cannot deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift. The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself. Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept into the darkness of the Pass.
As I looked back I saw the steam from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected against it the figures of my late companions crossing themselves. Then the driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off they swept on their way to Bukovina.
As they sank into the darkness I felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me; but a cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and a rug across my knees, and the driver said in excellent German:—. There is a flask of slivovitz the plum brandy of the country underneath the seat, if you should require it. I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that unknown night journey.
The carriage went at a hard pace straight along, then we made a complete turn and went along another straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over and over the same ground again; and so I took note of some salient point, and found that this was so. I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant, but I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect in case there had been an intention to delay.
By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch; it was within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences.
I waited with a sick feeling of suspense. Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road—a long, agonised wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night.
At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound, and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horse-tamers doing, and with extraordinary effect, for under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still trembled.
The driver again took his seat, and shaking his reins, started off at a great pace. This time, after going to the far side of the Pass, he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right. Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway till we passed as through a tunnel; and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side.
Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket.
The keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew fainter as we went on our way. The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from every side.
I grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, however, was not in the least disturbed; he kept turning his head to left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness.
Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint flickering blue flame. The driver saw it at the same moment; he at once checked the horses, and, jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness. I did not know what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closer; but while I wondered the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word took his seat, and we resumed our journey.
I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare. He went rapidly to where the blue flame arose—it must have been very faint, for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at all—and gathering a few stones, formed them into some device.
Once there appeared a strange optical effect: when he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same.
This startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darkness. Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us, as though they were following in a moving circle. At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright.
I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether; but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair.
They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import. All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see; but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side; and they had perforce to remain within it.
I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach. How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway.
As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon.
We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is.
I have not yet been able to see it by daylight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took out my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone.
I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins; the horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings.
I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign; through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people?
What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Mina would not like that. Solicitor—for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful; and I am now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork.
But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of the morning. Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back.
A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back. Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door.
The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:—. Enter freely and of your own will! The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice—more like the hand of a dead than a living man.
Again he said:—. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring! Harker, to my house. Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest. I protested but he insisted:—.
It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared. The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort.
Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to enter. It was a welcome sight; for here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed with another log fire,—also added to but lately, for the top logs were fresh—which sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney.
The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the door:—. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared.
Having then reached my normal state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger; so making a hasty toilet, I went into the other room. I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of his hand to the table, and said:—.
You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not sup. I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. He opened it and read it gravely; then, with a charming smile, he handed it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure.
He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters. The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken.
This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay, of which I had two glasses, was my supper. During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had experienced.
I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy. His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion.
The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.
Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse—broad, with squat fingers.
Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.
The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back; and with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protuberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while; and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves.
What music they make! Your bedroom is all ready, and to-morrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon; so sleep well and dream well! I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.
God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me! I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the pot being placed on the hearth.
There was a card on the table, on which was written:—. Do not wait for me. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had finished; but I could not find one. There are certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table service is of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value.
The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but there they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten.
But still in none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I could either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves.
There was absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, or even writing materials; so I opened another door in the room and found a sort of library. The door opposite mine I tried, but found it locked. In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers. A table in the centre was littered with English magazines and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date.
The books were of the most varied kind—history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law—all relating to England and English life and customs and manners.
Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count entered. Then he went on:—. Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.
But alas! To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak. True, I know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble; I am boyar ; the common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not—and to know not is to care not for. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London.
You shall, I trust, rest here with me awhile, so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation; and I would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my speaking.
I am sorry that I had to be away so long to-day; but you will, I know, forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand. Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might come into that room when I chose. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand.
Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be. Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by pretending not to understand; but generally he answered all I asked most frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as, for instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames.
He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain night of the year—last night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway—a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed.
Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them—men and women, the aged and the children too—and waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches.
When the invader was triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil. Those flames only appear on one night; and on that night no man of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work.
Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again? Whilst I was placing them in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark.
When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table; and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in everything, and asked me a myriad questions about the place and its surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the subject of the neighbourhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much more than I did.
When I remarked this, he answered:—. He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my other friend, Peter Hawkins. We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at Purfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to Mr.
Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a place. I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and which I inscribe here:—. It is surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall above mentioned.
There are many trees on it, which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away in a fair-sized stream. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church.
I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading to it from the house, but I have taken with my kodak views of it from various points. The house has been added to, but in a very straggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great.
There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum. It is not, however, visible from the grounds. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century.
I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements.
I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may. Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to put all my papers together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books around me.
One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally at England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated; the other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.
It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned. But you must not work always. Come; I am informed that your supper is ready. The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from home. But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour after hour.
I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me; but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to the dawn or at the turn of the tide; any one who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it.
All at once we heard the crow of a cock coming up with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air; Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said:—. How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. I went into my own room and drew the curtains, but there was little to notice; my window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the warm grey of quickening sky.
So I pulled the curtains again, and have written of this day. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come.
It may be that this strange night-existence is telling on me; but would that that were all! If there were any one to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one.
I have only the Count to speak with, and he! Let me be prosaic so far as facts can be; it will help me to bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me. If it does I am lost. Let me say at once how I stand—or seem to.
I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could not sleep any more, got up. I had hung my shaving glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave. I put one hinge half way up the door and the other two hinges about 3 inches from the top and the bottom of the door. Before hanging the door, cut off the small plastic tabs which protrude from the bottom of the door.
These are guides used to keep the sliding type door in the bottom track and will interfere with the door being opened when using a hinged configuration. If you have already installed them, temporarily remove the polycarbonate panels which are to the left and right of the door opening to give yourself some working room. Position the door square on the aluminum door framing and clamp it in place. Make sure the bottom of the door is even with the bottom of the framing side pieces s 6 and 7 to insure it will open and close properly.
Swing the hinges so they are against the outside of the aluminum framework around the door opening. Using the hinge holes as guides, drill mounting holes through the frame.
On my installation, the hinges did not lay quite flat against the framing. And if you install a spacer behind the hinge it can interfere with installation of the polycarbonate panel. I simply left this slight angle in the hinge installation and the door works fine. Attach the hinges with 8 bolts and nuts.
After all the hinges are bolted up, test the door to insure it swings freely and remains lined up with the surrounding framework.
To make the door latchable, the center panel of the door needs to be reinforced a bit. The UV covered polycarbonate panel is then installed in its normal position on the outside of the Marlite. The inside handle is mounted as the directions provide. The latch is bolted to the aluminum framework using 8 bolts and nuts.
The completed door is shown in the photos from the outside and inside. Since our new door sits about 12" higher off the ground than the original, we have a rather large gap left open at the bottom of the door. We want ventilation anyhow, so this gap is covered with two layers of 6 mil UV film. The film is slit approximately every 3 inches and the slits are offset to reduce air flow. Question 4 months ago on Step 7.
Fantastic ideas, beautifully done. My mom and I have done all your modifications and have a question regarding the hinges.
The left and right side of the door frame is L shaped in our kit. Your pictures seem to show it flush. The part of the L shape has the rubber seal, which we have removed. Did you saw that part of the door frame off? Please respond as soon as possible this project has been quite chaotic!!! Thank you!! Answer 4 months ago. I'm not absolutely certain of this but if I'm viewing your photo correctly I think the design of the door and door frame has been changed since I built mine 7 years ago.
Maybe someone who has built a more recent version of the greenhouse can chime in. I don't, however, recall needing to saw off any part of the door frame and I'm pretty certain if I did modify it I would have included a photo and description of what folks needed to do. Just to clarify, my door frame is "L" shaped That may not show up all that well in my original photos.
Also, as noted in my original text, I did have to use a small spacer to mount the hinges so they are flush and the door can Corner Clamps For Woodworking Harbor Freight Guide swing open without binding. Sorry I can't be of more help.
Perhaps if you could post up a few more photos of the problem area I, or others, could suggest a remedy. Have you found that the addition of the greenhouse film cuts down on the available light too much? If you had it to do over, would you still add the film? Reply 5 months ago. In my estimation I don't believe the UV film reduces light at all.
In fact, here in the Central Valley of CA I have to keep shade screen on the southern and western sides of the greenhouse year round or any plants inside will get cooked during the heat of the day. And yes, if I built another one I would definitely use the UV film. After seven years some of the tapes that hold the film in place began to deteriorate this year so I had to temporarily remove some of the UV film to redo the tape.
The Harbor Freight panels looked like the day they came out of the box. No deterioration of discoloring at all. Reply 1 year ago. There are no signs of any chemical reaction or corrosion of the aluminum frame after 6 plus years of use. As I recall, the instructions call for setting the frame on treated lumber or solid concrete and I am not aware of other builders having a corrosion problem due to treated lumber.
One other possibility if others have encountered this problem might be that here in CA treated lumber does not use arsenate or any derivatives note the treated timbers are brown rather than the more typical green seen in pressure treated wood and thus any potential corrosion is avoided.
If builders are concerned about potential corrosion I suspect a thin plastic or foam barrier between the two materials would be effective. I've done similar, and its up almost a year now, and all is fine; and that includes surviving hurricane sandy.
I found the 2x12's to be almost the same price as 4 2x4's, so I used that as my base instead. Reply 2 years ago. Reply 8 years ago on Introduction. People bad mouth and complain about the HF's greenhouse, but I think they are unrealisitc about what it is. If you go in knowing its very cheap and flimsy, and take that into consideration, you can build it up quite nicely. I could tell right away that the aluminum framing was the bare minimum to just hold the uv panels in place, so If I wanted it to survive in a wind, I knew full well it was going to need more.
Plus I think a lot of folks think that aluminum framing is like a scaffold frame, where you can hang stuff off of it. No way!!!! Your page link was posted on my Facebook group. We discuss ways to improve and use Harbor Freight green houses and other green houses as well. Built this for my dad 4 years ago. The bolts that slide into the channels are starting to fail. The head separates from the threaded part which then falls off.
Observed anything like this?? Reply 3 years ago. No I haven't. But I'll make a couple observations. I believe these "kits" change from time to time with somewhat different materials and components. Harbor Freight may even get them from different suppliers, and sometimes the parts and pieces my be of a different quality.
|
Cool Wood Projects To Build 70 2x4 Projects For Beginners Uk Titebond Ultimate Wood Glue Vs Gorilla Glue Lyrics |
16.08.2020 at 22:57:58 Why OVIS' minimum draser you want among these.
16.08.2020 at 15:26:17 Just scale them down and put them on tables and.
16.08.2020 at 20:21:16 For discussion on any of it and accepts what was shown on the television working condition and make.