XVII. The Culture of Planted Trees

Dear Tornik, if we had been born thousands upon thousands of years before this day, we should have seen this earth-globe we dwell on adorned all over with forests. And who had planted them? God the Creator, who spoke and it was: not the trees alone, but plants of every kind sprang up of themselves out of the earth's bosom. Look at those dark-hued mountains, and at these wide plains, valleys, glens — once, it may be, they were filled with thick forests.

It would seem that the men of the first age of old, who lived by wild hunting alone, had forgotten, perhaps, the husband-craft of our First Father, to whom the Lord God said to work the earth and to keep it.¹ The wild men of that time, who knew not how to provide for the morrow, began without sparing to hew down and burn the forests. But God, providing beforehand, overturned this our earth-globe in many places with earthquake, top to bottom, and hid forests numberless and countless deep beneath the ground, like an unfailing treasure, for the future generations of men. The clever generation of today, ransacking the globe and opening the earth's deep bosoms, found the treasure. And what is that treasure — do you know, Tornik? Not gold is it, nor silver, but the blackened stone-coal, which is more precious and more serviceable than gold; for the engines of this world's progress work by the power of steam, and the steam is born of water at the kindling fire of the burning stone-coal.

So when men saw that the primeval forests of God's planting were being spent apace, they set themselves thereafter, with all manner of labor, to raise hand-planted forests; and today the world of western Europe is filled with cultivated forests, which furnish timber to the full — both for buildings, and for the wooden-built ships that are past all number, and for the making of the leveled roads of the steam-carriages.

But our eastern world is very poor in the wealth of forests; and if there are now some few natural forests, they too, being cut without rule and without sparing, are on the way to be spent. Therefore we must labor, together with our tillage of the soil, to raise planted-tree forests as well. And do you know how wide are the borders the village people has for the culture of the forest — both the level ground and the crumble-soiled hills? For the husbandman the serviceableness of wood is as needful as bread for the keeping of his life. If he builds but a humble hut, that his family may huddle within it, wood is needed; then that great patriarchal family, whose number reaches to forty and fifty souls — how roomy the buildings it will have need of! Leave the building of our houses, for which the timbers of poplar, aspen, and willow are needed: for our field-laboring work there are needed, besides, hard timbers of divers other kinds. Ash-wood is needed for the gutan's bent beam — the esh, "the donkey," as we call it — and for the share-head; elm-wood is needed for framing the cart's body and for the axle-tree — to say nothing of all the divers small implements, which in common are made of the hard woods. And, as I wrote before, the husbandman villager, to come by timbers of these kinds — how much idle time he spends, till, going to far places, he find it, bring it, shape it, and set to work!

Leave all that, Tornik. You see how fair and how pleasant are the villages that have planted trees, and what great stateliness they give besides to the village's prospect. Have you gone to Artamet,² to that most sumptuous orchard-ground and fruit-garden? — where, let the fruitless forest trees be, how many kinds of fruit-bearing trees there are: the apple, the pear, and all the many sorts of sweet-savored fruits, among which the noblest of all is counted that red apple, matchless in savor, in scent, and in hue — and so plentiful, that it suffices the whole land of Vaspurakan.

For the village, planted trees have other uses too, and delightsome sweetnesses besides. In summer they spread their shade against the sun's scorching, and in winter they shelter from the fierce-blowing wind of the north. And then, how sweet it is for the village families, who in their idle hours, sitting with their little ones beneath the trees' shade, work at their handwork and take their pleasure! The nightingale and the starling sing from the orchard; the little ones chirrup below at their play; and when the lambs too skip and bleat — vash! how many sweet voices joined together make up the harmony of plain village life!

Orchard-grounds are not only for men, for enjoyment and profit and the needs of life; they are of great moment for the beasts as well: beneath the trees the fresh green things spring always, and there alone should the calves of the new-calved cows, and the mares' foals, be grazed; and in the noon-heat of summer those tender-born young beasts rest under the breeze-cooled trees upon the green.

But it is not enough, Tornik, that orchard-grounds should adorn only the skirts of the village. Would that our fields and tillages too were decked with planted trees, wherever the water-courses run and the springs well up! Oh, how easeful and restful they would be, both for the toiling laborers and for the wearied yoke-drawing beasts — which, the moment they are loosed from the yoke in the sultry noon-hour, fall straightway to grazing beneath those shady trees, and after lie down and chew the cud; while the water-loving buffalo-calves, which cannot bear overmuch heat, the moment they are freed of the yoke make a rush for the water, and if the water be plentiful, sit themselves down in it; the plow-boy gives them a good washing, and then brings them to the grazing-place. In that hour the wearied laborers sit at the spring-head in the tree's breeze, and fall to asking one another: what, I wonder, has the mistress cooked for us today? You know our laborers are great lovers of the buttered dish and of pilaf, and of madzun strained through the bag.

They see the bread-bearing lass, a sturdy girl, come under her back-load; she sets the load down; they open it and see the victuals are just to their wish. The laborer's table is the green-decked ground: there they spread the mezar-cloth; they range upon it the thin baked loaves; they open the madzun-bag, and in an earthen or a wooden kot-bowl they beat the madzun with the spring's cold water; then they take up spoons — a spoonful of pilaf, a spoonful of madzun-buttermilk. Okh, Tornik! you have eaten of it; you know with what relish those hungry laborers eat — they eat, and they bless the mistress of the house.

After the midday meal they lay their heads down beneath the cool tree and draw a sweet sleep — such that the prince in his palace, upon his feather-filled bed, cannot have sleep so restful and so still. The reasons of that you do not know now, Tornik; but you will learn them hereafter, when, growing little by little, you become curious after the things of the world.

So, my thoughtful Tornik, you have marked well how serviceable and how gain-bearing planted trees are for the village people. Labor then, ever planting and tending year by year, to multiply the planted trees that are our house's own. I myself, long since, fencing round a field by our door, have brought on a fair orchard; but you must not boast yourself of the trees of my planting — it is sweeter by far that you too, planting new hand-set trees and tending them, should boast of those. And know this: planted trees too have their several cares, each apart — for planting, for lopping, for cutting, and the rest. Long lessons upon the tending of trees you do not need: you see how your Papik, taking a saw and a crooked knife, keeps to the orchard, always cutting away the dried and superfluous boughs, that the boughs which remain may increase the more. The ground beneath the fruit-bearing trees should be dug over once in two or three years; and this labor too has its profit: first, the soil being loosened, the trees' roots gather the more strength; second, sowing barley there, or other grain, you take your yield from the tree and from the tree-foot at once.

Do you remember, Tornik, how some years past the men of Van began the culture of the mulberry, and at the first carried it forward with good success? For there fell out a happening upon them, that for a few years the Vanetsis, only by selling silkworm seed, had great gains; the price of Van seed rose so high that they took it weighing it out equal with gold — for the seed of the other lands had all been spoiled by a kind of sickness of the silkworms.³

It is a grief if I tell you, Tornik, how the Vanetsis let that gain-bearing undertaking wholly drop. For at the first they so fancied, and were so possessed, that only by selling silkworm seed were they to gain; they could not divine that this was a chance of fortune, and passed; nor could they comprehend that the culture of the silkworm stands not upon the seed alone, but far more upon the cocoons — for the true yield of the mulberry culture is the cocoon: either the cocoons must be sold in their season, or, drawing the thread from the cocoons, the silk must be sold. And since silk is in itself a light thing, but heavy in price, this trade was most apt to the hand of the Vanetsis' commerce, far as they lie from the seaboard harbors.

It seems to me, Tornik, that the Vanetsis do not love fine, tedious, and careful labors: to turn the soil a cubit deep and plant the mulberry; to dig about the plantings every year; to build the silkworm-house; to make ready the trays fit for the worms' working; to bring mulberry leaves every day and feed the worms; like a physician, with a sharp eye, to examine the worms' condition and part the sick from the sound; and when the worms begin to spin their cocoons, to make ready for them the little, little tree-twigs, and so on and so on; and then, after the cocoons are bound, to take what seed is needed, and the remaining cocoons either sell to the merchant as they are, or draw the thread, and winding it skein by skein bring out the clean silk and bind it up — okh, what a tedious, long-drawn labor! so falls to grumbling the slothful, ease-loving Vanetsi.

See, Tornik: the Vanetsi counts silkworm-rearing a tedious and long labor — which at the very most scarce lasts three months, the whole labor of it, and he takes his yield; while, planting a vineyard, he waits seven years, and only then receives the first-fruits of the vineyard of his planting. And yet these many-numbered, old-planted vineyards of Van — did the present generation plant them? No: the patriarch Noah's true vine-loving sons — our forefather Papiks — planted them, and we today enjoy them;⁴ even as I have planted a vineyard, and I shall die, and you are to inherit it and enjoy it — eh, and perhaps afterward you will boast and say: it was I planted this vineyard!

Here and now I give you charge, Tornik, that with the culture of the other tree-plantings you forget not the culture of the mulberry, for which the soils round about our village are most favorable, since the mulberry-planting prospers greatly in sandy-mixed soil. But you must know, Tornik, that the wonted labor of our husbandry is very full of business; therefore, when you would carry the culture of planted trees forward, it is well that you temper the tillage proper — the sowing culture, as of wheat, barley and the rest — that you may be able to make the culture of the trees yield the more.

I have spoken at large enough, Tornik, upon the culture of the orchard; you know your Papik dearly loves the tree and the spring. Sometimes, wearied from labor, I go and sit beneath a tree's shade; I give my back to the tree's trunk, and I rest. I am grown old, Tornik; I need now a staff of old age and a stay. The patriarch Jacob called one beloved son of his the staff of his old age;⁵ I too say to you: you are the staff of my old age, till I come to the last resting-place.