S8 



HORTICULTURE, 



July 13, 1907 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE HOG- 

 BACKS. 

 (Thomas J. Oberliu, Sinking Spring, Pa., 

 before tlie Florists' Ciub of Plniladelphia, 

 July 2nd, 1907.) 



What is a "Hogback"? 



Here and there throughout the coun- 

 ty of Berks and the adjacent country 

 can be seen bare, uncovered spots, usu- 

 ally at some elevation above the sur- 

 rounding -wooded or verdure-covered 

 surface; In many instances they are In- 

 accessible to the ordinary methods of 

 tillage— where a plow would find it ex- 

 ceedingly difficult to draw a furrow 

 through the hard, sterile or rocky soil, 

 even it it were possible to get there 

 with that implement. These arid, 

 desert-like spots hump themselves up 

 in conspicuous fashion, visible fre- 

 quently at long distances and mar by 

 their unsightly barrenness what would 

 otherwise form a portion of a beauti- 

 ful, verdure-covered landscape. 



In the South they call such patches 

 hog-backs, and we have borrowed the 

 term and applied it to similar situa- 

 tions in Berks County. Just why our 

 southern friends have called them hog- 

 backs has not been so clearly explained 

 to the writer, unless it is that through 

 the exercise of a lively imagination 

 they observed some similarity in their 

 general contour to the donsal surface 

 of a Georgia razor-back when his 

 swineship arises from his slumbers, 

 yawns and elevates his spinal column 

 to a maximum curvature. 



The hogbacks of Berks County admit 

 of classification. In the first class we 

 would place those existing in the red 

 shale and yellow gravel districts; in 

 the second, those found in the lime- 

 stone formation. The former frequent- 

 ly are pictures of desolation, being en- 

 tirely devoid of vegetation on their 

 crests except perhaps some lichens and 

 mosses, every particle of arable soil 

 having been washed away by the winds 

 and rains of past centuries. The latter 

 are usually more accessible and re- 

 spond more readily to the hand of the 

 gardener; the sharp lichen-clothed 

 rocks protrude at the apex and also at 

 the sides through the shallow, loose 

 soil, bordered perhaps by thin grass 

 and some depauperate shrubbery, 

 struggles to live wedged in tightly be- 

 tween the rocks. 



The Task of Redemption. 



The task of redeeming these seem- 

 ingly useless spots from their native 

 savagery, in which they have lain for 

 centuries since the first pioneers 

 cleared the surrounding laud in the 

 fertile valleys and dells and began its 

 cultivation, seems to be a most forbid- 

 ding and hopeless one. It seems as if 

 it would be necessary to invoke a good 

 fairy to pass her magic wand over 

 these barren places before anything of 

 beauty or value could be ' brought 

 forth; and yet, it has been the experi- 

 ence of the writer to observe at least 

 a few such spots that have Ijeen made 

 productive without rubbing a lamp or 

 resorting to any other Aladdin-like 

 processes. 



It also is very strange that nature 

 herself has covered just such spots 

 with suitable flowering plants and left 

 a great many uncovered to be complet- 

 ed by man. but such is really the case. 

 The flowering plants, however, that 

 nature has placed there have no par- 

 ticular value as a cut flower; their 

 mission, it seems, has been to simply 



suggest to man what should be planted 

 there either for profit or beauty, as 

 will be shown later on. 



The next thought will be. How is 

 this work of redemption to begin? We 

 can say in a general way that if we 

 dig or blast pockets into these barren 

 or rocky places, wide and deep enough 

 to hold a sufficient quantity of good 

 rich soil, and the surface is not too 

 precipitous to be washed away by 

 heavy rains, we can succeed in cover- 

 ing them with shrubbery or low ever- 

 greens. This has been successfully 

 done. But when the sides of your hog- 

 back descend very abruptly so that a 

 foothold can scarcely be maintained 

 and the foregoing method fails us, 

 what can be done? And this brings us 

 to the consideration of two specific 

 hcg-backs which have been under our 

 observation for a number of years. 



A Barren Spot. 



A gentleman has a beautiful estate 

 south of Reading, Pa., its surface is 

 very undulating with some steep hills. 

 Near the top of one of these is the 

 mansion, commanding an extensive 

 view of the surrounding country, the 

 Schuylkill River and the city of Read- 

 ing visible in the distance, the Blue 

 mountains in successive ridges fading 

 away on the hazy horizon. Overhead 

 the banks of clouds speeding across 

 the valley cast their shadows on the 

 surface of the earth as if racing along. 

 It is a charming picture and, to mar 

 it at all, in the center of this beautiful 

 estate there arises a barren red and 

 yellow hog-back in all its dreary 

 nakedness which has defied all efforts 

 to be clothed. 



Here, Nature appears to have some- 

 what reversed the order of things. 

 This hog-back is in the midst of cul- 

 tivated fields and a beautiful spi'ing 

 which supplies the reservoir on che 

 premises is near the top of a hill with 

 an old Indian trail leading to it when 

 you would naturally expect to find the 

 spring near the botton of the hill. 



This barren spot looked particularly 

 repulsive when you walked along the 

 Indian trail in the direction of the 

 spring and as this was a favorite walk 

 of the owner it was decreed that the 

 hog-back or barren must disappear 

 and if possible have a green covering 

 during the entire year. 



Pine and cedar trees had been tried 

 without success. Pockets were dug 

 and evergreen honeysuckles planted, 

 l)ut at that elevation so high and so 

 dry the struggle for existence became 

 each succeeding 5'ear more precarious. 

 Plants Suitable for Desert Conditions. 



Finally the owner sent for the writer 

 to help solve the problem. I went, I 

 saw but I did not conquer immediately. 

 I approached it with great caution and 

 some trepidation as you would some- 

 thing uncanny or hoodooed, looked it 

 over rather sadly, covered as it was 

 here and there with the melancholy 

 debris of former failures. The remains 

 of the nurseryman's stock were still 

 there stiff and stark in death like dead 

 men's skulls and the bleaching skele- 

 tons of a desert caiavan strewn about 

 as a warnitig to newcomers. Of course, 

 with so much mortality covering the 

 hog-back yon cotild hardly expect me 

 to promise anything except to wander 

 homeward and think it over pro- 

 foundly and seriously. I tried to think 

 of every flowering plant that grows 



on the barren summits of the South 

 Mountain. At last, I thought of Teph- 

 iosia virpiniana, Hoary Pea or Catgut 

 and what a refreshing symposium of 

 color and beauty it was on the dry and 

 liarren crests of the mountain! It has 

 a root so long and tough and penetrat- 

 ing it takes all your strength to up- 

 root it. Ah! I thought, if we could 

 stretch some catgut on this man's hog- 

 back, then, there would be some music 

 when the fiddler comes along. 



Comme'ciaily, you can procure cat- 

 gut in all the letters of the chromatic 

 scale when the violinist's article is 

 needed but when it comes to the other 

 catgut, Tephrosia virginiana, there was 

 none to be found in the market. There 

 was nothing that we could do except 

 to look for an allied plant now under 

 cultivation and supplied by growers of 

 liardy perennials, a plant of another 

 genera and in the same family, the 

 Leguminosae or Pulse family. We 

 concluded that Lathyrus latifolius, 

 Everlasting Pea, of a pink-purple color, 

 which also has a long and tough root 

 would succeed on the barren. As indi- 

 cated before it was the tephrosia that 

 suggested the lathyrus but we had 

 never seen the latter grow under such 

 conditions and its trial would be in 

 a great measure experimental. If it 

 succeeded, it would at any rate cover 

 the hog-back during che summer 

 jnonths. We hastened to the owner 

 of the property with our explanation. 

 "It it succeeds, we will also have 

 flowers for cutting." he said. "That 

 is very good; we will try it." 



We went right at it in October and 

 planted several hundred. We dug 

 trenches transveisely across the back 

 taking great care to place the ex- 

 cavated earth and stones at such places 

 that they would not run away from 

 us, losened up thp bottom of the trench 

 and mixed some ammoniated bone 

 phosphate thoroughly with the soil and 

 laid in the roots at an angle covering 

 them with what loose soil we had and 

 placed stones and rocks on top to keep 

 the soil from rolling. We might call 

 this a stone mulch. We had to wait 

 until the following June tor results 

 and the way those perennial peas 

 grew and bloomed on that hog-back 

 was a surprise to everybody. There 

 was such a plethora of flowers that 

 all the blooms could not be used at 

 the house for decorating. This was 

 six years ago and the vines have since 

 grown ranker and denser and when 

 the season of bloom is over a thick 

 mat of dark green foliage covers the 

 barren. This is the story of a hog- 

 back of the first class. 



Experimenting With a Limestone 

 Tract. 



At present, we are actively engaged 

 in reclaiming one of the second class 

 (ir in a limestone formation. In recent 

 ; rars there has been no income from 

 this patch, except that the scant 

 ;:rowth of grass wa.s grazed by cattle. 

 Ill this case the strata of limestone 

 liave no dip, but project vertically from 

 the surface of the soil. The surface 

 .soil, if there is any, is of various de- 

 crees of thickness, and the subsoil is 

 a very stiff yellow clay. Between the 

 m'ojecting rocks, there often is sutH- 

 I'ient space to drive a hole with a post- • 

 ■ lar in which a root can be inserted and 

 the earth gently tamped with a 

 wooden rammer. In these holes and 



