corner is a population density map with a dot for every 500 people. bottom right is my own long island, which could not be crammed onto the regular part of the map and had to be set aside, hawaii-like. the big map is done all in greens and yellows and oranges for elevations and features railroads, canals and the new york state thruway. if i follow the green of the hudson valley up, north, i can see the orange of the catskills and on up of the adirondacks. over there in the catskills i can trace the ghost of what is not yet my reservoir, yellow of the delaware river valley snaking through those orange and even brighter orange peaks. there are more of them, of course. a map of the reservoir with depths and power lines hangs over a desk in a bedroom with bunkbeds and altimeters. the reservoir is so long
it is split into two bits at the downsville bridge. a copy of a map of my own hometown on thin paper lies curled in a tube. it shows the mine my great grandpa worked and all the others that made a little stretch of hilly land in southwest missouri into a lead town, now laced with occasionally collapsing tunnels and questionable soil. there is another pull-down map, this one of the united states when alaska and hawaii were still territories. we own books of lists, encyclopedias of anything and everything, books of old city boundaries. i am lucky to have found someone who tolerates, even supports, this desire to get and pore over old information. whatever it is that makes me want those things has got him, too. there is a reason we got married at a dragline shovel in the middle of strip mines. this means that from time to time we stop at flea markets and antique stores to leaf through their books. the sweetie is a fool for science books- space, weather, geology. who isn't, really? i will snatch up anything with a map or chart or graph. anything with a visual representation of something large. anything with step by step instructions. this weekend we grabbed a few little books, including the farmer's year book, a gift of the national bank and trust company of norwich, new york, with offices in chenango and delaware counties. 1963.
i like books like this because they are full of information. not necessarily information i can use, but things i like being able to know, just in case. the first page of the book promises me i can use it for reference, for records, for information. and i am in love. in smaller type it goes on to say "there are several pages which contain special information of value and ofttimes of immediate need". and i know that if i do not take this book home with me and make its valuable information my own i will surely die. immediate need indeed.
there is information on land measure, times to cut hay and how to measure a haystack.
there is a common nails reference table. and not just a common one but also one for finishing nails and casing nails. separate tables. i do not know what casing nails are but i know a 10d is three inches long, 10 1/2 gauge and that i can get 95 of them in a pound. there is a chart on description and use of files, including a cross section of each file drawn to help the user determine what is what. if i felt so inclined, i could record my acres, yield and value of corn, wheat, oats, barley, rye, clover, timothy and a handful of other crops. timothy? it's a grass used for hay. if i wanted to call up my pals in maryland every morning, i could record the layings of their four hens in a beautifully graphed egg record. that's right. beautifully graphed. the book tells me how to mix paint to get such colors as copper (red, yellow, black) and freestone (red, black, yellow ochre, white). i now know the most common paint failures by name and my favorite is alligatoring. i can tell you that you can get 400 square feet per gallon covered if you paint hard brick with a single coat of gloss finish oil paint. 350 square feet if you paint soft brick. there are weights and measures and information on crop pests, when they show up and what to do. i know now for a fact that my lemon tree, which is currently in fruit, had better watch out for 31 degree temperatures because they are injurious to a tree in that state. when in bud the tree can withstand a whole degree more and when there's no reproduction going on at all, my tree is brave to 28 degrees. i know that strong tea was used as an antidote to most poisons at the time except those treated with milk or raw eggs. i am glad it is not 1963.
but here is what just ripped my heart right out of me. "quantity of silage required
and most economical diameter of silo for dairy herd". if that is not a beautiful heading for a table i do not know what could be. this is an elegant arrangement of headings and subheadings and even a footnote. for herds from 13 to 70. with options for 180 and 240 day ensilings. the index will help me with anything i can't find by instinct and there's a two page section called "belting pointers" that clears up just about any possible questions a body could have about belts and pulleys, including, but not limited to, finding the horsepower that any given belt will economically transmit.
nobody needs this. nobody has to figure out any of this stuff without help anymore. paint comes in every shade imaginable and the person behind the paint counter will tell you exactly how much coverage you can get if the paint can itself won't. you can wade through 4 million interweb sites on the standards for grading of corn, but you can't get those standards opposite 18 rules for safe tractor operation and a page away from images of eight useful knots just the way they are right here.
there's a nice ruler on the back with the numbers 1 through 6 in thick red lettering and the edge of the book ruled off in sixteenths of an inch in a dreamy blue. a two year calendar. so maybe this is the interweb in 1963, the resources of the world, a farmer's world at least, all complete and immediate. day or night. right in your pocket.
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