1695 - A Pompous Expenditure on Peas

This article is from the 1850 Cottage Gardener and Country Gentleman's Companion, Volume 3.  I haven't found much more about this fad than a retelling of this article. Perhaps we should take it with a grain of salt?

It would not be either unamusing or uninstructive to trace the rise and progress of the taste for Green Peas.They were a luxury unknown to our early Saxon ancestors, for they had no varieties but the common grey pea; and though we have frequent mention of beans being eaten by them, we have never met with any such particular concerning the pea. Soon after the Norman Conquest, however, at monasteries and other establishments where gardening was cherished, we find that this vegetable was among those most desired. Thus, at Barking Nunnery, among other things, there were provided green peas against Midsummer.     

detail from a P.J. Redouté illustration

And, in the household book of a nobleman (Archaologia, xiii. 373), it is directed:

" If one will have Pease soone in the year following, such pease are to be sowen in the wane of the moone, at St. Andrew's tide, before Christmas." 

 “St. Andrew’s Tide”- on and around 30th November.

In the 17th century there seems to have been a mania in France for the Skinless pea (Pois sans parchmeine). Bonnefonds, in his Jardinier Francais published in 1651, describes them as the Dutch pea, or pea without skin, and adds:—

" Until very lately they were exceedingly rare."   

 Roquefort says, they were first introduced by M. de Buhl, the French ambassador in Holland, about 1600. 

The author of a Life of Colbert, 1695, says,

 "It is frightful to see persons sensual enough to purchase green pease at the price of 50 crowns per litron."

• In 2015, the relative value of  5s  from 1850 ranges from £24.11 to £840.40. Five shillings equal a crown so conservatively the peas cost £1,205.00.!   

• A litron was a little more than an English pint.)

This kind of pompous expenditure prevailed much at the French Court, as will be seen by a letter of Madame de Maintenon, dated May 10, 1696.

"The subject of peas continues to absorb all others: the anxiety to eat them, the pleasure of having eaten them, and the desire to eat them again, are the three great matters which have been discussed by our princes for four days past.   

Some ladies, even after having supped at the royal table, and well supped too, returning to their own homes, at the risk of suffering from indigestion, will again eat peas, before going to bed. It is both a fashion and a madness".

The taste was not confined to France; and when, upon the Restoration of Charles II, it became the popular and prudential habit to publish all the disadvantageous anecdotes, true and untrue, that could be collected, concerning the Cromwell dynasty, we rend, amongst others, 

"That Oliver was very fond of oranges to veal, and that the Protectress refused fourpence for one, just at the commencement of the Spanish war!  Moreover, that a poor woman, having a very early growth of peas, was persuaded to present some to the Protectress, though offered an angel (10s.) for them by a cook in the Strand. The Protectress only gave her 5s. for them ; and, upon the woman murmuring, returned them, with some severe remarks upon the increase of luxury." 

The taste, however, increased rather than abated, and extended to late green peas as strongly as to early; for on the 28th of October, 1769, it is recorded that four guineas were given for as many pottles of them in Covent Garden Market. Our memory fails us if we have not lately heard of as much as ten guineas a quart being paid by the civic authorities for shelled green peas.

• I found a site that gives this range - In 2015, the relative value of £1   1s from 1850 ranges

    from £101.30 to £3,530.00.   (A guinea was £1 plus 1 shilling.)

• pottle: A former unit of volume, equivalent to half a gallon, used for liquids and corn; a

     pot of around this size. 

I must credit E. Lewis Sturtevant for the phrase "This kind of pompous expenditure prevailed much at the French Court, as will be seen by a letter of Madame de Maintenon, dated May 10, 1696" which I inserted into the original article.

1893 - Heroine Peas - A Symphony of Green

When you strip away all the intellectual reasons why I keep poking around in the past after seed related facts and stories, what is left is my delight in the illustrations!

This one is from Peter Henderson's Manual of everything for the garden : Columbian year 1893.

Oh, and by the way, I overlooked the Sturtevant's Parsnip Chervil to Pepper installment, skipping ahead to 1890 - Portugal Cabbage to Rocambole .   Sigh...

I love the lithographic grain.

1920 - Seeds from Russian Filled Our Great Plains

This article is a good read. A  part of seed history I wasn't aware of, it is an overview of the history of how seeds from Russia saved us years and years of plant breeding to get varieties suitable for planting in the Great Plains.
This is also a plea from Russia for help when they were struggling to feed all their people.

LOC Photo:  Krasnodar (vicinity), USSR . Woman collective farmer with newly harvested wheat

Photo originally from National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, New York

RUSSIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO AGRICULTURE
IN AMERICA

AND AMERICA'S POSSIBLE GIFTS TO RUSSIA

By D. N. BORODIN, 

Agricultural Explorer of the 

RUSSIAN BUREAU OF APPLIED BOTANY

(What a wonderful professional title!)

RUSSIAN immigrants to America have contributed markedly to the development of agriculture in the United States. Up to the time of their appearance in the Great West, North America did not have any suitable grains and other agricultural products for that territory which has a smaller rainfall than the Eastern States.

The dark grey mass of Russian immigrants walking down the gangplank to the pier after a long trip across the ocean carried unwieldy packs filled with all manner of things full of memories, and at the bottom of each of those sacks was sure to be found a bundle containing precious seeds of plants grown back home.

The Mennonite from Molochnaya and other colonies of Crimea and Ekaterinoslav Province brought with him Crimean, Turkey Red and Kharkov wheats and Kherson oats.   The Molokans brought Sandomirka and Kustavka wheats. The natives of Kiev Province brought flax, sunflower, proso (millet) as well as wheat, and the seeds of watermelon and of Russian flowers. After much roving and much labor, the day at last arrived when the Russian immigrant farmer could apply his labor on his own land in a new country. And now the little bundles of seeds from home were carefully unknotted, and calloused, horny hands threw the Russian seeds with prayers into the soil of the New World. . . .

LOC Photos: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection
1910 -In album: Views in the Ural Mountains

In the eastern United States, which have a moist climate, the first crops raised by the early settlers were the wheats, oats and rye from England, France and other countries of similar climates. A hundred years passed and the first pioneers began to move westward, where they found the prairie dry and inhospitable to the plants of the moister East. Consequently, for a number of years, cattle breeding was the main occupation in the Great Plains. Agriculture did not develop until the Russian immigrant seeking his Ivanovka, his Molochnaya, his Crimea and Caucasus,—his own "life-zone,"—found also the life-zone of the plant-immigrants from the Russian steppes,—the drought-resisting varieties needed for the plains.

Group of Siberian emigrants, c. 1910

In the history of this plant immigration we have four stages:

(1) Importation of seeds by Russian immigrants to be used on soil similar to that of their homeland; 

(2) this fact noted by American agriculturists and proper value placed upon the adaptability of Russian seeds to the Great Plains of the United States;  

(3) special expeditions to Russia for seeds and plants undertaken by private individuals (as Bernard Warkentin) from among the immigrants, and by the American Agricultural Explorers: N. E. Hansen, M. A. Carleton, F. Meyer, H. L. Bolley and others;  

(4) selection and hybridization of Russian varieties at American Experimental Stations which led to their improvement in different respects and their adaptation to local conditions.

The more prominent Russian wheats which have thus been introduced into the United States are Fife, first brought into Canada by private individuals as early as 1848 and later carried over into the States; Kubajika and Arnautka, the usual Durum wheats in South Dakota; and Turkey Red, also known as Crimean, Kharkov, or Malakhof, which is the variety best suited for territories subject to periodic drought.

Regarding the introduction of the latter, Mr. M. A. Carleton, an American authority on this subject, writes as follows:

"The first settlements in Kansas were made in 1873 near Norton, Halstead and Moundridge.  Each family brought over a bushel or more of Crimean wheat for seed and from this seed was grown the first crop of Kansas hard winter wheat. . . Later on, several lots of Turkey Red or Crimean wheat were imported by the Department of Agriculture from the Molokhan district of Taurida."

Oats were also brought in from Russia. Kherson, one of the best-known varieties, is planted especially in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska and southern Wisconsin.

The State of Iowa, through the efficient work of its Experiment Station, is now able to supply other States with this seed. Kherson oats are also known as Wisred and Sixty-day.   Other Russian oats were brought later by the Call Agricultural Agency of St. Louis.                         
The Experiment Station at Madison, Wis., has marked this variety "White Russian".   The "Swedish Select" variety, which constitutes 75 per cent of the oats of the State of Minnesota, was imported from Russia. Oats have also been brought from Siberia and are known under the names of Tobolsk, Tatartan, Siberian, etc.

LOC Photo of Montana oats

An excellent illustration of the Russian contribution to United States agriculture was afforded last summer when a drought in several States bordering Wisconsin reduced the yield of all varieties of oats except those which had been brought over from Russia.

As a result of selection and hybridization, many Russian plants have undergone changes and have been improved to such an extent that they now present desirable varieties for re-importation into Russia. Many Russian staples, such as wheat, oats, alfalfa, etc., may find themselves in the position of the sunflower, that native of America which was imported into Russia a century or so ago and developed under the new conditions into an entirely different plant from its wild-weed ancestor (Helianthus annuus) of the North Western United States. After its Russian development it came back to America via Novorossisk, Odessa and the Baltic ports, and now flourishes in Wisconsin, North Dakota and Montana under the names of Russian Mammoth and Russian Giant.

The United States of America have found in Russia (because of similar climatic conditions) the plants necessary for their Northwest and the Great Plains. Let us hope that these regions will reciprocate. Among America's possible gifts to Russia may be counted the new variety of hard spring wheat known as "Marquis",  not long ago emigrated from Canada, which was noticed on p. 29 of World Agriculture (Vol. I, No. 2). Besides Marquis, the Durum varieties, Kubanka and Arnautka, mentioned above, and a Canadian wheat, North Manitoba, are now being sent to Russia as seed for the famine regions.

Plants which may be introduced into South Russia include many varieties of sorghum, such as Early Amber Sugar Cane, Orange Sugar Cane, Sumac sorghum ("red top"), Gooseneck sorghum, and also the Black-hulled Kaffir corn, the Red Kaffir corn and the White Milo, although the last three, coming from a more southerly region, cannot be grown in the Ekaterinoslav Government, as the experiments of 1908 have shown, but may be utilized in other regions. Not all the plants enumerated above are of American origin, but at the present time the seed material can be taken only from that country.

Wendelin Grimm, of Grimm's Alfalfa

A great many forage grasses, widely distributed in America, may also be utilized in Russia. Some time ago, Russia exported alfalfa seed to America in great quantities, but it is now necessary to re-introduce these seeds from America, in many instances improved by selection.  Grimm, Cossack, Peruvian and Chilean alfalfa are desirable for Russia as are the Sudan grasses. The so-called sweet clover (Melilotus), of European origin, is being more and more widely distributed in America and likely to play a considerable part in Russia. 

Soybeans are almost unknown there but experiments have proven the possibility of their culture. In the Caucasus, at an even more southerly point than where soybeans are grown, cowpeas will eventually be a successful plant. Peanuts may also have a wide distribution in Transcaucasia and in Turkestan. A great many varieties of potatoes and especially those selected for the short vegetation period of Alaska are very valuable for Russian Siberia.

Among native American plants which can be introduced into Russia, "Indian corn" (i. e. maize) must be given first place. The present distribution of maize is very limited in Russia compared to its distribution in America, where it is so widely cultivated and of such great economic value, in view of the enormity of nitrogenous substances it supplies on the farm. The fact that maize has always been raised in America has excluded the possibility of famine in that country.

Roasting Corn -  Artist: Alfred Rudolph Waud, about 1860-1865

Even during the Civil War, when there was a great possibility of hunger, it is known that the North withstood all hardships, thanks to the presence of maize. Certain varieties of this valuable plant, now advancing slowly to the north, may and should be utilized for Russia. Maize may become the salvation of the Russian farmer from the unexpected reverses to which he is subject on account of his climate.

At present, the culture of maize occupies 929,000 acres in the South of Russia, 857,000 acres in North Caucasus and about 910,000 acres in Transcaucasia, i. e., altogether approximately 2,700,000 acres, in contrast to the United States which grows Indian corn on about 105,000,000 acres. While there is no foundation for the expectation that the culture of maize in Russia will at any time compare with that of the United States, yet in the opinion of the foremost Russian agriculturists, it must and will become more widely distributed.

Experiments in the culture of American corn in the South of Russia, especially in the Ekaterinoslav Government, made by the Russian agriculturist and agronomist, V. V. Talanov, who published his report in 1909, have shown its complete adaptability. The varieties which can be best used in the Russian "corn belt" belong to the earliest types of flint and dent corn now raised in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan, Alberta and parts of South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The experiments in Russia have shown the admissibility of the following earlier varieties: Mercer-Dutton flint, Northwestern, Triumph, Longfellow, King Philip and North Dakota Golden. Medium ripening varieties may also be introduced into Russia, according to their life-zones.

1987 - Origin and Geography of Cultivated Plants- By N. I. Vavilov, Vladimir Filimonovich Dorofeev

A realization of the importance of extensive culture of maize in Russia has penetrated the 

minds not of the agronoms only, but also of the persons who stand at the helm of the Government. During the last Congress at Moscow, (1922) in the speech of the Commissar of Agriculture, the necessity of introducing maize and other drought-resisting plants was largely dwelt on.

The well-known agriculturist, Mr. Joseph Rosen, who is connected with the American

Relief Administration, has pointed out in his report the necessity of increasing the area allotted for corn culture. The result of recognizing its importance has been the decision to use a part of the credits given by the Russian Government for the purchase of seeds in this country, to procure corn from the above enumerated Northwestern States. 

At the present time these purchases are being made. There can be no doubt as to the gain to Russia. But it will be necessary to instruct the people in regard to the culture of maize in regions where it is not now grown. Properly introduced, this bids fair to be one of the most important of America's gifts to Russia.

In so short a report we find it impossible to enumerate all that America is in position to give to Russia, not alone in field crops but also in sympathetic assistance in the solution of her problems.

 America can give enormous help in the line of agricultural implements, methods and education. As soon as the Chinese Wall between Russia and the other countries is eliminated, the very first shipments after food and seeds will be those of American machinery.

JSTORS has this full article

Russia at the present time is greatly devastated by wars. She is in need of almost every commodity, for which she will be able to pay as soon as she comes into her own. 

Help must be given and can be given adequately only by one country—the United States. We Russians are certain that America will not refuse to give this so much needed help. 

Russian sunflowers have a wide distribution in the United States. Their Importance may he seen from the fact that while maize gives a yield of six tons per acre, Russian sunflowers of the silage variety yield from twelve to thirty tons per acre.

1920 - World Agriculture - Volumes 1-2 - Page 150 - Google Book 

Follow up links: 

• More on how Lagoda and Fife were imported and tested.
• Interesting anecdote (if you are into this sort of thing) involving Fife wheat (Go to Page 14)

1880s - "little bundles of seeds from home" - Russian Contributions To Agriculture In America

Russian farm scene showing thatched-roof buildings, with horses and barn in left foreground

The Great Plains of the United States gladly welcomed people from Russia who understood how to farm  the land so similar to their homeland.  This article introduces the many varieties of plants that the agronomists quickly embraced. 

•••••<•>•••••

RUSSIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO AGRICULTURE IN AMERICA

 AND AMERICA'S POSSIBLE GIFTS TO RUSSIA

By D. N. BORODIN, Agricultural Explorer of the RUSSIAN BUREAU OF APPLIED BOTANY

RUSSIAN immigrants to America have contributed markedly to the development of agriculture in

wheat - Fuchs

the United States. Up to the time of their appearance in the Great West, North America did not have any suitable grains and other agricultural products for that territory which has a smaller rainfall than the Eastern States.

The dark grey mass of Russian immigrants walking down the gangplank to the pier after a long trip across the ocean carried unwieldy packs filled with all manner of things full of memories, and at the bottom of each of those sacks was sure to be found a bundle containing precious seeds of plants grown back home. 

The Mennonite from Molochnaya and other colonies of Crimea and Ekaterinoslav Province brought with him Crimean, Turkey Red and Kharkov wheats and Kherson oats. The Molokans brought Sandomirka and Kustavka wheats. The natives of Kiev Province brought flax, sunflower, proso (millet) as well as wheat, and the seeds of watermelon and of Russian flowers. After much roving and much labor, the day at last arrived when the Russian immigrant farmer could apply his labor on his own land in a new country. And now the little bundles of seeds from home were carefully unknotted, and calloused, horny hands threw the Russian seeds with prayers into the soil of the New World. . . .

In the eastern United States, which have a moist climate, the first crops raised by the early settlers were the wheats, oats and rye from England, France and other countries of similar climates. A hundred years passed and the first pioneers began to move westward, where they found the prairie dry and inhospitable to the plants of the moister East. Consequently, for a number of years, cattle breeding was the main occupation in the Great Plains. 

Agriculture did not develop until the Russian immigrant seeking his Ivanovka, his Molochnaya, his Crimea and Caucasus,—his own "life-zone,"-—found also the life-zone of the plant-immigrants from theRussian steppes,—the drought-resisting varieties needed for the plains.

In the history of this plant immigration we have four stages: (1) Importation of seeds by Russian immigrants to be used on soil similar to that of their homeland; (2) this fact noted by American agriculturists and proper value placed upon the adaptability of Russian seeds to the Great Plains of the United States; (3) special expeditions to Russia for seeds and plants undertaken by private individuals (as Bernard Warkentin) from among the immigrants, and by the American Agricultural Explorers: N. E. Hansen, M. A. Carleton, F. Meyer, H. L. Bolley and others; (4) selection and hybridization of Russian varieties at American Experimental Stations which led to their improvement in different respects and their adaptation to local conditions.

The more prominent Russian wheats which have thus been introduced into the United States are Fife, first brought into Canada by private individuals as early as 1848 and later carried over into the States; Kubajika and Arnautka, the usual Durum wheats in South Dakota; and Turkey Red, also known as Crimean, Kharkov, or Malakhof, which is the variety best suited for territories subject to periodic drought. 

Regarding the introduction of the latter, Mr. M. A. Carleton, an American authority on this subject, writes as follows: 

"The first settlements in Kansas were made in 1873 near Norton, Halstead and Moundridge. Each family brought over a bushel or more of Crimean wheat for seed and from this seed was grown the first crop of Kansas hard winter wheat. . . . Later on, several lots of Turkey Red or Crimean wheat were imported by the Department of Agriculture from the Molokhan district of Taurida."

Oats were also brought in from Russia. Kherson, one of the best-known varieties, is planted

Nees von Esenbeck, TFL,
Plantae officinales - 1828 to 1833

especially in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska and southern Wisconsin. The State of Iowa, through the efficient work of its Experiment Station, is now able to supply other States with this seed. Kherson oats are also known as Wisred and Sixty-day. Other Russian oats were brought later by the Call Agricultural Agency of St. Louis. The Experiment Station at Madison, Wis., has marked this variety "White Russian." The "Swedish Select" variety, which constitutes 75 per cent of the oats of the State of Minnesota, was imported from Russia. Oats have also been brought from Siberia and are known under the names of Tobolsk, Tatartan, Siberian, etc. An excellent illustration of the Russian contribution to United States agriculture was afforded last summer when a drought in several States bordering Wisconsin reduced the yield of all varieties of oats except those which had been brought over from Russia.

As a result of selection and hybridization, many Russian plants have undergone changes and have been improved to such an extent that they now present desirable varieties for re-importation into Russia. Many Russian staples, such as wheat, oats, alfalfa, etc., may find themselves in the position of the sunflower, that native of America which was imported into Russia a century or so ago and developed under the new conditions into an entirely different plant from its wild-weed ancestor (Helianthus annuus) of the North Western United States. After its Russian development it came back to America via Novorossiisk, Odessa and the Baltic ports, and now flourishes in Wisconsin, North Dakota and Montana under the names of Russian Mammoth and Russian Giant.

The United States of America have found in Russia (because of similar climatic conditions) the plants necessary for their Northwest and the Great Plains. Let us hope that these regions will reciprocate. Among America's possible gifts to Russia may be counted the new variety of hard spring wheat known as "Marquis," not long ago emigrated from Canada, which was noticed on p. 29 of World Agriculture (Vol. I, No. 2). Besides Marquis, the Durum varieties, Kubanka and Arnautka, mentioned above, and a Canadian wheat, North Manitoba, are now being sent to Russia as seed for the famine regions.

...

World Agriculture, Volumes 1-7

World Agriculture Corporation, 1919

1879 - Sunflowers vs. the Pent Up Miasma

I had no clue that planting sunflowers used to be considered an excellent way to prevent malaria!

The swampy lowland around Washington D.C. were malaria magnets and the sunflower was promoted to protect the population of the city from the disease.  The sunflower is a heavy drinker, true - but the flawed logic of the general population in ascribing more powers to the sunflower than it legitimately possesses is interesting.   

Link

THE BENEVOLENT SUNFLOWER.

It is not the Aesthetical nor sentimental view of the sunflower that at present commands our attention, but rather its sanitary powers in warding off disease.

Agriculture is always lavish of its gifts. It feeds the hungry, clothes the naked and shields mankind from disease, sickness and death. The grass, the tree, the flower, all add to man's pleasure, comfort and health. Trees drain the wet places, and slowly but surely fill up disease-breeding swamps. But, in proportion to size, no plant is so beneficent in warding off malaria as the sunflower.

Sections of the once malarious West have became salubrious from the growth of sunflowers, accidentally dropped by some enterprising citizen seeking a new home on the generous acres of the West. These uncared for seeds took root, grew, and the plants ripened their seeds. These, the birds, or the winds, or both, scattered broadcast until an annual crop is furnished for whomsoever will partake of it. 

These plants have furnished for the emigrants' horses, oxen and other stock on his road to a new home a grateful shade in midday; and the old stalks convenient fuel to cook the breakfast dinner and supper for the weary traveler. But the greater blessing conferred by the sunflower is the protection from malaria of the settlers on the rich lands of the prairies.

Whether the leaves inhale or absorb the malarial elements of disease; or whether, by exhaling a superabundance of oxygen, sunflowers protect man and beast from sickness, physiologists haven not yet determined; but that they protect from malaria, experience and experiment have abundantly and convincingly proven.

All plants absorb carbonic acid gas, and exhale oxygen; while living animals exhale carbonic acid gas and inhale oxygen. Plants are largely composed of the carbon obtained from the air, while oxygen is the vitalizing element in animal organisms.

Homes, districts, army stations, hamlets, villages and cities have been protected from malaria by trees and plants; but of all the plants, none exert so benign an influence against malaria as does the sunflower.

Link

Recent experiments have shown that persons may be inoculated with the malaria contained in the water of swamps, and in the algae growing and decaying in them. Whether the large exhalations of oxygen from great numbers of sunflowers or the excessive transpirations of water through the broad excreting leaves of these plants exert the sanitary influences attributed to them, or whether some unknown agency operates or co-operates to produce this desirable result is not material, so long as the result is obtained by liberally planting sunflowers around, or on the swampy side of habitable places; so that there may be interspersed between the human domiciles and the malaria-producing regions this efficient preventive agency.

Efficient engineering doubtless is the most effective means of overcoming malaria—by thorough drainage. Arboriculture ranks next. But for the quick and efficient aids to both of these, the planting of sunflowers in a proper manner is the most prompt and reliable means.

The necessary excavations of the engineer at first intensifies evil, by liberating the pent up miasma. So indeed does tree planting, but in a less degree. The sunflower cultivation, however, produces immediate good results while these more permanent measures are being perfected. 

Another plant, the Jerusalem artichoke-— Helianthus tuberosus—near akin to the sunflower in its anti-malarial influence, and having the advantage in not requiring to be planted annually, and of also yielding a valuable preventive.

1881-1910 Helen Sharp's botanical studies delight me.

Washington is a veritable hot-bed of malaria. That this state of things should have been so long permitted to have existed is not creditable to Congress, the governing power. Many of our most valuable representatives have been sacrificed by exposure to Washington malaria; and vastly more have suffered in health in consequence of the unsanitary conditions surrounding the capital of a great, intelligent and rich nation.

While engineering and arboriculture are laying great sanitary plans, let the simple, efficient and immediate offices of the sunflower be brought to bear to protect the President, the Cabinet, Senators, Congressmen and the citizens of Washington from a pestilence that constantly hovers over the capital.

This valuable protecting power of the sunflower may be utilized in any locality where miasma is rife.

To protect that part of the city near the Potomac flats there should be planted a broad belt of sunflowers between that part of the flats upon which the engineers will operate and the unoccupied land; as broad and long a a belt as practicable should be well plowed and planted with the Russian mammoth sunflower, four feet apart in rows at right angles, so that a single horse-plow may cultivate both ways. One plant in the square thus laid out will be best, as the growth is rapid and vigorous.

1892 - Currier & Ives

Similar management will protect other localities. The occupants of farm houses and country residences can be thus secured against the baneful influences of malaria.

A few sunflowers planted about the farmhouse might be sufficient to satisfy the aesthetic taste of Oscar Wilde, but they would not be numerous enough to ward off malaria. A belt of sunflowers and Jerusalem artichokes is required. Though there would be but little variety in these plants alone, there might be interspersed a few plants of pearl millet, golden millet, or some others to please the fancy and relieve the homely monotony of the sunflowers and artichokes. Judging from the display of artificial sunflowers in the shop windows in New York City, one might imagine that the sentimental malaria of aesthetical society has been utterly banished, yet the sunflower aesthetical malaria has spread far and near. The subjects most susceptible are those of a peculiar organization—those who are more sensitive than sensible.

It is to be hoped that artificial sentiment and artificial sunflowers will not in any way impede the rational employment of natural sunflowers to protect mankind from real ills.
...
Plant, cultivate and harvest a large crop of sunflowers, and a large crop of health at the same time. And at your harvest home festivities, bestow a thank-offering upon the Dispenser of all gracious gifts.

Thousands of valuable lives have been extinguished by the remorseless venom of malaria and if its full powers can be overcome by the simple act of planting trees and sunflowers, God bless the generous hearts that plan, and the benevolent hands that plant these life-preserving gifts for man.

_________________________________________

How to Prevent Ague in Rural Districts

Br A. S. Heath, M.D., New York.

Ague -A fever (such as from malaria) that is marked by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating recurring regular intervals. Also a fit of shivering, a chill. 

The past summer and fall developed malaria so profusely in localities near New York, that the quinine trade was most active and profitable to druggists doing business in these rural districts.

To drain and sub-drain the land for thirty or forty miles round New York, would require years, and millions of money; and now that we are on the very eve of rapid transit, when these localities may be utilized as residences for workingmen, clerks and other citizens who may seek pure air in the country for themselves and families, how can the fever and ague be prevented? This is a question of great importance. The health and happiness of a people should interest the State and the great city in which the people reside. The product of labor to the city and State is the basis of their wealth and prosperity.

Until perfect drainage shall be accomplished, we have a cheap, prompt, convenient, practical and effectual means of warding off malaria, if we can trust the experience of disinterested persons, who have themselves profited by the method proposed, in various parts of the world.

This sanitary and prophylactic preventive of malaria is a well-known annual plant of thrifty growth, and easily cultivated everywhere at a trifling expense. It is no less than the familiar Hellianthus annuus, the sunflower.

This plant has been cultivated in almost every State in the Union, and in many parts of Europe, to some extent, for this purpose. Where it was largely cultivated, its reputation, as a preventive ague, is undisputed; but where only a few seeds were sown about the house—half-a-dozen plants were grown—its prophylactic powers are doubted, and on good grounds, too. 

Trees, when dense around a house, ward off malaria. In a thousand places on the Mississippi and other rivers, deep forests ward off malaria. Even osage hedges, stone walls, and tight board fences, strips of thrifty rye interposed between a residence and swamp when on an elevated ridge, have all been known to interpose barriers to malaria; and none of these obstacles have been known to possess half the protecting power possessed by sunflowers.
...

The great cause of failure of protection by the growth of sunflowers is, that the culture was too limited. Powder can blast to pieces the hardest rock; but if used, grain by grain—homeopathically—its power is of no effect. It requires, to be effective, cumulation and concentration.

 Neymer, a German professor and author of eminence, says: "I have no hesitation in saying decidedly that marsh miasma, malaria, must consist of low vegetable organisms, whose development is chiefly due to the putrefaction of vegetable substances. It is true that these low organisms have not actually been observed. No one has seen malaria spores."

 At Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. J. W. Salisbury exhibited these spores to a large number of medical gentlemen from various parts of the Union, by the use of powerful microscopes. Knowing that malaria, then, is a congregation of minute vegetable organisms, and that these delicate organisms are destroyed by frost, by the odor of flowers and flowering plants, probably by the generation of ozone by these flowers and plants, we begin to know the modus operandi of the protecting power of the sunflower, as this is a profuse flowerer, and that every plant has an active organization, removing large quantities of water from the soil and generating a strong odor, and creating a large quantity of ozone. Swamps have been drained by sunflowers alone, by their excessive transpiration.

Though Neymer and many other physicians believe in the theory of vegetable organisms as the cause of malaria, and Dr. Salisbury and others have supposed that they have discovered the true organisms, yet it is not accepted by the profession as having been settled by microscopists, by any means. The fact is, the profession do not know exactly what malaria is, but rather what its effects are upon the human system.

I have read somewhere, but I do not know where, that a Southern army post had to be abandoned because of the sickness of the soldiers and officers. A discharged soldier and his family were permitted to occupy the station free of charge. This man, having a good many fowls, sowed a large plot of the ground with sunflower seed, immediately around the residence of himself and family. This proved to be a perfect protection from the ague. This fact coming to the knowledge of the government, this officer and his command were again sent to occupy this station, and they also were protected from the so much dreaded malaria.

Doctor Castle, editor of New Remedies, in an editorial, says: "An officer of the Engineer Corps, of the United States Army, recently informed us that, being stationed during the war on the Potomac river in one of its most malarious portions, he surrounded his quarters with a thick cordon of sunflowers, and escaped any trouble from ague."
The army officer Dr. Castle spoke of, did practice the proper method. He planted a thick cordon of sunflowers.

I confidently recommend to families who reside in New Jersey, Westchester County, New York, Staten Island, Long Island, and all other malarial districts, to plow deep a space of ground from ten to thirty feet wide, according to the distance from the house, on at least those sides of the dwelling toward the creek, river or swamp, from which the malaria emanates. The distance should not be greater from the house than from five to ten rods; and the greater the distance, the thicker the plot of ground should be sown with sunflowers.
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Bees make the most delicious honey from its flowers.
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I had to cut a lot from this. It was too repetitive.  Orignally published in 1878 in Wallace's Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine Devoted to Domesticated Animal Nature



Just for the record :-)

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French army surgeon stationed in Constantine, Algeria, was the first to notice parasites in the blood of a patient suffering from malaria. This occurred on the 6th of November 1880. For his discovery, Laveran was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907.

http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/