Caxton (18 page)

T
wo factors beyond their control and powers of prediction governed the prosperity
and happiness of the planters and farmers: the market, and the weather. The
rains of 1760 seemed to portend a bright, undisturbed future for the planters
of Queen Anne County. Tobacco, rye, barley, corn and even hemp were harvested
that year in bounteous quantities, with little spoilage or waste. Commerce between
Britain and her colonies, and between the colonies themselves, boomed and was
not much affected by the war at sea. Tobacco, lumber, and raw materials for
Britain’s infant industrial economy were traded for credit; lumber and foodstuffs
were traded with the West Indies for sugar, molasses, and French spices. Arthur
Stannard, the English agent, happily dispatched vessels groaning with hundreds
of hogsheads of tobacco to London and the custody of Weddle, Umphlett and Company,
and just as happily extended credit on their sales to large and small planters
alike. Ian McRae, representing Sutherland and Bain of Glasgow, extended little
credit, but bought most of his customers’ hogsheads outright in exchange for
farm implements, cloth, and household goods from his warehouse. He did a particularly
good business that year in salt, for he had made special arrangements with entrepreneurs
on the Eastern Shore who boiled sea water and collected bundles of salt, which
were loaded onto coastal vessels and sent to Caxton. “Salt for the cellar, sir,
or salt for the cattle? Refined, or by the gross?” were questions he asked several
times a day of his customers.

In the next year, the rains would not come, except in brief, miserly showers
that would moisten only leaves and the surface of topsoil. Then the sun would
reappear and burn off the moisture, drying and often browning the unnourished
leaves and baking the soil back to dust or dry, cracked clay. Masses of dark,
heavy clouds would form over the county, only to drift away to favor other counties
with steady downpours. The York River, too, taunted planters and farmers, for
it never fell, fed as it was by faraway rivers and streams and buttressed by
the sea level of the great Bay into which it flowed.

The plantations and freeholds of most property owners were too vast to water
by conventional means, which was to organize brigades of slaves, tenants, and
itinerant laborers to lug water bucket by bucket from the river, although some
ambitious planters and farmers resorted to this inefficient expediency for lack
of any other alternatives.

At balls, suppers, and in the course of occasional visits, Hugh had listened
to other planters’ tales of woe and tribulation caused by past droughts. Poor
crops, late plantings and harvests, and insect pests that seemed always to accompany
every dry spell and ravage especially the tobacco, all meant short credit on
bad terms, postponed improvements, a tightening of budgets and spending, and
ulcerous tempers.

The only planter who did not complain of past droughts and had no tales of
woe to tell, was Jack Frake. He showed Hugh how he dealt with such weather.
He had had built by his coopers several oversize hogsheads — four of them —
and on the top of each was a hole in which to pour water. At the side of each
was a tap. These four enormous barrels were each filled with about a hundred
of gallons of river water as they sat in a wagon, which was then hauled up to
and through his fields by a team of oxen. Jack’s tenants would then fill buckets
from the taps and water each tobacco or cornstalk, usually twice. Hugh marveled
at the idea, and was also astonished that no other planter emulated his neighbor’s
practice.

Jack told him the winter before the drought, “Otway’s place is crowded by a
little inlet, from which he’s built a narrow, shallow canal. It’s about a quarter
mile long and comes right up to his main field. His people get their water that
way, when necessary, and also fish in it.”

“And Mr. Vishonn, and the others?”
Jack shrugged. “They wait out the weather.” He paused, then asked, “What will
you do, come a drought?”
“I have an idea.” Hugh smiled, then asked, “How often do you water your hills
that way?”
“During a drought? Twice a week. We haven’t had to take water to the fields for
two years now. But we’re due for another dry season. They happen regularly.”
The idea was born in Hugh’s mind the day he first toured the plantation. His first
crops of tobacco, rye, and barley — his own crops, not those of Amos Swart, not
those sown, tended and harvested by slaves — were large, almost as large as Jack
Frake’s, even though he had set aside over fifty acres of exhausted soil to lie
fallow. He had donned the rough shirt and trousers of his black tenants and sweated
alongside them in all the stages of field work. His hands became calloused from
wielding shovels and hoes, and grimy with dirt and oily with the remains of countless
destructive hornworms he plucked from underneath tobacco leaves. And at the end
of each day in the fields, the spaces beneath his fingernails were caked with
green from suckering hundreds of tobacco hills, when he would need to pinch off
young bottom shoots on each stalk so that they did not deprive the broader, more
mature leaves above of water and nourishment. The tips of his fingers grew brown,
and when he held them to his nose, he could smell the tobacco. This made him happy.
And at the end of each day that first summer and fall, he would discard his shirt
and shoes and plunge from Meum Hall’s pier into the cool river water. He would
rest against one of the posts, close his eyes, and let the current cleanse him
of the dirt and sweat. He knew that Primus, Dilch, Bristol and the other former
slaves talked
about his presence among them in the fields, but he never learned what was said.
William Settle, his overlooker and steward, expressed his objection to it in the
guise of curiosity. “One hand more or less, sir, won’t make a difference. Besides,
that is work you are paying them to do.”
Hugh knew the purpose of Settle’s query. He answered, “They are my fields, Mr.
Settle, and I shall work in them when I please. And I know of no better means
to grasp the nature of the work and what is demanded of the fields and the men
and women who tend them. More planters should taste the labor. Perhaps they would
appreciate what they get for free.” That winter, for weeks on end, Hugh embarked
on the first stage of his idea to combat drought. He could be found in the bare
tobacco and cornfields, digging small holes and examining handfuls of soil — and
making notes with a pencil in a little ledger book. He could be seen riding into
the bamboo forest near Hove Creek on the south end of the property, measuring
the height and breadth of the plants — and making notes. For a week he traversed
the whole length of the arable fields with a plumb bob and an adjustable tripod,
stopping every few yards — to make notes. Mr. Beecroft and Mrs. Vere, when they
came into his library on errands, would see his desk covered with papers containing
strange drawings and multitudes of odd numbers. Mr. Settle could hold his genuine
curiosity no longer, and one afternoon, as he and his employer were discussing
how much lumber would be needed to build extra tenements for the men, he remarked,
“Mrs. Vere seems to believe that you are practicing witchcraft, sir. She can make
no sense of the drawings she has seen on your desk.” Hugh laughed. “Witchcraft?
If she could read as well as she keeps house, she would know I do not practice
witchcraft. Come into the library and I’ll show you. I’ve about finished with
the plans.”
Hugh opened a large leather portfolio and revealed those plans. “We no longer
wait on the weather, Mr. Settle. I refuse to be at the mercy of insentient nature.”
He waited a moment to allow the overlooker to flip through the many pages of notes
and drawings, then said, “At London Bridge there is a great machine that can collect,
pump, and raise nearly one hundred thirty thousand gallons of water an hour. This
water is transported by conduit to a water tower, and raised to a height of one
hundred and twenty feet. From the tower the water flows into mains beneath the
streets and into the lead pipes of any house on that side of the Thames that pays
a fifteen-pound or more rate. Windridge Court, my family’s London home, has running
water. Houses paying a lower rate avail themselves of neighbor hood pumps from
the mains.”
Mr. Settle did not know what the drawings before him had to do with this astonishing
information. His expression said so.
Hugh went on to explain his idea of creating a conduit of bamboo to carry water
to the fields. “From Hove Creek, to the well of this house. The gradual elevation
of this property from the river to the creek lends itself perfectly. There are
countless bamboo stems of the right diameter and length, many two inches by five
feet. We would have enough for three conduits, but I first wish to demonstrate
the efficacy of just one. The ends can be connected and sealed with tar and rest
on stands on the ground. Each
stand must be carefully tailored to accommodate the height of the ground it sits
on in order to create a straight and trim line in the conduit. At intervals we
will put plugs and tap holes from which to draw water into buckets.
The end of the conduit near the house will be fitted with another tap, and when
we wish to empty the conduit, it will be either near the house well or into the
well itself.”
The overlooker studied the drawings again and blinked. “But, sir: What will pull
the water?”
“Gravity, of course, Mr. Settle.”
“And how will water enter the conduit?”
Hugh hunted through the papers for and found another drawing. “In Hove Creek we
will build a platform, and on top of that, a collection tub that will empty into
the conduit. I have studied the possibility of putting a dam at that point that
could work with a water wheel with buckets, but the creek is too small and would
not produce enough force to turn a wheel. But two men working with buckets for
an hour or so would be able to fill the conduit.”
Hugh grinned when he saw comprehension, then appreciation, change his overlooker’s
expression. “That is not all,” he added. “Allow me a question: Why do we welcome
long rains? Because they sink deeply enough in the soil to be drawn up by the
roots. Watering the hills during a drought accomplishes little. Here is what I
have in mind.” He found another drawing, of a funnel from whose spout protruded
the stem of a plug.
“Henceforth, every tobacco plant, when necessary, must be watered with a funnel,
which can be pressed into the bottom of a hill as far as its rim. The plug here
will prevent soil from blocking the nose. After removing the plug, a bucket of
water is poured into the funnel. The water will be absorbed by the soil around
and beneath the roots. It will take more time, this method, but fewer stalks will
be lost by it. We will want about a dozen of these funnels, made of tin or lead.
Mr. Rittles and Mr. McRae both carry them in their stores. The plugs can be fashioned
by Primus or Bristol.” Hugh searched for and found a larger drawing, one that
was a complete plan of the conduit. “And here is a wonderful aspect, Mr. Settle.
Come winter, all its sections can be marked, together with the stands, and the
conduit taken apart and stored away from the fields to allow for spring ploughing,
and also to prevent water from freezing in the bamboo and cracking it. If in the
next year we conclude that another drought is upon us, the conduit can be speedily
reassembled.” He moved a caressing hand in the air over the drawing. “Iron pipe
would be ideal, of course, and easier to
work with, but I would need to order it from England and I fear the cost would
be prohibitive.”
“We could not hope to see it for a year,” remarked Settle. “Mr. Vishonn has iron
to sell, “ he suggested.
Hugh shook his head. “Mr. Vishonn would charge me nearly as much as I would pay
to have the pipe imported. And, you are right, imported pipe would arrive too
late.” He paused. “Well, now that we have entered an idle period, time and effort
must be invested in making the parts of the conduit and platform. I have marked
the bamboo we need from the forest. Have some men go in and cut it. Have it stacked
at the cooperage. Here is a plan for the creek platform. Anchor its posts with
brick. It must be sturdy enough to tolerate a busy man standing on one of its
cross beams. The second man will hand him buckets to pour into the collection
tub. As for the conduit, it presents another tricky task.”
Hugh reached down and held up a three-foot length of bamboo. He turned it around
so that the overlooker could see down its length. “Do you see the diaphragm, the
black disk there? Holes must be bored through these, large enough to allow passage
of water, but not so large that they would weaken the bamboo. These diaphragms
will help keep the bamboo from collapsing. So, a special awl must be fashioned
or adapted that will allow us to gouge a hole. It took me about an hour to make
this one hole with one of Miss Chance’s kitchen knives.”
Settle took the bamboo and examined it, then glanced at his employer.
“Yes,” he said, “this idea, and the funnels, may save us much labor.” “And the
crops,” Hugh said.
“Mr. Frake’s hogsheads carry about a hundred gallons of water each, sir. With
this conduit, we could have hundreds more without the effort.” The overlooker
shook his head in amazement. “Yes, sir. I’ll get the men cutting the bamboo tomorrow.”
Then he looked puzzled. “But, sir, why not just do what Mr. Otway has done: dig
a canal from Hove Creek? It would be much simpler way to water the fields.”
Hugh shook his head. “I have located boulders beneath the fields that are perhaps
half the size of this house, Mr. Settle. They divide the fields almost precisely
in half, running in a line from Hove Creek nearly to the house here. They could
not be removed or broken apart, not with all the powder in the Williamsburg magazine,
nor by an army of sappers. The conduit will parallel those boulders the entire
length.”
Throughout that winter, the conduit took shape, length by length, closely supervised
by its confident creator. In the cooperage, Hugh experimented with sections of
it, linking the ends together with pitch or tar, perfecting the stands on which
the conduit would rest, making drawings of taps, designing a wooden lock valve
for the well-end of the conduit. His obsession with the idea was contagious. Primus
and Bristol, the two senior black tenants, began offering suggestions and making
improvements,