CHAPTER XXIX

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VISIT TO A FARM.—FARM-HOUSE AND FARMERY.—FATTING CATTLE.—SHEEP.—VETCHES.—STOCK YARD.—STEAM THRESHING.—TURNIP SOWING.—EXCELLENT WORK.—TRAM ROAD.—WAGES.

In the afternoon we were taken to visit a farmer who was considered about the best in the district (Shropshire). The house was in the middle of a farm of three hundred acres, and was approached by a narrow lane; there were no _grounds_ but a little court-yard, with a few trees in it, in front of the house, which was a snug, two-story, plain brick building.

On entering, we found the farmer, a stout elderly man, sitting alone at a dinner-table, on which were dishes of fruit and decanters. He insisted on our joining him, and we were obliged to sit some time with him over his wine while he talked of free-trade and questioned us how low we could afford to send wheat from America, and how large the supply was likely to be.

[Sidenote: _A SHROPSHIRE FARMERY._]

He then led us into the farmery, which was close by the house, the rear door almost opening into a cattle yard. I mention this as it would be considered extraordinary for an American gentleman who could afford wines at his dinner, to be content with such an arrangement. There was not the least attempt at ornament anywhere to be seen, beyond the few trees and rose-bushes in the enclosure of a rod or two, in front of the house: not the least regard had been had to beauty except the beauty of fitness, but every thing was neat, useful, well ordered, and thoroughly made of the best material—the barns, stables, and out-buildings of hewn stone, with slated roofs, grout floors, and iron fixtures. The cattle stables were roomy, well ventilated and drained, their mangers of stone and iron; fastenings, sliding chains; food, fresh-cut vetches, and the cattle standing knee deep in straw.

The fatting cattle were the finest lot I ever saw, notwithstanding the forty finest cows that had been wintered had been sold within a fortnight. These forty had been fattened on ruta baga and oil-cake, and their _average_ weight was over 10 cwt., some of them weighing over 12 cwt. They were mostly short-horns. Those remaining were mostly Hereford bullocks.

Sheep were fatting on a field of heavy vetches: Cheviots and Leicesters, and crosses of these breeds.

The VETCH is a plant in appearance something like a dwarf pea; it is sown in the autumn upon wheat stubble, grows very rapidly, and at this season gives a fine supply of green food, when it is very valuable. It requires a rich, clean soil, but grows well on clay lands. I think it has not been found to succeed well in the United States.

In the rear of the barns was a yard half filled with very large and beautifully made-up stacks of hay, wheat, oats, and peas. The hay was of rye-grass, a much finer (smaller) sort than our timothy. The peas were thatched with wheat-straw. The grain stacks were very beautiful, several of them had stood three years, and could not be distinguished from those made last year. The butts of the straw had been all turned over at regular distances, those of one tier to the top of that below it, and driven in, so the stack appeared precisely as if it had been _served_ with straw-rope, and I supposed that it had been, until I was told. The threshing of the farm is done by steam, the engine being in the stack-yard, the furnace under-ground, and the smoke and sparks being carried off by a subterranean flue to a tall chimney a hundred yards distant. (I have seen a hundred steam-engines in stackyards since, without this precaution, and never heard of a fire occasioned by the practice.)

The grain on the farm had all been sowed in drills. The proprietor said that if he could be sure of having the seed perfectly distributed, he should prefer broad-cast sowing (i. e., as well as a first-rate sower could distribute it in a perfectly calm day). The wheat was the strongest we have yet seen, and of remarkably equal height, and uniform dark colour. The ground was almost wholly free from weeds, and the wheat was not expected to be hoed.

We found fourteen men engaged in preparing a field for turnips: opening drills with plough, carting dung, which had been heaped up, turned, and made fine, distributing it along the drills, ploughs covering it immediately, and forming ridges 27 inches apart over it; after all, a peculiar iron-roller, formed so as to fit the ridges and furrows, followed, leaving the field precisely like a fluted collar. The ridges were as straight as the lines of a printed page; and any inequality, to the height of half an inch, was removed by the equal pressing of the roller. A more perfect piece of work could not be conceived of. Seed (3 lbs. to the acre) will be sown immediately on the ridges, by a machine opening, dropping, closing, and rolling six drills at once. The field is thorough-drained (as is all the farm, three feet deep) and subsoil ploughed.

[Sidenote: _FARM-ROAD.—WAGES._]

I saw no farming that pleased me better than this in all England. It was no gentleman or school farming, but was directed by an old man, all his life a farmer, on a leased farm, without the least thought of taste or fancy to be gratified, but with an eye single to quick profit; with a prejudice against “high farming,” indeed, because it is advised by the free-traders as a remedy for low prices. He declared no money was to be made by farming: do his best, he could not pay his rent and leave himself a profit under the present prices. He had been holding on to his wheat for three years in hopes of a rise, but now despaired of it, except the protective policy was returned to.

There was a coal mine and lime-kiln on the farm, and a tram-road from it to the railroad about two miles distant. A tram-road is a narrow track of wooden rails, on which cars are moved by stationary power or horses. On extensive farms they might be advantageously made use of. A road running through the barns and out-buildings of a farmstead, on which straw, feed, dung, &c., could be easily moved by hand, would cost but little, and often afford a great saving of labour.

The fences were all of hawthorn, low, and close-trimmed.

The farm servants had from $65 to $75 a year and their board. (The very next day a man told me he paid just half these sums.) Day-labourers from $2 to $2.50 a week (fair weather) and board themselves. A boy just over fourteen years old (under which age it is by law forbidden) told me he worked in the coal mines for sixteen cents a day.

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