Pioneer Agriculture

PIONEER AGRICULTURE

The pioneers who came to the Virgin River Basin had to test the possibilities of their new home to determine for what it was best adapted. They demonstrated that cotton would mature in the basin all the way from Zion Canyon to the Muddy Valley on the southern end of the Virgin's drainage basin. Indian corn, other common grains, sorghum cane, grapes, peaches, apricots, plums, and in the higher altitudes apples, pears, and berries seemed to do well enough after the problem of alkali was solved. The country seemed particularly adapted to fruit growing; the sandy, well-drained loam of certain localities and the many days of warm sunshine produced well-colored fruit of excellent flavor.

The farmers soon began to form associations for the improvement of crops. The earliest was the Gardeners' Club which was organized at St. George sometime in 1865. A letter from William H. Crawford of Washington to the Deseret News under date of August 25, 1865, gives evidence that the club was active at that time. The letter told of the club's first exhibit, held at the St. George Hall, and praised particularly B. F. Pendleton's grapes and Walter E. Dodge's pears. The invited public "pronounced it the best show of fruits they had seen in Utah."

Crawford's letter gave the names of some of the members — William Branch, Richard Bentley, B. F. Pendleton, Walter E. Dodge, Erastus Snow, Joseph E. Johnson (president), and Crawford himself.

Joseph E. Johnson, the genius of the club's organization, was a powerful force in the development of horticulture and floriculture in Dixie. In his newspapers, which he began publishing early in 1868, he passed on to the public his extensive knowledge in these fields; most of all he gave practical demonstrations of his skill on his own property in St. George. In 1876 his garden — both fruits and flowers — was pronounced by a group of visiting brethren from Salt Lake City as the finest south of Salt Lake City. His holdings stretched all the way through the block upon which Brigham Young built his home — still standing — in St. George. Here Johnson cultivated his trees, vines, and flowers, and carried on his nursery business. He wrote in the May, 1870, issue of the Utah Pomologist that he had over one hundred varieties of grapes. Grapes, Johnson argued, made a never-failing crop, and from his own experience he advised — both vocally and with his pen — his many friends as to die best grapes for table use (early and late), for raisins, for show, and for wine. "Grape growing," he said, "must be a sort of specialty here; we have taken time by the forelock and .. . have imported the creme le creme of the worlds vineyards and hodiouses."

He advised his readers {Pomologist, February, 1871) as to the proper time to put out cuttings and how to care for the vines. They might put them on "poor, sandy, rocky gravelly ground, but give them plenty of cow manure and you will be rewarded with choice fruit," he said.

Johnson was an enthusiast about figs and pomegranates and noted with satisfaction that both had survived the hard winter of 1869-70 without appreciable damage.

He probed every possibility of which he could think for adding agricultural strength to Dixie. He urged, after heartening experimentation, that the Gardener's Club members raise peanuts. "If they are a valuable and profitable crop for food and oil in the States, where oil and fat are cheap and plenty," he argued, "how much more so here, when they are scarce and high . .. and add so greatly to our comfort and luxury." Walter E. Dodge had made a trip to California in 1862 and brought back five stands of bees.

Johnson acquired a start and began preaching bee culture, remarking in his Pomologist that "our apiary has been a busy and increasing scene." Just one year later, in the Pomologist of July, 1871, he remarked that Dixie should be one of the best honey-producing regions "for . .. this is a lucerne growing country. This plant is always plentifully in bloom and bees forage on it for honey strongly and constantly all season...."

He propagandized for the production of the bena plant as a source for oil and for oil cake that might be fed to catde. Its oil could be used for salads and the seeds eaten as nuts. He gave a Brother Foremaster a salute in his paper for his success in producing a sweet oil from the bena and prodded his readers to "pay greater respect to this valuable and worthy plant."

He cited Luther Hemenway, Dr. Silas Higgins, and Henry Eyring for their success in grape grafting. But he must really have startled the community when he announced in the November Pomologist of 1870 that he had harvested a peck of Chinese upland rice from some with which he had been experimenting. "Rice does well here and makes a good crop, if placed upon rich damp soil, and yields as much as wheat," he declared.

His ambition seemed limitless. He imported a tiiousand sugar maples as an experiment in the development of a sugar industry in Utah. "We have them planted in various localities that their adaptability and usefulness in these mountain regions may be tested," he announced in the Pomologist of April, 1870. During this year he was experimenting also with silkworms and expressed satisfaction with his success. The mulberry tree, he opined, would not only furnish food for the silkworms; it would make the most beautiful shade for the city sidewalks.

Johnson loved flowers. The beauty of his garden with its terraced banks and borders of flowers, shrubs, and vines is a legend today in St. George. He lavished his love of the beautiful in nature on the grounds of his home and created there a little Garden of Eden that influenced many of the citizens of St. George and vicinity to seek by their own labor and ingenuity to do for themselves what he had, in one sense, done for them. In the Pomologist for April, 1871, we find a statement typical of his feeling for flowers.

Flowers lend an embellishing grace even to a rude house, and an air of taste, beauty and refinement to all the surroundings. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." None are so poor and humble but they may possess and cultivate flowers, which like the rain, the dew, air and water are the free bounteous gifts of our Father, and who should be so ungrateful for these exquisite blessings as to neglect to enjoy them fully.

In 1867 the Gardeners' Club built the Gardeners' Club Hall, which still stands as a part of the office of the Rugged West Motel on Highway 91. Here the club held its business meetings, exhibited the products of the members, and held their socials. The hall was frequently rented to other groups for similar purposes, and the litde building became a hive of community activity. The club issued a scrip which circulated with other similar currencies as money.

In 1868, under the aegis of Johnson and his associates in the Gardeners' Club, the Rocky Mountain Pomological Society was born. This organization had branches in a number of the communities of the Cotton Mission, their purpose being "to improve our fruit to the highest point of excellence and value." By 1870 still another fruit growers' club had been organized, this one by Luther S. Hemenway, a skilled horticulturist and nurseryman who had been called to St. George from Salt Lake City in 1865. He brought what nursery stock he could transport on his trip south and immediately commenced activities. Walter E. Dodge had gone to California in 1862 and returned in February with many varieties of fruit trees (including citrus which failed to survive the relatively mild Dixie winters) and sweet potatoes. He developed a beautiful resort at Dodge Spring near St. George which was famous for its flowers, shrubs, and trees. Joseph E. Johnson called Dodge "The Father of the Vine" in Dixie.

Over at Bellevue (now Pintura) a branch of the Rocky Mountain Pomological Society flourished under the leadership of Joel Hills Johnson, uncle of Joseph E. Johnson. He had a beautiful array of fruits, vines, berries, and flowers growing there, and he is reputed to have grown melons weighing as much as ninety pounds.

The Rocky Mountain Pomological Society combined with dth Gardeners' Club in the use of the latter's hall. Anyone interested in horticulture was welcome to sit in on the discussions. These two groups collaborated for several years in promoting a fair. Reporting the fair of 1870, the Utah Pomologist claimed the display of fruits to be "one of the finest . . . ever seen in the Territory." There were fifty-five premiums awarded for a wide assortment of fruits, grains, vegetables, wines, household goods, flowers, barrels, ores, and other items. Joseph E. Johnson again proved his versatility by exhibiting the "best assortment of family medicines" which he had compounded himself!

Johnson had vigorously promoted this fair, exhorting his readers "to make this fair what it should be, the best we have ever had and a true exponent of the resources of this very strange country where the naked desert so closely blends with the bright and verdant Eden."

The several horticultural and pomological clubs of St. George held their festivals in addition to the fairs. The Pomologist of November, 1870, described one held the previous October, where, in "the Hall. . . tastefully and beautifully, and brilliantly adorned with evergreens, flowers, mirrors and pictures," the members and invited guests "feasted sumptuously" from the tables "liberally heaped with rare fruits and choice viands." After stuffing themselves to their hearts' content they engaged in "a great variety of amusements with hilarious pleasure until all were satisfied."

The Gardeners' Club and The Pomological Society seem to have lost their vitality by the 1880's. The attention of the farmers was diverted from fruits to other branches of agriculture, and organizations such as The Farmers' Mutual Improvement Association (1881) seemed to be dominated by alfalfa and grain farmers. There was a revival of interest in fruits and other agricultural products when the St. George Farmers' and Gardeners' Club was organized in 1888. The most active in the new group was Thomas Judd, the new club's president. He owned the complete block between Second and Third South and Second and Third East; his home faced Temple Street (Second East), but it was set well back into the center of the block, an imposing two-story structure. One entered the grounds through a graceful double gate and approached the house with its dormer windows and railed balcony up a wide patii flanked on either side by luxuriant lilac bushes. The whole block — there was no other house on it — he planted with fruit trees, almonds, figs, and grapevines. There was an arbor, or "summer house" overgrown with Isabella grapes; the huge mulberry trees, still standing in their massive dignity, shaded the commodious mansion. Thomas Judd was to St. George during the period of the late eighties and the nineties what Joseph E. Johnson had been in the preceding generation.

The emphasis on fruit production in the Cotton Mission grew out of its possibilities as a source of food and income for the hard-pressed settlers. Sun-dried fruit could be kept for winter use, and it could be freighted north as far as Salt Lake City to be exchanged for much needed goods. A lot of value was tied up in a load of dried peaches, apricots, apples, and raisins, and it was not at all damaged in transportation over some of the roughest roads in the West. Peaches, grapes, and apricots early came into bearing, and consequently these were emphasized. When autumn came the settler loaded his big seamless sacks (made at the Washington Factory) full of dried fruit into his wagon box and headed north. The round trip to Salt Lake City consumed about a month, more or less, depending on the condition of his team and outfit. He could usually find relatives or friends with whom he could stay overnight in the settlements that dotted the Wasatch Front on the road to Salt Lake City. Arrived at his destination, he exchanged his load for needed merchandise at the stores, and then began the long journey home. When Z.C.M.I. came into being, this Mormon firm took much of the Dixie peddler's fruit, and the co-operative stores in the Cotton Mission became clearing houses for the dried fruit, molasses, and wine produced. For example the Co-operative store at Rockville in 1885 collected 36,000 pounds of dried fruit, freighted it to Salt Lake City and sold it there.

Typically the pioneers turned necessity into recreation. Cutting up the ripe fruit and getting it on the scaffolds to dry was a big chore, sometimes bigger than a single family could manage; so they invited the neighbors to help and turned the burden into a social gathering.

Much of the dried fruit went to the settiements of Iron, Beaver, and Juab counties, while a considerable amount found its way to Sanpete Valley. The mines at Pioche, Nevada, furnished a market for both fresh and dried fruit. From these places they obtained potaoes, flour, and some cash in exchange for their fruit, molasses, and wine.

The grape thrived in most areas of the Virgin River Basin. Among the early settlers were vine dressers, notably in the Swiss Company which came to Santa Clara in 1861. Soon it became evident that Dixie was producing more grapes than its people could consume or barter up north. The natural answer was to make the surplus into wine. This the settlers proceeded to do with the approval of President Young himself. He did not want the Saints to consume the wine themselves, although there seems to have been no objection from him — nothing forceful at least — to its moderate use, for wine was served at many a social function where local church officials and visiting authorities were in attendance. It was Brigham Young's intention that the wine produced in Dixie was to be used for the sacrament in the various settlements of the church and the surplus was to be sold to the Gentiles. He condemned drunkenness with characteristic vigor, and at the conference held in St. George on May 2,1869, he said the drunkard and the man who sold him the wine should both be excommunicated. President Young and Counselor George A. Smith issued a circular to the United Order of St. George Stake in 1874 in which they advised having the wine made in but three or four places where men with proper skill could supervise its manufacture. They also gave instruction as to the kind of barrels to be used and added the advice that it be sold to the Gentiles. John C. Naegle, an immigrant from southern Germany skilled at wine-making, was called to go to Toquerville to teach the people the correct method of making wine. He and Ulrich Bryner were granted a license by the county court in 1867 to operate a distillery there. Naegle built his big rock house in Toquerville with its wine cellar underneath, and at St. George the enterprising citizens built the big storage room which was known as the Wine Cellar, where wine-making was centered.

Many of the towns of the Cotton Mission produced wine, the soil between Virgin City and Santa Clara being particularly well adapted to viticulture. Wine became one of the most common articles of trade, for it could readily be exchanged for other things. It was paid in large quantities as tithing, and not a few gallons went to the irrigation companies in payment of water assessments. Large amounts went to Pioche, to Silver Reef, and to the northern settlements; but not an insignificant amount found its way into the innards of the people of the Cotton Mission, demoralizing the will of many otherwise good men and laying temptation in the way of the young. One confirmed winebibber was said to exclaim jovially as he tipped the dewey jug to his mouth, "Watch out, guts, here comes a flood!"

Such men as Joseph E. Johnson had high hopes for Dixie's wine industry upon which he editorialized in the pages of the Utah Pomologist. He pointed out the natural advantages of Dixie for the production of good wine and painted a glowing picture of such possibilities. But he laid his finger squarely on the principal reason for the subsequent failure of the wine industry in Utah when he warned (Utah Pomologist, June, 1870) that "if we are judged by the quality of wines we have heretofore sent to market, our climate, and capacity for producing the choicest of fruit would be harshly dealt with, for with our total ignorance in manufacturing wine the most delicious fruit may have been changed to an unsavory beverage."

But the wine industry came to a sorry end. There were simply too many cooks making wine, and it found a place with silk and cotton in the graveyard of unrealized hopes. The absence of a standard quality was perhaps the biggest drawback. Almost everyone with a few vines made wine for his own use and a little to sell. They paid their tithing with wine also and were not always careful to see that the "Lord's tenth" was their best; in truth it was too often the poorest. There were about as many flavors and qualities of wine as there were tithepayers. The sale of poor tithing wine damaged the reputation of this product; moreover, the personal degradation and disorganization convinced the church authorities that the promotion of the wine industry had been a grave mistake. The Tithing Office at St. George quit taking it as tithing and abandoned its own winepresses in an effort to discourage its manufacture. The use of wine in the sacramental service was abandoned in favor of water after the evil fruits of wine had so long been evident. Its manufacture persisted a long time, but gradually thed under the inexorable pressure of the laws of economics. Wine-making as it was carried on was not as lucrative as other products, and this, coupled with the moral pressures resultant from wine's misuse, ended the industry in Dixie. It had promised much, but like so many of Dixie's dreams, came to little.

But if the Cotton Mission was disappointed with its hopes of gain from wine, there was one agricultural item introduced whose results must have exceeded the expectations of the most sanguine. Alfalfa, or lucern, as the people of Dixie called it, proved to be a boon of greatest importance.

The scarcity of forage for domestic animals was one of Dixie's greatest drawbacks. Dried corn fodder, bagasse (sorghum cane with the juice crushed out), and the straw of wheat and barley were at best poor provender for cattle and horses doing heavy farm work. Grain for animals was out of the question, for the pioneers were hard pushed to raise corn and wheat enough for their own bread. Little milk was available because of inadequate feed for cows in winter. During the summer the cattle were grazed on the hills near the towns and on unfarmed land; but unless there had been abundant moisture during the winter and spring, this method of feeding stock was at best inadequate. But wet winters in Dixie are rare. The milk obtained from animals feeding on the herbage of the plants and shrubs native to Dixie was often bitter and unpalatable.

Grazing on the public domain was carried on by means of a town herd. The herdsman carried a horn (made from a cow's horn) which he blew as a signal for people to turn out their cows. The animals were taken to the hills and herded to prevent their getting into the unfenced fields to damage the growing crops. At night the herder brought the cows back, perhaps to a large community corral such as the people of Washington had on the hill bordering the northeast side of town; there the people could get their cows for the evening milking. John T. Woodbury, a Dixie pioneer, said that for quite a few years after St. George was founded, the horses were taken into the hills after a day's work and hobbled to prevent their straying while they nibbled the sparse and almost nonexistent grass and the desert shrubbery.

And then like Persephone's arrival in the spring after a harsh winter came alfalfa to relieve the Saints of one of their most persistent problems. Just when it came is uncertain, but it probably came to Dixie by way of the Mormon refugees who left San Bernardino in 1857 when the Utah War necessitated the calling in of the settlers from the outposts which sat astride the approaches to the Great Basin. It is generally held that Charles Stapley brought the first seed to Dixie; he is said also to be one of the Mormon missionaries who brought the seed from Australia to California. Whatever the source of the famous plant, its coming was a godsend to Dixie. James G. Bleak first mentioned alfalfa in his crop report of 1864. Toquerville, where Charles Stapley settled, had twentyfour acres that year, more than any other town of the Cotton Mission. That alfalfa was grown in Dixie earlier than 1864 is substantiated by Robert F. Goold's letter to the Deseret News, August 16, 1873, in which he said, "In the year 1861 . . . myself, with other families, located at Washington. At that time there were but a few small patches of alfalfa ... at Washington." Goold went on to tell of how this legume thrived on the sandy soil that would grow little else at first and how the alkaline soil, once leached of a part of the mineral salts in its composition, produced abundant crops of alfalfa.

It seems not to have been introduced into St. George until about 1870. It is said that William Lang pioneered its use there and after a successful beginning planted five acres of alfalfa in the Tonaquint Field below St. George. On the rich virgin soil it produced enormously, and people wondered how Lang would ever be able to get so much feed cut. The introduction of the mowing machine and the horse rake solved that problem, and there came to Dixie a new source of security.

Indeed, it would be difficult to overestimate the difference for the better in the material lives of the Dixie settlers wrought by the introduction of this wonder plant. Alfalfa is about as well-balanced in necessary food value for horses, cattle, and sheep as any single plant can be. It furnishes bulk and at the same time the nutrients to sustain strength and healthy growth. Its coming meant that palatable, nutritious feed was available for livestock both summer and winter, and that the precarious dependence upon grazing in the hills or the inadequate meal of dry corn fodder or bagasse was a thing of the past. Stock could come through the winter in good condition for the heavy work of spring, and after a day's hard work could be fed in the corral instead of being taken to the nearby hills and hobbled out to pick an unsatisfying meal. Alfalfa meant, too, that cows could be fed regularly and well, and that milk, butter, clabber, and cheese became a common sight upon the pioneer's table. Alfalfa did still more: it enriched the soil because of the nitrogenfixing bacteria to which its roots became host, and better crops of grain were possible after the land had supported this useful legume.

All it needed was plenty of water, and it grew as if by magic. The first crop grew rank and tall, yet it was tender and brittle when made into hay. The second crop was lush and heavy and full of blooms upon which the bees feasted. A third and fourth cutting were always possible, the latter especially choice for milk cows; even a fifth was frequently harvested, and there was always a good pasturage after the last crop was garnered. Truly alfalfa was a marvelous plant which did much to smooth the rough edges of hard pioneer life.

And so by the 1870's the settlers in Dixie had pretty well determined what their land would produce. Grains, sorghum cane, alfalfa, vegetables of all sorts, many varieties of fruit, including choice grapes and the exotic fig and pomegranate — all these helped to balance the pioneer diet and supply items for trade. Cotton would mature reasonably well, and the Cotton Factory had been established. The Cotton Mission had begun to assume an air of permanence.

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