CONCLUSION.
It is with considerable diffidence the writer ventures to give the
public this slight sketch of her experience in farming four acres of
land.
When she finally resolved to fix her residence in the country, she was
wholly ignorant how she ought to manage, so that the small quantity of
land she rented might, if not a source of profit, be at least no loss.
She was told by a friend, who for a short time had tried "a little
place" at Chiselhurst, that it was very possible to lose a
considerable sum yearly by under taking to farm a very small quantity
of land. "Be quite sure," said the friendly adviser--"and remember, I
speak from experience--that whatever animals you may keep, the expense
attending them will be treble the value of the produce you receive.
Your cows will die, or, for want of being properly looked after, will
soon cease to give any milk; your pigs will cost you more for food
than will buy the pork four times over; your chickens and ducks will
stray away, or be stolen; your garden-produce will, if worth anything,
find its way to Covent Garden; and each quarter your bills from the
seedsman and miller will amount to as much as would supply you with
meat, bread, milk, butter, eggs, and poultry, in London."
Certainly this was rather a black state of things to look forward to;
but the conviction was formed, after mature reflection, that a
residence some miles from town was the one best suited to the writer's
family. She was compelled to acknowledge to those friends who advised
her to the contrary, her ignorance on most things appertaining to the
mode of life she proposed to commence, but trusted to that
often-talked-of commodity, common sense, to prevent her being ruined
by farming four acres of land.
She thought, if she could not herself discover how to manage, she
might acquire the requisite knowledge from some of the little books
she had purchased on subjects connected with "rural economy." They
proved, however, quite useless. They appeared to the writer to be
merely compilations from larger works; and, like the actors in the
barn, who played the tragedy of "Hamlet," and omitted the character of
the hero, so did these books leave out the very things which, from the
title-pages, the purchaser expected to find in them.
Some time after experience had shown how butter could be made
successfully, a lady, who had been for years resident in the country,
said, during a morning call, "My dairy-maid is gone away ill, and the
cook makes the butter; but it is so bad we cannot eat it: and besides
that nuisance, she has this morning given me notice to leave. She says
she did not 'engage' to 'mess' about in the dairy."
"Well," said the writer, "why not make the butter yourself, till you
can suit yourself with a new servant?"
"I have tried," said the visitor, "but cannot do it. My husband is
very particular about the butter being good, so I was determined to
see if I could not have some that he could eat; therefore I _pored_
over Mrs. Rundle, and other books, for a whole day, but could not find
how to begin. None of them told me how to _make_ the butter, though
several gave directions for potting it down when it was made. I made
the boy churn for more than three hours yesterday morning, but got no
butter after all. _It would not come!_ The weather was very cold, and
it occurred to the listener to ask the lady _where_ the boy churned,
and where the cream had been kept during the previous night.
"Why, in the dairy, to be sure," was the answer; "and my feet became
so chilled by standing there, that I can hardly put them to the ground
since. Cook could not succeed more than I did, and said, the last time
she made it, it was between four and five hours before the butter
came; and then, as I have told you, it was not eatable."
The writer explained to her friend that the reason why she could not
get the butter, as well as why cook's was so bad, was on account of
the low temperature of the cream when it was put into the churn. She
then gave her plain directions how to proceed for the future, and was
gratified by receiving a note from her friend, in a couple of days,
containing her thanks for the "very plain directions;" and adding, "I
could not have thought it was so little trouble to procure _good_
butter, and shall for the future be independent of a saucy dairymaid."
I believe that a really clever servant will never give any one
particulars respecting her work. She wraps them up in an impenetrable
mystery. Like the farmers' wives, who, to our queries, gave no other
answer than, "Why, that depends," they take care that no one shall be
any the wiser for the questions asked.
The reader may safely follow the directions given in these pages; not
one has been inserted that has not been tested by the writer. To those
who are already conversant with bread-making, churning, etc., they may
appear needlessly minute; but we hope the novice may, with very little
trouble, become mistress of the subjects to which they refer.
Even if a lady does keep a sufficient number of servants to perform
every domestic duty efficiently, still it may prove useful to be able
to give instructions to one who may, from some accidental
circumstance, be called on to undertake a work to which she has been
unaccustomed.
A friend of the writer's, a lady of large fortune, and mistress of a
very handsome establishment, said, when speaking of her dairy, "My
neighborhood has the character of making very bad butter; mine is
invariably good, and I always get a penny a pound more for it at the
'shop' than my neighbors. If I have occasion to change the dairymaid,
and the new one sends me up bad butter, I tell her of it. If it occurs
the second time, I make no more complaints; I go down the next
butter-day, and make it entirely myself, having her at my side the
whole time. I find I never have to complain again. She sees how it is
made, and she is compelled to own it is good. I believe that a servant
who is worth keeping will follow any directions, and take any amount
of trouble, rather than see 'missus' a second time enter the kitchen
or dairy to do her work."
Perhaps the allusion this lady made to the "shop" may puzzle the
London reader, but in country places, where more butter is made in a
gentleman's family than is required for the consumption of the
household, it is sent to--what is frequently--_the_ "shop" of the
place, and sold for a penny per pound less than the price for which it
is retailed by the shopkeeper. The value of the butter is set off
against tea, sugar, cheese, and various other articles required in the
family in which the butter is made.
When the writer purchased a third cow, it was in anticipation of
sending any surplus butter to "shop," and receiving groceries in
exchange, nor has she been disappointed.
Every month's additional experience strengthens her conviction of the
advantages to be derived from living in the country; and she takes
farewell of her readers, in the hope that she has succeeded in conving
them that a "farm of four acres" may be made a source of health,
profit, and amusement, though many of their "town" friends may
threaten them with ruin, should they be rash enough to disregard their
advice to take a house in a "nice quiet street," leading into one of
the squares.