Just Like Real (Farm) Life
Postal History Sunday #223 cross-post
Welcome everyone! This week’s Postal History Sunday connects farm life at the Genuine Faux Farm with the covers featured in this week’s edition. As a result of this connection, I will be cross-posting this article to both newsletters! For those of you who subscribe to both, I apologize for taking up two spots in your inbox this week. It certainly won’t happen often. But, it felt like this edition would have plenty of interest for members in both subscription lists.
And before I go any further - thank you all for subscribing! It encourages me when there is some evidence of interest in my writings. Your substack subscription does just that!
Most of the items I will share this week are illustrated advertising covers. When we focus on illustrated covers, the postal history aspects are typically not the focus. Their purpose was to draw attention to the products being offered with attractive, and often colorful, images. And, as you would expect, the contents, when they are combined with the cover provide a connection to topics other than postal history - farming for example.
Now, let’s put our troubles into the bucket with the kitchen scraps and take them to the chickens. Once they’ve had a few minutes to kick those scraps (and troubles) around, they might not seem so daunting.
Let’s see if we can learn something new!
Bee Yourself!
Our first featured item is an envelope with a design featuring honey bees. This one might be a little confusing at first because the advertising content is for J.A. Roe, Apiarist, at Union City, Indiana. When we look at the letterhead on the enclosed letter, J.A. Roe is advertising to sell bees, honey, queen bees, and nuclei (nuclei are a small functioning colony of bees, complete with queen). However, the content clearly shows us that Roe is placing an order for a yellow queen with J. L. Lindley in Jordan, Indiana.
For those who do not know, an apiarist is a person who studies and/or keeps bees - often for honey. You could call Tammy and I apiarists because we do keep honeybees on the farm. But we would make no claim to be great experts on the subject. I think it would be fare to say we’ve reached the point of knowledge acquisition where we know what we don’t know.
The letter is dated September 14, 1892 and, in addition to ordering a “yellow queen,” Roe includes some personal messages. Apparently, “Ma” is “getting along very well.”
Lindley, for their part, wrote the word “order” on the envelope which served as an entry in the record keeping system for this business. It was not uncommon to use the envelopes with business correspondence as a sort of file folder for future reference. It is because of this method of record keeping that postal historians have an opportunity to enjoy these artifacts. If businesses hadn’t seen these records as valuable, items like this would likely have been destroyed by the recipient after the business transaction was completed.
The postal history information is not difficult to follow for this letter. It is what is known as a simple domestic letter. It was mailed from one place in the United States to another place in the US. It only required one postage rate to pay for those services. That rate was 2 cents per ounce in weight (July 1, 1885 - November 1, 1917). While the letter is dated on September 14, the postmark was applied at the Union City post office with a date/time stamp that reads September 15 at 8 AM. A receiving postal marking on the back is too light to read, but we can guess this letter took no more than one day to get to the destination.
I was able to locate contemporary advertisements for both apiarists from just a year prior to this order being placed. It should not be surprising that these people knew each other given that they both raised Carniolan honey bees and that they both were located in Indiana. And, from personal experience, I know it is quite normal for people in similar or related businesses to periodically have transactions between them.
The two most commonly raised types of honey bees in the United States are Italian bees (with an origin in the Mediterranean) and Carniolan bees (origins in the Balkans). If you are interested in an overview of the types of imported honey bees that can be found in the US, I suggest this resource offered by North Carolina State’s extension office. Regardless of the type, the honey bees raised on farms like ours are descendants of those brought over from Europe.
Our farm currently has four hives of honeybees that are as prepared for the winter months as they are going to be! We do not raise these bees as much for their honey as we do for their pollinator services for many of our fruit and vegetable crops. We typically do harvest enough honey for ourselves and for gifts to family and friends. But, that is the extent of the bee “business” at the Genuine Faux Farm.
This year we decided to purchase bees from three different suppliers to see what seemed to work best for our farm and our location. While we picked up two of the nuclei, one was shipped to us via the US Postal Service. How’s that for a connection to postal history? Now, if I could find the picture I took of the box they came in that would really be something! Since I couldn’t prior to publication we’ll all just have to imagine a plastic box with holes in it (that are not big enough to let bees out).
Beekeeping is a non-trivial pursuit. While honey bees do not necessarily need the equipment to find a place to build a home and survive, we do need tools if we want to keep the bees where we would prefer to have them. The stackable, rectangular boxes (supers) and the frames that go inside of them provide an environment where bees can successfully build a home and raise young. These boxes also make it possible for apiarists to manage the hives, making it possible to expand the hive as the colony grows and harvest honey.
The cover featured above advertises A.I. Root Company in Medina, Ohio. This envelope was mailed in December of 1895, which is still within the 2 cents per ounce postage rate period. Interestingly, A.I. Root is mentioned more than once in the Beekeeper’s Review in 1891 and was apparently accorded a certain amount of respect as an authority in beekeeping at the time. They published their own periodical called “ABCs of Bee Culture” as shown on the cover above. But, the advertisement in Beekeeper’s Review referenced the periodical as “Gleanings in Bee Culture.”
This envelope, mailed in June of 1919, was sent to the USDA’s Bureau of Entomology (the study of insects). This cover is not, actually, an example of an advertising cover in the normal, capitalistic sense. Instead, the design tells us the contents were sent from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. Perhaps some of you might have noticed that I linked the present day North Carolina State extension office resource on honey bees. If you didn’t, it’s the sort of thing I do.
It’s an illness, I know. But I think I can still live with myself.
This letter falls into a different postage rate period. In 1917, the US Postal Service temporarily increased the postage rate to three cents per ounce in an effort to help pay for the war effort (World War I). For those who like to see information in a more condensed format, the table below can give you a view on letter postage in the US during the periods these letters were mailed.
Entomology is an important field of knowledge for anyone who is seeking to operate a small-scale farm that includes fruits and vegetables. Not only does entomology provide important information regarding the care of captive honey bees, it is also helps us to understand and support other pollinators. In addition to that, growers must be aware of the life cycles of pests that may damage crops and know how to provide habitat to encourage predators that keep those pest populations under control.
For example, there are some scary looking insects (according to some people) that can be very beneficial on our farm. We have observed Common Thread-waisted Wasps on the farm and the natural human response is to recoil from them if they fly by. Thread-waisted wasps (there are several types) are solitary predators and their young are often parasitic. A Common Thread-waisted Wasp will paralyze prey and bring it back to their larvae who will feed on it until they mature. Adults will prey on smaller insects and will also feed on pollen. These wasps on the goldenrod could possibly have the opportunity to hunt AND take a drink of nectar!
Thread-waisted wasps have stingers, so if you decided you wanted to force it to do so, it could sting you. Step on one with bare feet, you’ll get stung. Try to hold one and prevent it from leaving, you could get stung. But, otherwise, they aren’t interested in you and they don’t really see you as a threat (or food). And that’s true for most wasps (believe it or not).
We like them on our farm because they can reduce certain pest populations that can damage our crops.
Just Vegging Out
Speaking of crops (and pollinators), the next item in today’s article features two “old-style” crookneck summer squash. Most vine crops, such as summer squash, cucumbers and melons, rely on a healthy pollinator population to produce good crops. An insufficient population of pollinators will result in poor yields and/or malformed fruit.
The design on this envelope advertises the products of a seedsman, E. M. Lyman & Son, in Springfield, Massachusetts. The addressee, J & L Myers of Repaupo, New Jersey must have had some business with Lyman because there is evidence on this envelope that it was kept as a business record. Can you see it?
There is no docket, but there is a hole punched in the envelope just below the postage stamp. Some people created filing systems where envelopes were strung up (complete with contents) in a drawer or other location. You could liken it to a hanging file drawer without the extra material for the hanging folders. As long as you always added new content on the same end of the string, the records would be roughly in chronological order.
However, if you wanted to reorganize your records, I suspect the project could be daunting.
Shown above is another illustrated envelope with two cents of postage paying the internal letter mail rate in 1893. This item was sent to the Perkins Wind Mill Company in Mishawaka, Indiana, by the seed company in Milo Centre, New York. A pencil notation on the side reads, "I want a mill with graphite bearings." This would seem to indicate that this was not an offer to sell seed, but rather a request to purchase equipment.
It makes sense. If you bother to have envelopes printed for your business, you use them for all of your correspondence!
Ansley & Son was still in business in 1900 and they were still focusing on wax and pole beans. The following was in the US Department of Agriculture - Division of Entomology, Bulletin No. 33 prepared F. H. Chittendon and published in 1902:
June 18, 1900, we again received specimens of beetles... with report that
they were injurious to several acres of white pole beans at Milo Center,
N. Y. Our correspondent, Mr. A. H. Ansley, stated that nearly one-
fourth of the plants above ground at the time of writing were riddled
by the insects. Attack was first noticed June 16. when only an occa-
sional plant was being eaten, but at the date of writing many more
of the beetles were seen, and the first plants infested were dried and
crisp except a young center leaf just budding out. Sweet corn and
other plants in the vicinity appeared to be exempt from attack.The report above was in reference to the Smartweed Flea Beetle. It's just a reminder that pests, weeds and diseases are not a new thing, which brings me back to entomology!
If you’ll recall, I mentioned that our farm is concerned about supporting pollinators AND predators that control pests. There are other ways a farm can control pests and one of them is to implement a technique called intercropping.
The basic premise of intercropping is to somehow mix more than one type of plant into a field or plot. For example, we grow green beans and potatoes in alternating rows at our farm. This helps to control the population of Colorado Potato Beetles in our potato crops.
Sure enough! I’ve got an illustrated advertising featuring potatoes!
This item was mailed just a few months prior to the war rate in September of the same year. That means this envelope was also mailed as a simple letter at the time the 2 cent rate per ounce was in effect.
But this time we have a twist. This letter was forwarded to a new address.
Apparently Elizabeth Woodward had moved from Tallman to a rural location near Monsey, New York. I come to the conclusion that this was a rural location based on the pencil addition to the forwarding address that reads “RD” for “Rural Delivery.” Rural Free Delivery (RFD) had become a free service in 1902. This cover is early enough that it might have been important to make a notation so the Monsey post office would be aware that they were looking for a rural customer.
Poultry in Motion
Another important component of a small-scale, diversified farm is the inclusion of livestock. In the case of the Genuine Faux Farm, that would be poultry. We have laying hens for the entire year and often raise turkeys or broilers (meat chickens) during the warmer months.
The letter shown above is another case where the business that is being featured in the advertisement is actually ordering a product from someone else. Miss A Sargent is requesting “reasonable terms for … 6 hens and 1 c’k’l (cockerel - young rooster).” Sargent is careful to make it clear that they want good layers and that they are not intended to be “show birds.” Clearly, they are hoping to work on the genetics of the line of Barred Rock Chickens for their own business.
Our farm typically patronizes hatcheries for the young birds that make up the flocks on our farm. In a different era, we might have purchased our day-old chicks from someone like Miss A Sargent. In fact, we have often had Barred Rock laying hens mixed in with Isa Browns, California Whites and Americauna chickens. It’s amazing to think that today’s Barred Rocks are not terribly different than those that flitted and scratched around barnyards 119 years ago.
We have hatched chicks at our farm only once. And, as you can see by the photo above, it’s hard to suppress the “awwwwww” factor when you see them. However, there are only so many hours in a day and a limit to the things a couple of people can manage on one farm. When you add in the fact that half of the chicks will turn out to be cockerels - and not much good for producing eggs - it makes sense to order from someone who specializes in that part of poultry production.
The Big Finish!
And now it is time for this week’s “big finish!”
One of the things poultry can provide is another pest control solution! Free range laying hens do enjoy pursuing insects and small critters in hopes of consuming them and supplementing their diets. W. H. Jeakle knew this and used an illustration of a chicken chasing a cricket to alert the post office that they should return undeliverable letters to them.
And so I return you to your day’s pursuits! My wish for you is that the chickens in the pasture have removed those worries infesting the fields of your life. If not permanently, I hope they have not bothered you for this moment in time.
Thank you for reading Postal History Sunday! Have a fine remainder of your day and an excellent week to come.
Postal History Sunday is featured weekly on this Substack publication.
What a multi-pupose great hobby! You can view the stamps and letters as historical documents, and, if you're fortunate, get a glimpse into the lives of those who penned the accompanying letters and connect them to the life you're living now. So cool. Thanks, Rob.