The Boer would like to lay hands on the man who invented ploughs. Not
that he has any aversion to ploughs as ploughs; he merely objects to
the labour involved by the introduction of these implements into the
market. He sees some sense in an ox, a sheep, a goat, and a horse. Put
these animals on a bit of green veldt, and they do the rest
themselves; they thrive and multiply, and enhance the position of
their owner. But a plough! It means that he requires to take off his
coat and stop doing nothing. The Boer would like to argue that if God
had meant the soil to be disturbed by ploughs and such like, He would
not have left the solution of this problem in the hands of mere
inventors: He would have ordained a means whereby the soil would have
of itself turned over once a year at springtime.
The Boers are a pastoral people--one can hardly say an agricultural
people. They have been that sort of people from the start, and they
will never change. They are used to waggons and oxen and sheep, and
the waggons and oxen and sheep have got quite used to them. There is
abundance of proof in the Dutch Republics to satisfy any ordinary
person that a Boer, no matter if he can count his sovereigns by the
million, would never dream of giving up his farm and turning country
gentleman. He may take no part in the actual work (and this is not
much in his line under any circumstances), but he exercises that
amount of careful supervision necessary to successful farming, and
continues to do so until the end. Even the members of the Volksraad,
who are usually well-to-do farmers, never neglect their crops, albeit
a handsome income is assured in their official capacity.
But does farming in the Dutch Republics pay? Most emphatically, No. I
am not making this assertion because I have tried it myself, I am
simply quoting the dictum of every Boer. I have been careful to
obtain a consensus of opinion on this question for the guidance of
those who may contemplate embarking upon such an unsatisfactory and
dangerous undertaking. Farming does not pay. For my own satisfaction,
I recently questioned a Boer with regard to his average yearly income,
and he was good enough to humour me.
The value of his stock worked out as follows:
1,000 sheep say £ 500
100 head of cattle " 1000
48 horses " 480
-----
£1980
-----
£ s. d.
His yearly clip averaged 10 bales @ £10 = 100 0 0
On an average he sold:
20 head of cattle " £ 8 = 160 0 0
10 horses " £10 = 100 0 0
Butter, 1,000 pounds " 1s. = 50 0 0
Hides and skin say 5 0 0
Horns " 1 0 0
Mealies, 60 bags " 12s. = 36 0 0
Forage, 5,000 bundles " 3d. = 62 10 0
Kaffir corn, 30 bags " 15s. = 22 10 0
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Total average yearly income £537 0 0
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It must not be supposed for one moment that here we have a rich man. I
am merely citing the case of a farmer who said to me: 'I'd rather be a
book-keeper at twenty-pounds a month.' He had no idea that his annual
income figured up to anything like £537. And yet that same man would
endeavour to make a good bargain in purchasing sixpennyworth of
hairpins because he considered himself a 'poor man.'
There are hundreds of farmers, more particularly in the Free State,
who are unable to realize the extent of their wealth in stock or the
acreage of their own farms. They brand every ox, sheep, and horse that
belongs to them, and it is only by such marks that they are enabled to
recognise their own property when they see it. I have known instances
where hundreds of horses belonging to one man have succumbed in a
single season on account of horse-sickness, and their owner regarded
the loss as a mere trifle, because he knew that such a catastrophe did
not materially affect his position.
Klondyke had its 'millionaires in huts,' Boerland has its millionaires
in hovels. You will find farmers who are worth many thousands of
pounds living in places under whose roofs a Kaffir would certainly
disdain to pass the night. They possess wives and families, too, but
they exhibit no desire to better their domestic surroundings. If the
houses happen to include another room other than the living room, that
extra room is invariably used for storing grain. The women are untidy
and unprepossessing, and the children have not yet learned to
appreciate stockings and shoes. It is almost paradoxical to think of
human beings in a civilized country living such lives, people who have
great possibilities within their reach. The children readily
assimilate the habits and ways of their parents, and grow up into men
and women of a like type, and so on from generation to generation. No
wonder, then, that the Boers are a retrograde race.
[Illustration: A BOER FAMILY.]
It has been made sufficiently plain that when once the Boers have
acquired a country, they allow that country to rest in peace--from
an agricultural point of view only. This is quite apparent when it is
explained that the Free State has an estimated acreage of 7,491,500,
and out of that only 75,000 acres are cultivated. This is not the
fault of the country, but of the Boer himself. He has no sooner
settled down on a bit of land, where there is a plentiful growth of
grass to feed his stock, than he longs for pastures new, his only
reason for staying where he is being that he does not want the
Englishman to step into his homestead.
No exhibition of national prejudice is intended when I say that were
the Dutch Republics sprinkled with a few hundred Scottish farmers,
these countries would assume a more fertile and healthy aspect in two
or three years. The soil is good; all that is wanted is concentrated
hard work, and the countries would surprise several people--the Boers,
for instance--by the extent of their agricultural wealth. There are,
of course, climatic disadvantages to contend against--prolonged
droughts are of common occurrence--but, as in other countries, the
farmer must take the bad with the good. The great thing with the Boer
is stock, and plenty of it. He does not care about anything else until
the rinderpest comes.
Comparisons are odious, but let us compare the Boer with the English
farmers. Should the harvests of the latter be destroyed (as in the
case of an entire county of farmers in England at one time), ruin
stares them in the face, showing that stock is of little moment. It is
different in the case of the Boer. Take his stock away from him, and
you deprive him of his daily bread. Of course, the facilities for
successful cultivation in England are different from those in the
Dutch Republics; at the same time, there is such a thing as
irrigation, and were this resorted to more generally, and a larger
area of land put under cultivation, the Boer farmer would be on a more
stable footing.
A somewhat erroneous deduction has been gleaned by many people from
guide-books, in which particulars are given respecting the limited
extent of arable land available, but guide-book makers mostly prefer
to guess at the figures rather than go to the trouble of ascertaining
the truth. Without further reference to the guide-books, it is
noteworthy that the possibilities of both the Transvaal and Free State,
from an agricultural point of view, are greatly under-estimated, the
fact being that a very small proportion of arable land is cultivated at
all. In a number of cases water facilities are entirely ignored.
Wool is the current coin of the country with the Boer farmers, and the
merchant who is desirous of continuing his business must have a
certain amount of capital behind him, because the farmer likes to see
money at least once a year. Things have changed somewhat now. In the
olden days it was different. It was absolutely necessary then to put
down a cheque for the full amount, but the average farmer is becoming
less suspicious in transactions of this nature.
The life of the merchant during the wool season is not exactly a happy
one. He likes to please his customers, but he does not always
succeed. The average farmer who comes in with a load of wool has the
appearance of a man whose primary intention is to buy up all the
stores (although he may go away with a bag of coffee only), and
afterwards consider with great deliberation the question of acquiring
the whole town. All this is based upon the fact that he has a load of
wool for sale. The merchant would rather give him five shillings than
fivepence per pound, because it would be a certain sign that the good
times had arrived. No matter, however, what price the merchant offers,
your average farmer can always obtain more. He does not say where; he
prefers to keep that up his sleeve. He also advances by farthings and
halfpence, because he is chary about entering into the intricacies of
eighths. He, moreover, strongly objects to accepting a lower price
than that given to his neighbour. His neighbour may be an excellent
man, and he may be in possession of very good sheep, but that his wool
should be more valuable is not so apparent--is, in fact, most
improbable. Every farmer has implicit faith in the merits of his own
particular clip, and if differences really exist, he is prepared to
state emphatically that the advantage is on his side.