Supply and Demand

Weather: The rains coincided with morning and afternoon temperatures dropping about 10 degrees. From June 25 until August 8, 35 of 43 days had highs in the 90s. Now they’re in the 80s. Morning temperatures usually were in the upper 50s or 60s. Since, they’ve been in the low 50s. Both were the result of changing sun angles and tropical water temperatures that control the change in seasons.

Meantime, the Forest Service was nursing a small fire near Coyote, slowly getting it up to 300 acres between the rains. [1] Finally Thursday, it was able to act. Thursday the Cueva fire became a thousand acres, [2] and we got the smoke.

Portugal has a climate like ours, if not drier. Its government is experimenting with restoring the forests by reintroducing brush-eating livestock, rather than controlled burns. It’s been recruiting goatherds and their flocks. [3]

This, of course, is one of those things the goernment prohibited when it took over barren lands. Overgrazing, especially by sheep, had destroyed low vegetation and caused serious erosion. I understand, goats aren’t as destructive as sheep, but they still eat plants to the ground.

The real problem, the Portuguese find, is people no longer want to be goatherds. It’s a lonely job. Here it would be worse here because the remote forests aren’t served well by our uneven internet and cell phone towers. But there are people is this area who have herds they move from one person’s yard to another for a few hours of grazing.

Last useful rain: 8/11. Week’s low: 44 degrees F. Week’s high: 93 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yuccas, sweet peas, Russian sage, buddleia, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, datura, squash, melons, coreopsis, blanket flowers, cultivated sunflowers, corn tasseling

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, silver leaf nightshade, alfalfa, white sweet clover, leather leaf globe mallow, lamb’s quarter, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, toothed spurge, prostrate knotweed, Queen Anne’s lace, plains paper flowers, pigweed, Russian thistle, Hopi tea, native sunflowers, gumweed, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, golden hairy asters, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, caryopteris, fernbush, garlic chives, catmints, calamintha, winecup mallow, sidalcea, blue flax, coral beard tongues, sea lavender, lead plant, white spurge, pink evening primroses, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Mexican hats, African marigolds, chrysanthemums, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, purple coneflower, Mönch asters, bachelor buttons

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, sweet alyssum, nicotiana

What’s Coming Up: Purslane

Since temperatures have dropped and moisture returned to the air, some seeds have sprouted. Most won’t have time to mature before frost. This week I finally had a Sensation cosmos bloom. After the heat of June and July it was only 3" high and produced one flower.

Tasks: Some farmers got in another crop of hay. I’ve noticed since I bought the string trimmer to cut my brome grass and alfalfa, the grass has not regrown, but the alfalfa needs mowing every couple weeks. The legume is the desirable plant. The grass is planted with it to keep its from choking itself. Mine, of course, are in different parts of the yard.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, hummingbird, geckos, monarch butterfly, bumble bees on alfalfa, small bees on garlic chives, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

I’ve been told by friends about birds that get giddy from eating fruit that’s dried and fermented. I haven’t seen the birds here, but I’ve noticed the eating habits. My sandcherries were ripe in early July. Without the ground squirrel climbing the shrubs, the dark berries stayed put. Now that they’ve shrunken in size, they’re disappearing. I assume the local birds simply couldn’t handle the larger diameters, and the increased sugar content was just a bonus.

Weekly update: Fruit is hanging heavy in local orchards as the apples begin to change color. My peaches are turning red at the tops, and may soon be ripe.

I talked to my neighbor whose son wanted the fruit two years ago for preserves. Last year, frosts killed the blossoms and there was nothing. He must have found another source, because he’s not interested this year.

The laws of supply and demand never change in agriculture, despite the opinions of ideologues and egotists. One cannot manipulate them to meet one’s needs.

Southerners had this illusion before the Civil War. They knew cotton was in demand, and assumed the British would support the rebel cause to keep its mills running.

British middlemen had different ideas. They recognized the problems with single sources, and perhaps anticipated the problems with war. In 1851, they began importing more cotton from Brazil, Egypt, and the East Indies. [4] The next year, an entrepreneur sent seed and gins to Sierra Leone on the west African coast. [5]

In 1859, when Lincoln was preparing to run for President, the newly formed Cotton Supply Association of Great Britain sent seed to "Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Malabar, Ceylon, Singapore, Sydney, Savanilla, and Baranguilla, in South America; Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, Tunis, Lagos, Fernando Po, Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, Natal, Monrovia, Macedonia, Aleppo, Jaffa, Sidon, Kaiffa, Broussa, Salonica, Constantinople,

Messina, Attica, Argolis, Laconia, Arcadia, Achaia, Eubaea, and many other places. Cotton gins were forwarded to several of the above towns and countries, and cotton presses were sent to Cape Coast Castle." [6]

When hostilities ended, Southern planters thought of ways to sell their hoarded inventory. Only, they’d been replaced in the market. Cotton production didn’t become profitable again until mills in this country increased production to meet the requirements of a population swollen by immigrants.

Then, prices were never as good as they had been during the shortages of the Napoleonic wars that started the cotton boom. Clothing is a necessity, but the price cannot be manipulated the way food can be in a famine. People simply do without for a short period. Thus, the price of finished goods is always low because the market is dominated by the lowest paid, and the cost of raw materials cannot rise.

Notes on photographs: All taken 18 August 2019.
1. David phlox that has multiplied along the northwest side of the garage, with some purple coneflowers that also naturalized.

2. Elberta peach. This tree was planted in 2012, and this is the first year it’s born fruit.

3. Flame grapes. They were planted in 2012, and this is the first year they’ve born. The seedless grapes are small, not particularly flavorsome, and are not ripening all at one time. They are at the stage of attracting hornets.

End notes:
1. SFNFPIO. "Cueva Fire Update – Aug. 15, 2019." New Mexico Fire Information website. 15 August 2019. 294 acres.

2. SFNFPIO. "Cueva Fire Completes Firing Operations, Meets Objectives." New Mexico Fire Information website. 16 August 2019. 1,011 acres.

3. Raphael Minder. "Scorched Portugal Turns to the Goat as a Low-Cost Firefighter." The New York Times website. 17August 2019.

4. E. J. Donnell. Chronological and Statistical History of Cotton. New York: James Sutton and Company, 1872. 389.

5. Donnell. 398.

6. Donnell. 478