“TALK DELIVERED BY THE
LATE CHARLES M. RICE, HIMSELF
ABOUT HIS CONSERVATION PROJECTS ON THE RICE SANCTUARY”
Charles Marcus Rice (1882- 1950) -- Lawyer, Conservationist and Naturalist
[Transcribed by Carole Goggin Oct
2015. Apparently Mr. Rice gave this presentation with a slide show, but there
were no pictures with the copy of his presentation.]
We, here
in St. Louis, have in the foothills of the Ozarks 30 miles south of us the most
magnificent area available in the Mississippi Valley for the development of a
splendid recreational area. There we
have some of the finest springs to be found anywhere, a number of caves the
natural beauty of which is comparable to the finest, rugged hills, majestic
ravines, lovely rivers and sheer bluffs.
Unfortunately, the forest cover and the verdure have been largely
despoiled. To me, the restoration of
that verdure is a challenge. For 15
years I have been working on the problem at the Lodge in Jefferson County where
we began with as sad, eroded and despoiled a section of the Ozarks as one could
find. Thanks to the constant help of Mother Nature, a cover of verdure has been
established over many portions of the land which begins to approximate the
cover that we are told was there 100 years ago.
What success we have had has been due to the elimination of fire and
grazing and the prevention of erosion wherever possible. By these means, we have established a thin
layer of humus and top soil and it is that layer which prevents the cover of
green over the Ozark hills from being burnt off in the heat of summer or washed
away in torrential rains. As I am
tremendously interested in securing converts to this work, I welcome this
opportunity of delivering before you this talk on conservation and wild
flowers. Hundred of our citizens go to visit Belingrade Gardens and the gardens
at Natchez and Charleston. Of those
districts, I have visited only Charleston gardens. The country around Charleston does not
compare in natural beauty with ours. It is flat farm land comparable to St.
Louis County. A few people have developed beautiful gardens very efficiently
and there is, of course, historical interest and antiquity which is missing
here but Mother Nature has provided us with an area which, if intelligently
improved, would be incomparably more beautiful than the Charleston area. In the past few years, Messrs. PARK and FRANK HAMMER at their homes on the bluff overlooking the
Mississippi, Mr. and Mrs. SCHOCK at
their home below Festus, and Mr. JOSEPH
DESLOGE at his home on the Missouri, my neighbor CHARLES STIX, and many others have created beauty spots which should
be an incentive to many others. Much of the land in the Ozarks has but little
value for agricultural purposes and large tracks can be purchased for very
little. One of the most outstanding
locations which I own cost $15.00 an acre and there are thousands of acres
which can be purchased for even less. A
great proportion of this land has been cut over and burnt over year after year.
The prevention of fire and grazing will make it possible for a great portion of
this land to slowly regain its former beauty and by proper conservation methods
the speed of the recovery can be greatly increased. Old Mother Nature when left alone created in
the Ozarks a wilderness paradise and there is no reason to believe that if we
will see to it that Nature is undisturbed in any given area the building –up
process of our forests will be resumed.
To many
of us, the words “wild flowers” recall our youth when violets, blood root and
spring beauty were abundant in Forest Park, Meramec Highlands, Creve Coeur Lake
and in wood lots throughout the land.
Associated with the words “wild flowers”, we have pleasant recollections
of the smell of the deep woods, the sound of clear running streams that purr
pleasantly, of robins, cardinals and bluebirds flitting about, or clear air, bright
sunshine and blue skies.
If
anyone were to ask me today where in the vicinity of St. Louis he could find an
easily accessible area in which wild flowers, trees and shrubs grow
luxuriantly, naturally and unprotected, I would have to shamefully confess that
I know of no such spot. The change has come about so gradually that many of you
do not realize how complete it has been.
No one destroyed the wild flowers purposely; their destruction has been
incidental to inefficient farming, and lumbering, to the building of roads,
enlargements of cities, the development of our suburbs, erosion of the soil, et
cetera.
In this
land of ours, millions upon millions of acres of fertile lands have been partly
or totally destroyed. Millions of acres of land which once was capable of
producing fine crops have been abandoned as sterile and useless. Whole states in the dust bowl may be
returning to the desert. Conservation is
a crying need for the welfare of this great country. I suggest that anyone who has any doubt of
the seriousness of the situation read “Deserts on the March” by SEARS, and “Rich Land, Poor Land” by STEWART CHASE.
From
time to time up to about 15 years ago, Mrs. RICE and I frequently made excursions in the Ozarks and as it
gradually became more and more difficult to find interesting and beautiful
spots to explore and picnic, I determined to buy a small place and to build a
weekend lodge and to have a lake for swimming and fishing. At that time it was our idea that we would
visit the Lodge for a couple of days at a time, five or six times a year. There was a farmer on the grounds when we
purchased the site of the lake, and it was our plan to have the farmer rent and
cultivate the farm and take care of the house. The land in the fields was very
poor, the woods had all been cut over and the entire neighborhood had been
burnt year after year for more than 40 years.
There was, however, a magnificent view from the field on the top of the
hill and in the bottom of a splendid deep ravine on the place there was a solid
rock ledge on which we were assured a thoroughly water-tight dam could easily
be erected and a pond formed. The place was selected because of its splendid
view, ruggedness, moderate price and propinquity to our home. From our terrace we can see 30 miles south to
the Ozarks, 15 miles east to the bluffs in Illinois, and about 15 miles west to
high ridges in the foot hills, a total area of about 900 square miles. I shall now project a picture, in color, of
the view from the house. ( - )
From time to time until 1928, five other
tracts aggregating about 470 acres were purchased; they were selected because
they contained unusual rock formations, bluffs, caves, views, springs, et
cetera, or because they bordered two small streams which began near the
Lodge. In portions of both streams the
solid rock bottom was exposed and running water was visible. Along the balance of the stream the solid
rock bottom was covered by gravel which had washed in from the hillsides and in
those portions no running water was visible except for short periods after
heavy rain as the water flowed through the gravel deposits. The property I am talking to you about is located in Jefferson Count y, Missouri,
about 28 miles south of St. Louis and about 8 miles west of the Mississippi
River on the south slope of an area of very rugged land consisting of 36 square
miles which we consider a portion of the foothills of the Ozarks.
When we purchased the land, it supported
very little wild life of any kind, excepting lizards, rabbits and snakes. There
were very few birds and no fish or frogs.
Most wild flower conservation areas now in
existence were doubtless selected because of the abundance and variety of wild
flowers located in the area at the time of selection. In our area, flowers and
desirable trees were practically non-existent at the time of acquisition, and
we had no thought of wild flower conservation. Horseback trails were laid out;
nurseries were established; trees were were [sic] planted in the fields. (Picture of trees) Shrubbery and flowers
around the house; and the stream was dammed at one point to make a suitable
swimming and fishing pond. (20, 21) Fish
were planted in the pond and an attempt was made to develop the area for
hunting and fishing. The hunting program
was unsuccessful as the areas produced but little food (such as nuts, acorns
and berries) to attract game. The pond became (to our regret and surprise) a
settling basin and filled rapidly with silt, leaves and gravel.
Heavy rains sometimes deposited several
inches of silt in the pond. In order to
keep the pond from filling up entirely, it was necessary to stop erosion, so it
might well be said that necessity was the mother of the initiation of our
conservation policy. We filled all of
the ditches in the fields above the pond with leaves, branches and trash. We stopped all farming, planted grass,
clover, trees and lespedisia in the fields and in that way reduced the erosion to
a minimum. By that course we greatly retarded the filling of the pond and we
have not been required to clean it out in the past fourteen years. Shortly after we built the pond, which as I
stated was often very muddy, some friends of ours built a very elaborate
swimming pool in the city, with showers, methods for chlorinating water, et
cetera. Our elder son contrasted their
pool and ours by saying that in their pool a shower was required before
swimming and in our pool a shower was required after swimming.
The first spring after we purchased the
property we found in the bluffs and steep cliffs and on the glades many flowers
that neither we nor our friends had ever heard of, such a Missouri primrose
(43-50), purple cone flowers, hairy pocoon, wild foxglove, cancer root (12),
green mild wee (23) prairie onion, and many other flowers and tress we did not
think native to Missouri, such as Ohio buckeye, sugar maple, hydrangea and
huckleberry. It was the interest aroused
by the discovery of these unusual trees and flowers that developed our desire
to conserve the wild flowers on the place and introduce others. We realized that we had to build up the soil
before we could have flowers and as our first few years’ experience with the
pond had taught us a good deal about erosion and the danger of flood damage, we
realized that it would be useless to attempt to build up the soil along the
stream until we had enlarged the stream bed sufficiently to permit it to drain
the entire valley after the heaviest rains. In many places the gravel in the
stream bed was within a foot or two of the surface of the valley and the
stream’s capacity to drain the area was greatly reduced. For 12 years we have been removing gravel
from the stream bed. In many places the
stream bed has been deepened as much as four to five feet and is now on bed
rock. The big rocks and boulders taken
out of the stream bed have been used to build roads, trails, parking areas, and
windbreaks all though the grounds. The principal trails and roads border the
stream and they also serve as walls to prevent humus from washing into the stream
and as embankments to prevent flood damage.
The work above described has been the most thankful thing we have
done. We have practically excavated a
stream. Its beauty has been very greatly
enhanced. (70, 71, 72) Instead of a stream in which for eight or nine months in
the year one saw only dry gravel, we now have water running over bed rock
visible all year, with interesting rock walls, full pools, some natural and
some made with the aid of small dams, in which pools frogs, toads, snails, and
fish abound, and we hear the sound of running water at many places along the
stream. The streams and the roads form
fire breaks and have greatly reduced the danger from fire.
Please remember that the land, when we
purchased it, was badly eroded and burned. Very little humus remained on the
property. Through the decomposing of leaves and vegetable matter we are slowly
building up the soil, and as the gravel trails are built higher and higher
above the surrounding land they serve as retaining walls to hold the humus in
pockets or sunken gardens. We have eliminated
practically all routine work so that most of the labor we employ can be used
for new construction. There are no lawns
to mow and no flowers which require spraying or other attention. We have found
that if the leaves are permitted to lie in thin layers as in nature they rot
rather slowly, or blow away, so early in March of each year we brush up the
leaves in pile to hasten decomposition.
We use wire brooms for this purpose. Rakes would destroy the wild
flowers. The leaf compost from the
previous year’s leaf pile is promptly spread over the area cleared so that the
tender plants are never exposed for more than a few hours. One man with a wire broom can cover an acre a
day. We try to do the sweeping just
before the early spring flowers appear and if we fall behind in an area we
simply allow the leaves to stay for another year so as not to injure the tender
roots. This is only done on the few
acres of flat land in the valley as on the hills the forest litter is required
as a cover to prevent erosion of the soil and should not be gathered.
As a rule, leaves take several years to
decompose properly. In our area we find
the leaves piled up in March of one year are ready for spreading the next. We think that that is possibly due to the
fact that with the leaves as swept together there are partly rotted branches,
twigs, et cetera which introduce mould into the pile. In any event there is no doubt that the
leaves do rot quickly in the valley and make excellent humus in a year. There has been a splendid increase not only
in the number of flowers but in their size, appearance and health in all areas
where the decomposed leaves have been spread.
For rotting leaves, pits are probably more
desirable than flat areas. In several
places we have dug pits and in many places where we have straightened out the
stream beds we use the abandoned part of the stream beds as leaf pits. Some of you may feel that leaves will not rot
sufficiently to create humus in one year.
(I almost used the expression “humidify” in one year.) That has not been our experience, but if it
proved true the remedy is simple – have a number of piles or pits and permit
the leaves to remain until they are completely rotted. After all, time is not very important to a a leaf. The piles
are usually made in early March to a height of two and one=half to three and
one=half feet and by the time most visitors come to see the grounds the piles
have settled to a foot and a half to two feet high and are very inconspicuous;
in fact, they are hardly noticed excepting when we call the attention of
visitors to the work we are doing.
The leaves are not carried at all. A pile is made in the center of each
convenient space and the humus spread over the same space.
I would not blame you is you feel that the
subject of my talk should have been “humus” and not “wild flowers”. I am convinced, however, that you who are
familiar with city gardening where you have a good garden soil and means of
sprinkling, do not realize the importance of bringing back humus in an effort
to absorb and hold moisture and thus prevent flood and draught.
We all know that it would be stupid to
attempt to raise water lilies on a desert or cacti in a swamp but I must admit
that if someone had spoken to me a few years ago about establishing a Missouri
wild flower garden on a small tract in St. Louis County, it would have sounded
rather reasonable. In a Missouri
Botanical Garden bulletin published in 1937, this subject is discussed at
length and MR. ANDERSON, the author
states in the article that they divide the area in the property at Gray Summit into the following types
of garden, depending upon the location and character of the land:
1.
Glade garden
2.
Cliffside garden
3.
Upper land meadow
garden
4.
Lower land meadow
garden
5.
Oak-Hickory
woodland
6.
Sugar maple –
white oak woodland
7.
Closed glade
8.
Flood-plain
9.
Gravel bar
10.
Brookside
We have the same locations they have and in addition
to that we have established a few small swamp gardens and plan this year to attempt
to establish a small artificial prairie.
I think the great mistake that many of us make is to attempt to combine
all Missouri wild flowers in one garden and I am afraid in many instances that
is just as ill-advised as attempting to raise cacti in a swamp.
When one
walks down our Sugar Camp Hollow
trail, he will notice that practically all the hepatica are on the side facing
the north and all of the columbine on the side facing the south and if one
tries to change their locations he is riding for a fall. Here we find tracts 20 feet apart supporting
different flora.
To
prosper, wild flowers must be placed in locations suitable to their needs. Most of our garden flowers are the progeny of
wild flowers which took to garden conditions.
If you
were asked to name the most absorbent materials you knew of, you would probably
think of blotters, absorbent cotton, towels, peat moss and sponges. I call your attention to the fact that all
of these, excepting sponges, are vegetable fibre. Inasmuch as it would be rather expensive to
plow absorbent cotton and bits of blotter and peat moss into your ground, I
suggest that you decide on rotted leaves, twigs, and weeds as the medium to
use. According to the definition of
humus in the [blank space] dictionary, good garden soil will hold [blank space]
% of its weight in moisture and good humus will retain 500% of its weight in
moisture. At the Lodge it is thoroughly
impractical to sprinkle any large area so the establishment of humus is the
only practical way to provide moisture over the summer.
It is a
natural thing for one who wants to establish a wild flower garden to
immediately get wild flowers and plant them and where you have adequate soil
that is a feasible program. At the
Lodge, there was not sufficient humus remaining on the ground at the time of
purchase to support wild flowers and many of the plants we put out died within
a few years. Now we do not introduce
plants excepting in areas where there is an adequate supply of humus and the
mortality of plants which we do introduce has been greatly reduced.
With the exception of Red Cedar, all of
the trees we planted on the area have been purchased from nurseries. In each
case we have purchased very small specimens called “lining out stock”, such as
is ordinarily sold to nurseries and cost from 5 to 8 cents each. These trees are planted in our nursery for a
year or two and then transplanted. As to
the Red Cedars, we have gathered small specimens not over six or eight inches
high in the woods and planted them in the nursery for a year or two and then
transplanted. In this way we secure
trees with great masses of small roots, and we lose but few trees when planted
out. At first we tried to move trees
from three to six feet high with well developed tap roots and we lost a very
large percentage of those we tried to move.
We have had excellent results with all types of pines and red
cedar. We planted a great deal of
spruce, which grew very well for four years.
We lost about three-fourths of them, however, in the first severe
drought. Austrian Pine has done extremely well.
After becoming established, many of the trees have grown eighteen inches
each year in height.
The results of our experiments are
sometimes completely unaffected. By the
prevention of fires and the building of brush hedges to stop erosion, we have
built up the humus deposits in the past fifteen years over the entire area so
that there is but little run-off even when we have an inch or two of rain in a
day. In one of our worst drought years, when
our ponds and springs were at low ebb, we had a splendid rain, a regular gully
washer. My rain gauge (a glass tube set
in a heavy iron base) indicated nearly two inches of rain. I walked into the valley expecting to see
water flowing over all the dams but found no perceptible increase in the water
level. The rain, instead of rushing off
the eroded land to the gullies, streams and ponds as it had in the past, had
all been absorbed in humus deposits where, or course, it helped our efforts in
conservation much more than it would have in the ponds. This was to us a perfect demonstration of the
fact that the building up of our forest litter and the humus on the land
greatly helps to decrease the speed of run-off and thus to decrease damage by
flood and drought.
When we purchased the property there were
practically no flowers in the valley bottom.
A few flowers were growing on the steep bluff, rocky glades and ledges,
but cattle, erosion and fires had eliminated practically all flowers from the
balance of the land. As soon as we have
provided drainage and accumulated some humus in any given area we re-introduced
flowers which we have found were native in the area and we have secured a most
thankful and satisfactory increase each year in the number of flowers, the
number of species and the size of the plants.
With flowers which really belong in the valley, such as white, blue and
yellow violets (81, 82, 9) Dutchmen’s breeches (18), blood root (6), Solomon’s
seal, spring beauty, Jacob’s ladder, water leaf, smilacina, mertensia (45),
wild hyacinth (10) et cetera, we have had uniform success. We thought 5 years ago that 10 inches was a
find height for jack-in-the-pulpit, now we find many 15 inches high and we do
not know what the limit of their growth will be.
In introducing
any species in the area we tried it out in many locations differing as to
shade, wind, soil, et cetera. We find
some flowers are very temperamental.
Yellow Lady Slipper (91), Indian paint brush (34), Celandine poppy (11),
Cardinal flower, et cetera, have done very well in a few spots but they have
refused to grow in most places in which they have been planted. We plant most of our wild flowers near the
trails where they are susceptible to crushing by human tread but we find that
by making the gravel trail 14 inches higher than the adjoining ground and
pointing out poison ivy just off the trail most visitors are prevented from
stepping off the trail.
As clear
streams of running water, pools and ponds are unusual in our section of the
Ozarks we have laid out the various trails and roads along bodies of water
wherever possible to make the most of our water effect. (73, 74, 75, 76). For
several hundred feet on each side of the trails, we have thinned out the woods
to increase the visibility. We have
removed trees that have been injured or are of undesirable variety. All of the trees and brush we cut, we pile in
hedges along contour lines on the hills to catch and hold the leaves, to retard
erosion and speed up the building up of the soil.
As we visit our Jefferson County home all
through the year, we have made considerable effort to have it attractive at all
times. In order to prolong the flower
season we have planted five varieties of witch hazel on the place, as some
bloom in December. They furnish the last
bloom of the year, and as others bloom in January they also furnish our fist
harbinger of spring. When we purchased
the land only the Red Cedar, which is abundant along the hill just south of the
house, was the only native evergreen which helped to cheer the winter
scene. A few years after we acquire the
land, we found a few plants of deciduous holly on the area. This shrub bears a brilliant scarlet berry
which it holds until after Christmas.
With the elimination of fires and the stopping of grazing, this shrub
has spread prodigiously and there are now several hundred big enough to carry
fruit. We also had a happy experience
with wahoo. There was none on the area 15 years ago when we purchased it. We found the first berries about 10 years ago
and it has now spread all through the valley.
This plant has a very attractive berry similar to bitter-sweet.
Many of the wild flowers which originally
grew in our vicinity have been gathered for years and sold as herbs. Prices of many of them are still quoted in a
St. Louis daily paper. Lady slipper,
wild ginger, ginsing, [sic] wahoo, hepatica and golden seal are among the roots
and plants which are sold commercially in the drug trade. This accounts for their scarcity in the area.
Whenever we have a cold spell, the ice formations along the dams and bluffs add
an interesting feature to the landscape.
A little plant called Dittany, which is
very inconspicuous in the summer time, furnishes the feature of the place after
the first frost. It stems crack just
above the ground and the sap freezes as it exudes, forming ribbons of ice which
are called “ice curls”, sometimes as large as one’s fist and beautiful in
formation . Whenever the oak and hickory do not overcrowd them, we have great
numbers of red bud (55), red cedar and flowering dogwood.
Some of our visitors resent the
introduction into the landscape of plants which are not indigenous. It has been our policy in spots where native
plants are attractive and luxuriant and furnish interest for each season of the
year, to leave them alone. On our steep bluffs and cliffs, where nature’s
flowers still grow, nothing has been introduced. The vegetation is balanced and attractive at
all times. In the more level areas we
find that fire and over-grazing have destroyed most of the native flowers. Here we have introduced many flowers, such as
day lily (20), lily of the valley, forget-me-no, etc., to add a touch of color
during the days when none of our natives are in bloom. Our visitors get the greatest thrill out of
finding flowers blooming in the very early spring and we have made a special
effort to introduce flowers of the earliest bloom even though they are not
native. In that way we have increased
our flower season about six weeks. We
usually have witch hazel in bloom in January, snowdrops by the 9th
of February and from then on we have a constant succession of crocus (14, 15),
winter aconite and glory of the snow before there is any appearance of our
earliest natives, which in this neighborhood are hepatica, spring beauty, blood
root and Dutchmen’s breeches. All of the
flower I mention do extremely well and fit perfectly into the landscape. Many
of them are in bloom when the snow is on the ground and icicles are still
hanging from the bluffs.
We are trying to establish a great variety
of wild flowers, but our principle effort is to beautify our trails. Many of our loveliest flowers, such as
Dutchmen’s breeches and mertensia, disappear completely shortly after blooming
for that reason are not completely satisfactory when being considered for
beautifying the trails. It occurs to me
they have solved the problem of our St. Louis climate—they bloom, propagate and
spread see during April and May and vacation for ten months each year,
unaffected by our heat and dry spells.
The bloom of the Dutchman’s breeches and the blood root is of such very
short duration that unless one knows exactly when and where to go to see them
in bloom and can arrange to go at that time, the flower may bloom and die
without having been seen by any visitor.
Other plants, such as Solomon’s seal, jack-in-the-pulpit, green dragon,
etc., have reasonably attractive flowers and foliage in the spring and summer
and interesting berries in the fall.
When we first became interested in wild
flower conservation, we felt that the use of the Latin names and the
determination of the exact specie would be rather a waste of time but
experience has taught us that not only must the exact species be determined by
often the strain is of great importance.
We purchased a great many plants and shrubs from nurseries advertising
only the popular names, and in numerous instances we found that we had
purchased and planted flowers which we already had well established. We found purple cone flowers growing in great
profusion on the open glades and assuming that purple cone flowers are always
purple cone flowers, we purchased seeds and reared purple cone flowers
plants. They appeared to be much
stronger specimens that the native.
However we planted them out in the glades where the native plants few
and lost them all. We then found that
purple cone flowers are not always purple cone flowers – that those raised from
seed were brauneria purpurea and those growing wild on the glades were
brauneria augustifolia. We have now
introduced the brauneria purpurea in the valley and along the streams and find
they do very well there. They are
entirely worthless on the glades.
On our place we have two strains of white
trout lilies. The color of the flower is
practically the same. One is found at
the base of the bluffs in rich ground and has rather few flowers. The other
grows on top of the bluffs in poor soil and blooms profusely and at least a
month earlier than the other strain.
For many years we tried to get forget-me-nots
to grow. After great many unsuccessful
efforts, a friend gave us a pot containing forget-me-nots of a strain her
mother kept indoors for many years. When introduced in Jefferson County, it
took the place – it crawled down all the branches and walked down the
streams. We have given plants to a
number of persons and it has always grown well. We have at this time identified
and catalogued more than 250 varieties of flowering trees, shrubs and plants on
the area. Botanist friends estimate there are at least four times that number
on the place.
One of our friends, who has frequently
been at our Lodge in Jefferson county, was asked about our family by some
people in the East. She said some very nice things about the family, but later
in t he evening, after having had a few drinks, she apparently felt that she
had not been open and above board in her statements and she told the inquiring
friend that there was one scandal about the Rices she
had not divulged and that was that Charlie Rice had too d_____[sic] many wild
flowers. Since that story came back to
me, I have never insisted on any of our visitors taking the trail trip.
If any of you object to using profane
words, I suggest that you substitute “louse wort”, “spider wort”,
or “lobelia syphilatica”. The wild flower name that
gets me the maddest is merry-bells. I
bought 100 plants described as merry-bells from a nurseryman and received 100
bell wort, a sad, droopy, unpleasant plant of which we have hundreds.
After a number of efforts, we succeeded in
getting yellow Lady Slippers established in our valley. Shortly thereafter a man, who had at one time
been a root gatherer and knew all of our land very intimately, asked me why I
had gone to such trouble to get the Lady Slippers established. I told him I thought
it was one of the most beautiful of our native wild flowers and for that reason
I wanted it established. He then told me
that a few days before he had seen a colony of nine in bloom near the top of
one of our hills. I went right with him
and sure enough he showed me a colony occupying only about four square
feet. There were 10 or 12 stalks and 7
flowers in bloom. That was a good many
years ago. The colony is still there but
has never increased materially. This
colony is high up on a hill in the midst of an oak-hickory woods. It is on a slope of a hill facing the north
but is not in the type of location in which one would expect to find Lady
Slippers.
The Missouri Ozarks are among the oldest
mountain ranges in the United States. On
our land the bluffs are made up of several different deposits of lime, some of
which contain great quantities of fossil shells testifying to the occupation of
the area by tropical oceans. Directly south of our house the hills shelve down
precipitously and near the base are great ledges of St. Peter sandstone,
outcroppings of which extend from St. Paul, Minnesota, to the Gulf of Mexico.
The bluffs are very unusual and beautiful.
(Picture) The vegetation around
them is entirely different from that around the limestone. Prickly pear cactus
is more abundant on the ledge than anywhere else in the region. There in the early spring we find scorpions,
collard lizards and tarantulas (80) hiding under the rocks.
Cave and springs occur frequently in the
Ozarks. After exploring four or five sink holes and openings on our grounds,
our caretaker, a native of the vicinity, suggested exploring the opening of our
largest spring. There we discovered a
splendid cave. That was in August of 1928. Since that time, we have been back
more than a mile and found 3 rooms full of magnificent formations. (Picture) In
many places the cave is 40 feet or more in height. This type of cave is known
as a breathing cave. The temperature
inside the cave is always 52 degrees. When the outside temperature is higher
than 52 degrees, the air pours out of the cave through the spring opening. The hotter the day, the greater the air
flow. When the temperature is lower than
52 degrees outside, then the air flows into the cave. And the colder the day,
the faster the flow. We have capitalized this peculiarity by building a wall 8
feet high around the cave entrance. We
enter the walled space through heavy wooden doors and when the doors are closed
the air form the cave fills the space and then flows over the top of the
walls. This make the room much too cold
for some of our visitors, so we often leave one door open. We can keep the room, temperature around 70
degrees or 75 degrees when the temperature outside is 90 degrees and one door
is left open. In the cave there are
numerous gypsum Rosettes, stalactites, stalagmites, column, helictites, lily
pad and pop-corn formations.
As we remove the gravel from the stream,
we uncover very interesting rock formations. Rock ledges are revealed which
probably have never before been seen by any human. We have found a number of small springs,
which we never knew existed until we began excavating the stream. Years ago we found two points in the lower
part of the stream where most of the water disappeared. Below one place there was practically no water
running in the stream for a distance of 400 feet and in another place the water
disappeared for about 1400 feet. For a long time we were intrigued with the
idea that the stream disappeared into a cave running below the valley and that
the water which appeared further down the valley was different water arising
from springs. However, we added
Flouresceine, a very strong dye, to the water at the point just above the point
of disappearance. This chemical is red
and turns the water a lovely shade of green, and is not poisonous. In one test the dye showed up in the water
after 40 minutes 400 feet below where the dye had been introduced. At the other point it took 4 hours to
reappear, but it did reappear, so that we knew the stream was merely running
through a subterranean passage. Two years ago we found the exact point where
the water first disappeared into a great crack in the limestone ledges, so that
our visitors can now see a river lost and found. We have just found the exact point where the
stream disappears the second time on its 1400 foot subterranean jaunt.
We use the area as a conservation area for
birds. We have about 150 martins
occupying 3 martin houses from early March until early august in each
year. We keep cracked corn, sunflower
seeds and suet around the house, beside the feed furnished by persimmons,
mulberry, dogwood, plum, wild cherry, shad and turkey berries. This attracts a
great many cardinals, tufted titmice, quail, et cetera. Our caretaker reported that during the winter
of 1937 there were 27 cardinals feeding around the house at one time. It is conservative to say that since our
ownership of the area bird population has increased over 300%.
Some of our experiments have turned out
rather humorously and the joke has been on us.
Our house was built in an abandoned field bare of trees on the crest of
one of the highest hills near St. Louis. The location was selected because of
the commanding unobstructed view. For years we carefully tended and trimmed the
trees which sprouted about the house. Last year these trees shut off the view and we
had to cut down about 400 of the trees to which we had given such careful
attention, but after all there are many oak and hickory trees in the Ozark
hills but few views extending over many hundreds of square miles.
We found in some woods about 60 miles from
our place seeds of blackberry lily, planted the seeds on our place and shortly
thereafter found mature plants on our grounds.
We purchased great valerian from a nursery and after we knew the plant,
found it abundant all through our neighborhood.
Six years ago we found shooting star only on the grounds of one of our
neighbors. A friend sent us 60
plants. We cared for them very carefully
for 2 years and planted them out and 2 weeks later found hundreds of them
blooming in another part of our grounds.
A few words about the house may not be
amiss. (Picture) The house is built of lime stone from the place. We put on a tin roof to lower the fire risk
and as we realized that we would get better cistern water from a roof of that
type. The center is occupied by a fireplace two stories in height. In the rear of the fireplace is the kitchen
stove. The rocks on one side of the
fireplace constitute the stairs to the second story. Nearly every person who has asked our advice
about building a house in the country feels that a well or spring is absolutely
essential. We understand that in cities
the average person used approximately 80 gallons of water a day. We doubt if we use 5 gallons per person per
day on our place which, however, is only used for weekends. Only half of our roof drains into our
cistern, yet we have never used as much as a third of our cistern’s capacity in
any year. Rather than be subjected to
the nuisance of having water tested frequently, we bring our drinking water
supply for the house form the city in 5 gallon bottles, which are then turned
upside down in the water cooler. This
arrangement has proven most satisfactory and convenient. The only fuel used on the place is cord wood
cut form down timber. All wood ash is
used for fertilizer.
Our area contains a great variety of types
of land. We have hilltops and river bottom, sandy land and limestone glades,
hillsides with every conceivable exposure, so that we have spots suitable for
the growth of almost any wild flower native of Missouri. The only types of area we found totally
lacking were swamp areas and areas of acid land. We have developed small swamp areas by
building rock walls on the bed rock just above stream beds, and by filling the
area on the landside of the rock walls with rotted leaf mold, muck and sand and
bringing in a supply of water from springs through pipes. In these areas we
have been successful with yellow Lady Slipper, forget-me-not, cardinal flower
and great lobelia which we could not raise without establishing the areas.
Modern transportation is another
requirement if we wish to expedite Mother Nature’s work. Nature has provided innumerable methods for
spreading seeds. The milkweed and
dandelion have a parachute arrangement so efficient that it might be more
property compared to an airplane that to a parachute. Some of the plants employ Jonah’s plan. Their fruits are eaten by animals and birds
in consideration of a hitch-hike in the intestinal tract for the indigestible
seeds. Other plants use stickers and
burrs which attach themselves to the fur of animals and the clothing of human
and secure transportation in that way. I
strongly suspect that I personally have planted seeds of these varieties on
every road form the Lodge to my home in Clayton. Other plants use navigation
for the distribution of their seeds which flow down the rills and streams for
many miles before lodging on the bank.
One of the most interesting methods is that pursued by mistle-toe. If we were asked to devise a plan for
planting seeds on the upper branches of trees I, for one, will admit that I
could not devise such a method. Nature has worked out a most efficient
scheme. The whitish fruit of the
mistle-toe is considered a delicacy by certain woodpeckers. In addition to that, it is rather sticky and
the woodpecker, after his meal on mistle-toe, if he happens to be a woodpecker
of cleanly habits, rubs the mistle-toe fruit sticking to the outside of his
bill on the next tree he visits for grubs and thus plants seeds contained in
the fruit on the branches of trees.
The above mentioned are all methods of
rather rapid transportation. Many of our
most attractive wild flowers are limited to old fashioned methods. Many of them use the catapult method. The seed pod as it dries creates a tension
and when the seed pod bursts, the seeds are thrown a short distance from the
parent plant. In the wild geranium, we
find a magnificent development of this principle. A strip of vegetable matter about an inch
long and the size of the hair-spring of a watch is securely anchored at one end
and carries the seed in a cup shaped receptacle to the other end. When the seed is thoroughly ripened, the
spring contracts and throws the seed 4 to 5 feet.
I have taken up seed distribution in the
talk as our experience has shown that such plants as violets, blood root,
Dutchman’s breeches, mertensia and hepatica, when they have once been destroyed
in a region, cannot be re-established quickly unless we assist the
operation. Several books on wild flowers
give detailed descriptions for the fertilization of plants which is, of course,
a fascinating study. So far as I know,
there has been very little study of the methods used by various wild flowers
for the distribution of seed and particularly on the rapidity with which seed
is distributed. I plan this year to plant and mark some of our flowers in areas
in which there are none now growing and hereafter to record the rapidity with
which they spread through the area. An
experiment of that sort might prove very valuable. It certainly will be interesting and simple
to carry on.
Most of our area is in the course of construction
in the sense that there are many improvements which I hope to make over the
years to come. Some of our visitors have
asked me when I plan to complete the work and they are rather surprised when I
tell them that it will never be completed. A very substantial portion of the
fun that I get out of the ownership of the area is the making of improvements
such as deepening of the streams, the building of dams and the improvement of
the soil condition in areas in which we contemplate planting wild flowers. The
introduction of the new plants and watching their development is the greatest
fun of all. So far this spring, I have
had the pleasure of finding Christmas rose in bloom in March. I secured 2 plants from Mr. Mortimer
Burroughs about 3 year ago and saw in March the first slower which I have ever
seen, and it is a beautiful one. I
secured trout lily of a variety new to me 3 years ago at Onandago
[sic] Cave and found the first bloom on the first of this month and a number of
plants which seemed thrifty and healthy.
We planted California trough Lily about 3 years ago. They bloomed after 1 year and showed no
flower last year. They bloomed again
this month. I mention only these 3 as they all just occurred last year I
introduced 6 or 7 magnificent varieties from around Charlevoix, Michigan, and
for the next month or two I will be watching eagerly to see with what success
that experiment will meet. I think,
however, the greatest thrill that we get is from the very rapid increase which
we find yearly in the size and number of plants put in by our partner, Mother
Nature. We have done nothing whatever
with Christmas ferns, maidenhair ferns, grape ferns, wild plum, shad, wahoo and
deciduous holly and many other plants, yet they are increasing rapidly in various
portions of the grounds. At the present time we are doing a great deal of
foundation work in clearing out the streams,
building bridges, rock walls, beds for flowers et cetera. That work is now nearly completed and I shall
then have more time for the introduction of new plants, photography, marking of
nature trails, propagation of plants, et cetera, and that should be even more
interesting than the work we are doing now.
As I take visitors on walks through the
trails on my grounds from the middle of February until the end of October, I
sometimes think of the show presented by nature as a theater with the program
changed weekly. There is, however, one
material difference – it is not only the show which changes but the
theater. In a formal garden there is
constant work – removing tulips, planting annuals, et cetera – to secure
continuous bloom. We simply take a
different trail to a different theatre and accomplish the same results. One would naturally expect the first show to
be on the hillsides exposed to the southern sun but, strangely, the reverse is
true. The show beginning on February 14th
of this year was snowdrops in the valley, and snow in the theater. The show opened on Saint Valentine’s Day and consisted
of about 30 flowers. By the 21st of February, winter aconite,
purple, yellow and white crocus were added to the showing. On the show beginning on the 28th
of February, glory-of-the-snow and several varieties of squill were in the
cast. I call you attention to the fact
that all of the actors up to this time were foreigners, largely from Europe and
Asia. From that time on, however, the
Hollywood talent stole the show. The
Hepatica Sisters dressed in blue, pink and white stole the show beginning on
March 6th. They were so
popular they were continued over for the show beginning on the 13th
of March but grape hyacinths were added to the cast. The Blood Root Boys were the feature of the
show beginning on the 20th of March and the famous comedians,
Dutchman’s breeches, headed the bill for the 27th. Practically all
of these shows were given in the North Hillside Theater which will be open
until the end of this month. The best
features in the first two weeks of April are in the Valley Theater where
mertensia, blue violets, rue anemone, spring beauty and bell wort are the
principle actors. There is also an
excellent show at the Bluff Theater where shad, redbud and wild plum are the
principle performers. Tomorrow the principle
show at the Bluff Theater and also in the valley will be the first showing of
the white dogwood. Other theaters have
announced bookings for the wild hyacinth, Missouri primrose, purple cone
flower, Solomon’s seal, water leaf, tooth work, and several hundred others for
the summer and fall seasons.
The principles of conservation can be
applied on an area just a few acres in extent and as the work is concentrated,
the speed with which results show is increased.
From reading this article, one might get
the impression that ours was an outstanding section of the Ozarks and that is
in no sense correct. Anyone passing over
the concrete highways a few miles east and west of us, or even on the roads in
our immediate vicinity, would notice nothing unusual. We think there are many other sections of the
country which, if explored carefully, would prove as interesting as our area.
For thousands of years old Mother Nature
has slowly built up the soil. At first
when vegetation was scarce, consisting of mosses, licens,
et cetera, very little vegetable matter was left each year to decompose and
form top soil and as there was nothing to hold the top soil in place most of it
promptly washed away. However, as the
vegetation increased from century to century, more leaves and branches were
dropped each year to form a natural compost pile and there were more branches,
trees and twigs to hold the rotting leaves in place. The building was in a crescendo, each year
added more top soil than the previous year had added.
Mother Nature’s work was rudely stopped by
the coming of white men. The forests were
destroyed for lumber and cleared way to make farm land. The number of fires increased tremendously,
some caused by the carelessness of man and some started purposely by man to
clear out the brush and the woods in the easiest and cheapest way, or for the
purpose of driving game before the fire. After the cover of leaves had been destroyed
by fire, erosion by water began – gullies gradually formed and became larger
after each rain. The beneficent rains,
instead of saturating the soil and remaining on the land for the use of the
trees and shrubs, ran quickly off through the gullies and caused floods which
grew greater from decade to decade, and filled the ponds, streams and lakes
with silt, gravel, branches and leaves so that as the run-off gradually increased
the means which nature had provided for taking care of the run-off gradually
decreased. The tide was turned. Instead
of the land becoming richer with top soil each year, the top soil gradually
washed away, first slowly and then more and more rapidly.
Merely by preventing 1) all fires, 2) the
destruction of the forest cover, and 3) the over-pasturing of land, the work of
nature can be helped and if the damage has not already gone too far the tide
may be stemmed and nature alone left to heal the wounds and slowly build up the
top soil. However, if the damage has
gone too far, nature will require additional help. It will be necessary 1) to dam the gullies
with piles of brush and leaves to stop erosion, 2) to build brush hedges on
contour lines to anchor the leaves that do fall, and 3) to furnish adequate
drainage by removing form the streams the silt, gravel and leaves by which they
are blocked. The materials taken from
the streams can be used to build roads along the banks of streams and such
roads will serve as walls and will help to hold moisture and humus and
leaves. Possibly only a small amount of
this work will be required to prevent further destruction of the area on which
the work is being done. The more of this
type of work that is done, the faster nature will take hold and the faster the
area will be rebuilt.
The unparalleled dust storms, the floods
and fires from which we have recently suffered have impressed upon every one
the dire necessity for conservation on a tremendous scale in the near future if
we wish to hand down to posterity even such a land as ours is today, partly
devastated by erosion, fire an over-cropping through it be. Besides the adventure, amusement, happiness
and healthy exercise that we and our friends get out of our visits to the Lodge
each weekend, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are doing our bit
towards conserving the natural beauty of the upper waters on one small stream.
************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Early farmers passed the 76 acre triangular parcel up as too forested, when grass prairies nearby offered better ground. The configuration of these large early parcels leaving a small area untouched between them greatly helped preserve the Oak Knoll site for its eventual special role in the St. Louis community as a site for two beautiful homes for many years and eventually a uniquely situated public park. Desiring to live in the fresh air and country surroundings, the creation of Oak Knoll can be mainly attributed to Charles Marcus Rice (1882- 1950).
Charles was born in St. Louis to Jonathan and Aurelia Stix Rice, very successful St. Louis retail merchants. He was the only surviving child of three born to Jonathan and Aurelia. Charles received his undergraduate degree from Washington University in 1904 and his law degree from St. Louis University Law School in 1907. A year later, in 1908, he and May Goldman (1883- 1960), Jacob Goldman’s daughter were married. Their first child, Erna Sarah Rice was born in 1910 (1910- ), and in 1912 they had a son, Jay Goldman Rice (1912- ). Charles was a prominent lawyer in St. Louis, starting the law firm of Lewis and Rice in 1909 with Joseph W. Lewis, and served as a member of many boards for businesses and charitable organizations. May loved music; as a young lady she studied music and singing in Vienna, Austria. She served on the board for St. Louis Symphony, and was active with the Red Cross, garden clubs, Missouri Botanical Gardens.
Charles M. Rice, a lawyer, built the first house on Oak Knoll property in 1914. The second house was built in 1921, by Alvin Goldman; the brother of Charles Rice’s wife, (May Goldman Rice). The two houses stayed in the family until the late 1950s when the city of Clayton purchased the two properties comprising 14.5 acres of canopy trees and lawn areas with gently rolling hills and created a park. Even though all the land in the area was being developed for residential subdivisions, the Rice and Goldman families had different plans for their 15 plus acre site. They would join together and develop the site, name it “Oak Knoll” and each have a country estate that would allow them to move away from their city homes. Charles loved nature, fresh air and the outdoors and having woods surrounding his home was a dream come true. Also, as he suffered from asthma, the country estate would allow him to escape the smoke and pollution of the city at the time. He was an avid naturalist, and outdoorsman, frequently spending time on their 600 acre country property 30 miles south of Highway 21 in Jefferson County. On this property a cave was discovered by Charles which lead to the family’s increased interest in exploring their cave and other caves in the nearby area. [Charles later through his interest in caves ended up owning and operating Onondaga Cave near Sullivan Missouri through strange set of circumstances, and later sold it off after a few years.]
Charles’ son Jonathan recalls in his memoirs kept in the archives of the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center an event they undertook in preparation of caving in a new cave. Through their caving friends, a cave was located that had only a vertical entrance requiring a 15- 20 foot ladder. Charles and his two sons Jay, and Jonathan and some of their friends decided they better practice first aid to be sure they could raise the heaviest of the group, Charles, by a rope, in case he could not climb the ladder. It was decided to practice this procedure at #1 Oak Knoll over the banister from the second floor to the lobby by the front door with the rope tied to Charles. The boys pulled him up off the floor about 4 feet when the door bell rang and a group of May’s symphony friends from out of town came in, and screamed at the sight of his dangling feet, which then caused the boys to let go of the rope, and Charles crashing to the ground, fortunately unhurt at the feet of the startled visitors.
In 1959, #1 and #2 Oak Knoll received their first non family occupants when Clayton leased both structures to the Museum of Natural Science. The Museum was founded in 1858 as the Academy of Science, and the organization where Charles Rice served as a member of the Board of Directors.
The site today is known as Oak Knoll Park and was home to the Museum of Science and the Natural History Museum. The museum and its dinosaurs occupied Oak Knoll Park from 1962 through 1985 before moving to Oakland Avenue as the St. Louis Science Center
Copyrighted, 2011. James W. Sherby Accessed and extracted - Oct 5 2015 @ http://www.claytonhistorysociety.org/pdfs/Oak_Knoll_Park.pdf
Charles Marcus Rice was born in St. Louis to Jonathan and Aurelia Stix Rice, very successful St. Louis retail merchants. [Stix & Rice which became Stix, Baer &Fuller] He received his undergraduate degree from Washington University in 1904 and his law degree from St. Louis University Law School in 1907. A year later, in 1908, he and May Goldman (1883- 1960), Jacob Goldman’s daughter, were married. Their first child, Erna Sarah Rice was born in 1910 (1910- ), they had a sons, Jay Goldman Rice in 1912 (1912- ) and Jonathan Rice born (1916-). Charles was a prominent lawyer in St. Louis, starting the law firm of Lewis and Rice in 1909 with Joseph W. Lewis, and served as a member of many boards for businesses and charitable organizations. His wife, May, served on several boards including the garden clubs, and Missouri Botanical Gardens. Charles M. Rice, a lawyer, built the first house on Oak Knoll property in 1914. [Today Oak Knoll Park in Clayton, MO] Charles loved nature, fresh air and the outdoors and having woods surrounding his home was a dream come true. Also, as he suffered from asthma the country estate would allow him to escape the smoke and pollution of the city at the time. He was an avid naturalist, and outdoorsman, frequently spending time on their 600 acre country property 30 miles south of St. Louis, off Highway 21 in Jefferson County. A cave was discovered by Charles which lead to the family’s increased interest in exploring their cave and other caves in the nearby area. [Charles later through his interest in caves ended up owning and operating Onondaga Cave near Sullivan Missouri through strange set of circumstances, but sold it off after a few years.]
Copyrighted, 2011. James W. Sherby Accessed and extracted - Oct 5 2015 @ http://www.claytonhistorysociety.org/pdfs/Oak_Knoll_Park.pdf
Over the course of many visits and weekend stays in the cabin they built on the property, the Rices’ were consumed with improving the soil by creating humus, clearing the streams beds for controlled water flow to eliminate erosion, adding native Missouri flowers, and watching Mother Nature do her thing. They explored their hillsides, bluffs, glades, springs, and caves and enjoyed the view which stretched many miles on all sides. -cg