The 1974 Winter Edition of the Foxfire Magazine contains a compilation of newspaper articles written by Harvey Miller. At the time of the magazine’s publication Miller’s weekly column had been around for sixty years and was till being published in the Tri-County News located in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
1972
The snails and slugs sure are gettin bad in this lower end of Mitchell County area. It is during the night when they do their damage and early of the morning when you travel the country roads, you can see how many snails has traveled across the roads. In looking at the roads the snails made, they do a lot of writing and make some letters as plain as anybody can in writing. But it seems the snails make more letters of “O” than any other kind. There is a snail bait remedy on the market and the farmers here sure are buying it.
6/8/72
1971
A bumper hay crop is being harvested in the lower Mitchell County section. On steep hillside land, hay has yet to be mowed with a mowing scythe and the hay has to be raked by hand with a pitchfork and you can yet see many hay stacks in this area. That is one kind of work which takes two men – to stack hay. One man to throw up the hay to the man who is stacking it by placing it around the stack pole.
There is yet some men of this area who are good mowers with a mowing scythe. One farmer, Aspie McCoury, who lives in Dog Flat Hollow on Byrd Creek at Pigeon Roost said that he could yet shave off grass close to the ground with a sharp mowing scythe blade. If the weather is fair, it does not take very long to cut and put up a big hay field.
Well, Mrs. Thelma Tipton who lives near Relief section reported that she seen an odd occurrence the other day when she found her pet house cat on the lawn gnawing on a snake’s tail and the snake was trying to swallow a toad frog that was dead and for that reason, the snake could not fight or get away from the cat.
There was 30 people on Brummetts Creek Wednesday evening, June 9th, helping to set out tobacco at the farm that belongs to the Brummetts Creek Free will Baptist Church. The total number of the crowd at the church was 50 and five gallons of strawberry ice cream was made on the church house lawn.
6/24/71
1969
Mr. and Mrs. Mose Miller of Brummetts Creek section, despite their advanced age, is able to dig some roots and pull leaves for the market. Mr. Miller said that he already had a burlap sack filled with yellow dock root dry, ready to sell on the market.
6/19/69
We’ve never had a problem with snails or slugs, but Chatter and Austin have had a terrible time trying to keep them out of their garden. Sounds like the folks in Pigeon Roost had it even worse from the description of the road markings.
I’ve noticed folks in my area are putting up their first haying of the season and while it looks like a lot of hard work, I just can’t imagine how hard it was when you were using a scythe instead of a tractor.
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Use diatomaceous earth to prevent slugs. I sprinkle it directly on plants I don’t want bugs/slugs to eat. I sprinkle it around my strawberry beds & they won’t cross. Cuts ’em up. Never did have any luck with the beer, just makes a stinky mess. The diatomaceous earth takes care of all sorts of bugs other than slugs. Its a bit expensive & needs to be reapplied after rain – but my strawberries are precious.
My family used to put down salt to get rid of snails, they don’t survive salt.
My dad loved the Fox Fire books and articles. They are all about the general area where he grew up.
I’ve used beer successfully for slugs. I bury a cool whip container level with the ground and fill it halfway with beer. Slugs go in but can’t get out.
My husband and I love the Foxfire books! I read the comments and the one about the drunken squirrels and birds was hilarious!
There is not a lot of haying done here but I’ve noticed the winter wheat is golden brown and ready to harvest. Winter wheat is what White Lily and other good biscuit flours are made of. There is not much of it being grown here any more. The fields are being sold to developers so as the old farmers die off the local sources will dry up and we’ll be dependent on factory farms in the Midwest or Russia and Ukraine.
Guineas eat slugs and snails. They also eat ticks and stink bugs. They will attack en masse and kill rats, mice and snakes. They are the one best remedy for garden and yard pests! Plus their eggs are good to eat and also their meat. They taste just like chicken Their only downfall is the awful sounds that they produce. I can’t handle it but if you can they would be a wonderful addition to your garden.
Don’t those Guinea hens look like dinosaurs to you, Ed? I would like some, but hubby works afternoon shift. He needs to sleep until 10am. I know for a fact he would not appreciate the sound they make. Loud & awful.
Thank you for that, Tipper. I’ll have to check out the Firefox site too.
My uncle and aunt lived off of East Brained Road in Chattanooga, Tenn. and always had a garden in their back yard. The dirt was black and very rich. One year they were having trouble with snails and someone told her to put out beer in the garden. She did not hear the full instructions and bought some and put it out in lids and small pans. When my uncle came home from work he would set out on his back porch and he said on this particular day it took him a little while to figure out what was wrong with the squirrels and the birds. The squirrels were falling off the limbs and running into the trees and the birds were chirping or singing as loud as they could. My aunt had all of them drunk. She was suppose to buy the beer in bottles and and bury the bottle with the neck just barely sticking out of the ground. He laughed about the birds and squirrels and she told about how the bad feelings she had about buying the beer since neither of them drank. I never did hear if helped with the snail problem.
Hay is being cut around here now. In today’s blog it mentions the steep hills and a few days ago Tipper mention her yard being being very unlevel. I have heard this said about cows and maybe some other animals that live in the mountains having two legs shorter than the other two. I wanted to ask Tipper if this was true.
I have helped my Grandma when she cut grass with a hand sickle. I have not even seen one of them in years and years. I have used a scythe to but not much. One of the tricks to learn is keeping the blade parallel with the ground at the cutting portion of the swing. I was never good but I could do some good. I have used a swing blade (the hand tool weed-eater) quite a bit and I have one of them.
To me, the one that looks very hard is using a scythe with a grain cradle on it. The whole rig just looks so big and ungainly. I guess if a body thought about all the hand tools now gone to artifacts they could make a long list. Add to that the kind of skill needed to use them and we have lost a lot. Nowadays if all we had was hand tools most folks would be so intimidated they would never begin. Makes me think of “John Henry” and the question, “Did we win?”
Ron, I am very familiar with the tools you mention. My granddaddy’s scythe was burned up in a fire . He also had a grain cradle. I too have a swing blade, but now a lot of my weedeating is done with weed killer. Both my grandaddy and my wife’s granddaddy would wear thick light colored long sleeve cotton shirts or an unlined overall jacket(chore coat) when using these to cut hay or grain. The idea was when the shirt or coat got soaked with sweat it would help keep them cooler
Foxfire has some interesting stories. It’s funny how them snails do seem to be trying to write us a message with the silvery trails they leave behind and even looks pretty sometimes. But the damage they do on crops sure turns that moment of , oh how pretty, to the hunt is on to kill them. Strange creatures they are. The story about the cat, the snake and the toad seemed to be an image that flashed in my mind as I read it. That must have been a sight to see for sure! Scary and gross at the same time.
Tipper, I have to ask what on earth purpose do slugs serve? I hate those critters (and that’s mighty strong language to use concerning creation.) There’s COREYS SLUG BAIT at Lowe’s in a gold box and it really does the trick for a fairly cheap product. They say you can put beer in little lids and slugs will go to it and die. I use the Corey’s and it does a fine job for me. It has to be reapplied after rain. I read a SLUG HATE blog one day and laughed myself plumb silly. One man hired his nephew to ride over slugs in his driveway and they “popped” with a strange gratification. One person saved them and threw them on a bad neighbor’s car and it went on and on. I hate when they stick to my fingers. I like to SALT them and watch them melt…. lol from the hillbilly slug hater and I do mean hate. Btw, earwigs main diet is slugs and their nasty little babies…. love an earwig today!
Fortunately, I have the memory of long ago when all this was done by hand. It really did not seem as hard for those dear people as we have it nowadays. We used to hide in the haystacks and fodder shocks. A treasured memory is my grandpa taking me and some of the young aunts and uncles to help an older farmer with oats. The best I remember we went through the field and tied the bundles with some longer oats. Being always one who loved this type of thing, I was so very proud when that older farmer bragged on my efforts. We called him Uncle Welch, and he was such a sweet gentle older man getting help from my grandfather who was his neighbor who lived about 3 miles away. My Mom and one sister believed his wife to be a witch, and swore on different occasions to seeing Aunt Fanny lying in the cornfield peering at them. Hardly a match made in heaven! I steered clear of her, as she was a harsh plainspoken woman. Tales of her being a witch still come up after all these years, as the story was widely known. Anyway, later I would study Uncle Welch’s life through genealogy and found he had his first wife to die very young, possibly through childbirth which happened too much in those days. Back then we called older men or woman uncle or aunt as was the norm in that area. The inside of their small shack of a house was covered with newspapers all over the walls to keep out the cold. Their milk was in a mountain spring nearby. I consider it such a wonderful thing to have lived in those days with such gracious and kind people as Uncle Welch, but Aunt Fanny, but Aunt fanny now that is a different matter.
I’ve never had much of a problem with slugs or snails and just assumed they weren’t going to be a problem due to our heat here in Florida. BUT, I have three Greenstalks filled with strawberries and was so happy that we didn’t seem to have much of a problem with pests. However, I would wait to pick the berries that were ripening until they had that perfect color of deep red – full of sugars. Then I found that the day I was going to pick the berry, it had a hole in it’s bottom end. I didn’t know what was doing that as I didn’t see any pests. Then finally, I saw a tiny slug sitting on the end of a leaf – waiting for the nearby strawberry to ripen and finally I knew we hadn’t escaped that pest. They must smell the sugar and after your story I know they come out at night. Nature sure provides wisdom to even a slug! Do you koow what eats slugs?
I’ve long enjoyed the Foxfire books and magazines and recommend them to anyone who has an interest in and love for Appalachian history and culture.