

oe 
STUMPDIRT 
Stumpdirt is as “old as the hills,” yet many 
people have never heard of it. However, I have 
worked in it nearly all my life. Mother used it 
for her flowers and I began to gather it for her 
with a toy wheelbarrow when just a child. 
Many happy hours were spent in the farm 
woods at this work, and it was while getting 
Stumpdirt that I learned my first lessons in 
Nature. Chipmunks, squirrels, and birds became 
my friends, but when a ruffed grouse got up from 
behind a stump where I was filling my wheel- 
barrow I ran all the way home scared almost to 
death by the thunderous noise of its getaway. 
Lying on my back resting, I saw my first mistle- 
toe way up in the top of a gum tree. I can still 
remember the thrill of finding a blue gentian and 
it remains to this day one of my favorite flowers. 
Experience With Fertilizers 
As I grew up I became associated with father 
in the fertilizer business on the farm and all but 
forgot Stumpdirt. Father pioneered in fertilizers. 
Starting with the sale of marl to neighbors, he 
soon began grinding oyster shells for lime with a 
small outfit powered by a treadmill and the farm 
team. This was followed by a much more pre- 
tentious bone mill run by water power, and later, 
by steam. As chemical fertilizers came into use, 
he built a much larger factory devoted to “mixed 
goods” as he always called them. 
I helped with the actual mixing of fertilizers, 
but spent the most of my time on the farm. 
Denied a college agricultural education because 
of poor health, I gained much first-hand informa- 
tion the hard way. Lessons learned from test 
plots conducted for father in those early days 
seem all the more worthwhile as time goes on. 
Some neighbors called us “Presbyterian” farm- 
ers (a local term for putting up a good front) 
and I guess it was deserved, for the front of the 
farm got much more than its share of fertilizers. 
It was good advertising though, as the bumper 
crops .we raised helped no little to sell our 
product. 
Old Love 
When the fertilizer business outgrew the farm, 
father built a larger plant in an adjoining town 
and I stayed on the farm. With more time, I went 
back to my early love—native plants—but the 
