Sketches New and Old

  HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER--[Written about 1870.]

  I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper withoutmisgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship withoutmisgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary an object.The regular editor of the paper was going off for a holiday, and Iaccepted the terms he offered, and took his place.

  The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought all theweek with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I waited a day withsome solicitude to see whether my effort was going to attract any notice.As I left the office, toward sundown, a group of men and boys at the footof the stairs dispersed with one impulse, and gave me passageway, and Iheard one or two of them say: "That's him!" I was naturally pleased bythis incident. The next morning I found a similar group at the foot ofthe stairs, and scattering couples and individuals standing here andthere in the street and over the way, watching me with interest. Thegroup separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say,"Look at his eye!" I pretended not to observe the notice I wasattracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing towrite an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of stairs,and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near the door,which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young rural-looking men,whose faces blanched and lengthened when they saw me, and then they bothplunged through the window with a great crash. I was surprised.

  In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a finebut rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation. Heseemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set it onthe floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of ourpaper.

  He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles withhis handkerchief he said, "Are you the new editor?"

  I said I was.

  "Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?"

  "No," I said; "this is my first attempt."

  "Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture practically?"

  "No; I believe I have not."

  "Some instinct told me so," said the old gentleman, putting on hisspectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he foldedhis paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what must havemade me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see ifit was you that wrote it:

  "'Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.'

  "Now, what do you think of that?--for I really suppose you wrote it?"

  "Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have nodoubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips arespoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition,when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree--"

  "Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!"

  "Oh, they don't, don't they? Well, who said they did? The language wasintended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knowsanything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine."

  Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, andstamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I didnot know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door afterhim, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was displeasedabout something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I could not beany help to him.

  Pretty soon after this a long, cadaverous creature, with lanky lockshanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling from thehills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted,motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listeningattitude. No sound was heard.

  Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key in the door, andcame elaborately tiptoeing toward me till he was within long reachingdistance of me, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intenseinterest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, andsaid:

  "There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I suffer."

  I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see therelief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go outof the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the mercifulmoonlight over a desolate landscape:

  The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its young.

  It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain. Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat cakes in July instead of August.

  Concerning the pumpkin. This berry is a favorite with the natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that, the pumpkin as a shade tree is a failure.

  Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to spawn--

  The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said:

  "There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now, because you haveread it just as I did, word, for word. But, stranger, when I first readit this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before,notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now Ibelieve I am crazy; and with that I fetched a howl that you might haveheard two miles, and started out to kill somebody--because, you know,I knew it would come to that sooner or later, and so I might as wellbegin. I read one of them paragraphs over again, so as to be certain,and then I burned my house down and started. I have crippled severalpeople, and have got one fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I wanthim. But I thought I would call in here as I passed along and make thething perfectly certain; and now it is certain, and I tell you it islucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure,as I went back. Good-by, sir, good-by; you have taken a great load offmy mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agriculturalarticles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now. Good-by, sir."

  I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this personhad been entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling remotelyaccessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly banished, for theregular editor walked in! [I thought to myself, Now if you had gone toEgypt as I recommended you to, I might have had a chance to get my handin; but you wouldn't do it, and here you are. I sort of expected you.]

  The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected.

  He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and those two young farmershad made, and then said "This is a sad business--a very sad business.There is the mucilage-bottle broken, and six panes of glass, and aspittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the worst. Thereputation of the paper is injured--and permanently, I fear. True, therenever was such a call for the paper before, and it never sold such alarge edition or soared to such celebrity--but does one want to be famousfor lunacy, and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind? My friend, asI am an honest man, the street out here is full of people, and others areroosting on the fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because theythink you are crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials.They are a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head thatyou could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the firstrudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as beingthe same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and yourecommend the domesti
cation of the pole-cat on account of its playfulnessand its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams will lie quiet ifmusic be played to them was superfluous--entirely superfluous. Nothingdisturbs clams. Clams always lie quiet. Clams care nothing whateverabout music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! if you had made theacquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not havegraduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I never saw anythinglike it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut as an article ofcommerce is steadily gaining in favor is simply calculated to destroythis journal. I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want nomore holiday--I could not enjoy it if I had it. Certainly not with youin my chair. I would always stand in dread of what you might be going torecommend next. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of yourdiscussing oyster-beds under the head of 'Landscape Gardening.' I wantyou to go. Nothing on earth could persuade me to take another holiday.Oh! why didn't you tell me you didn't know anything about agriculture?"

  "Tell you, you corn-stalk, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? It'sthe first time I ever heard such an unfeeling remark. I tell you I havebeen in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it is thefirst time I ever heard of a man's having to know anything in order toedit a newspaper. You turnip! Who write the dramatic critiques for thesecond-rate papers? Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprenticeapothecaries, who know just as much about good acting as I do about goodfarming and no more. Who review the books? People who never wrote one.Who do up the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largestopportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticize the Indiancampaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and whonever have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out ofthe several members of their families to build the evening camp-firewith. Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowing bowl?Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it inthe grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you--yam? Men, as ageneral thing, who fail in the poetry line, yellow-colored novel line,sensation, drama line, city-editor line, and finally fall back onagriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poorhouse. You try to tellme anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through itfrom Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the biggerthe noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knowsif I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead ofdiffident, I could have made a name for myself in this cold, selfishworld. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you havetreated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done my duty. Ihave fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted to do it. I said Icould make your paper of interest to all classes--and I have. I said Icould run your circulation up to twenty thousand copies, and if I had hadtwo more weeks I'd have done it. And I'd have given you the best classof readers that ever an agricultural paper had--not a farmer in it, nor asolitary individual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine tosave his life. You are the loser by this rupture, not me, Pie-plant.Adios."

  I then left.