Unfinished character of many things on this continent--Old Country
roads--Differing aspects of farms--Moving from the old log-house to
the palatial residence--Landlord and tenant should make their own
bargains--Depletion of timber reserves.
In America everything is begun, and but few things finished. Persons
from the Old World tell us this, and there is a great deal of truth in
it. Driving on Ontario roads one sees a good farm-house, surrounded by
trees and fences, all nicely kept, when perhaps the very next field
adjoining this well-cultivated farm is considerably given up to stumps
and a few boulders, although of stones the best parts of Ontario are
happily almost free. There may be a little brook crossing the highway;
to get over this brook a bridge or culvert of cedar sticks has been put
down, which does well enough in itself, and is quite safe, but it
manifestly will not last any great length of time. Now, in Europe, such
little streams would be spanned by a stone arch bridge. The little
stream as it passes along the fields in many parts, notably in Germany,
would be straightened and walled in with stones to keep it from wearing
away its banks. Of course, we cannot afford to do all this in our new
country, but I think from this time forth what work we do at all should
be of a more permanent character than it has been, for the first outlay
would be the cheapest in the end. Again, beside a farm well kept, on the
next lot will be often found old fences barely sufficient to turn
cattle. If it is a board fence half the boards will be off, and one end
of them lying on the ground, while the other end still adheres by a
solitary nail to the proper post. Or a few posts will have got out of
the perpendicular, and point their several ways heavenward, but
unfortunately each post points a way and on an incline of its own.
Besides the country roads are, sometimes, even in our best settlements,
remains of old logs, nearly rotted away, an old stump or so, and on the
sides of the road, upon either side of the waggon track, stumps and
convolutions, just as it came from primeval forest, and never smoothed
down by the hand of man. The waggon track, passing between these stumps,
decaying logs and hillocks, will generally be a good one, but it is this
unfinished appearance which causes the European to tell us, with a shade
of truth, that things are begun in America but not yet finished. Driving
in Europe all seems finished. There is nothing left in the roads, and
even if they be narrow, the hedges or walls upon either side are
perfect, and there is nothing to mar the scene. It is literally
finished. Man has done all there is to do. We must, of course, recollect
that ours is a young country, and I am only presenting this disagreeable
side of our country that we may begin to right these features. For
utility and resource the people of Europe cannot begin to compare with
us. The very nature of things here, commencing as we did a few years ago
in the native woods, compelled us to seek the quickest and easiest ways
of getting on. But all that is past now, and we ought to commence to
finish our country.
Those who remain constantly at home do not feel the deficiency so
particularly, but to those who go abroad these defects are so glaring
that one notices them at every turn. The more we beautify our country
the better it will please ourselves, and likewise will be the means of
inducing capitalists from abroad to invest among us. We may often see,
in driving along our roads, first-class capacious barns and sheds, and
every fence on a farm neat and tidy, gates all right, nicely painted,
and the whole get-up of the farm neat and thrifty. At the same time this
farmer may be living in an ordinary farm-house, or perhaps the original
log-house which he built when he commenced to subdue the forest. The
farmer is among our best citizens, and presents a striking contrast to
our American cousin, who builds a showy house first, and perhaps a very
small barn afterwards. This farmer has carved his fortune from his
forest and farm, and appreciates that his stock makes money for him,
hence he prepares first-class stabling for them, while his own family
lives in meagre quarters within square log walls. No doubt his family
are quite comfortable in their log-house, but do not essay to cut so
great a figure in the world as many of his neighbors of much smaller
means and fewer acres. Many times this person will own his 200 or 300
acres, and all paid for. He drives great fat horses on the road, and
pulls his cap squarely down on his head, and goes on as if he meant
business, which he really does. It is a matter of indifference to him if
his wife and daughters be dressed in the latest fashions or not. If they
have good, strong, serviceable clothing, he considers it sufficient, and
the gimps and gew-gaws of modern times have not yet entered upon his
calculations; but he can show a whole row of stalls in his cow-barn
containing twenty head of good fat cattle and a lot of growing young
calves. Such citizens are desirable, and we are proud of their industry
and success. Now and again such farmers get around to the house
business, and when they do build, they build well--usually brick, or it
may be he has for years been gathering the stones in piles from his
fields; if so, his house will be of solid stone walls two feet thick.
Many such persons put $3,000 or $4,000 in their houses, and the abrupt
transfer from the old log-house to the palatial residence is almost
startling to the inmates. Some little time has to elapse before they sit
their new house well. But, gradually, furniture comes in furtively in
the great farm waggon, returning home from the market, and in a year or
so their new homestead is complete in its appointments and in detail,
and there is a house any man in America or in Europe might be proud of.
The old log-house, likely as not, is left standing behind the new one.
As an excuse for leaving the old log-house standing, he says it is handy
to put implements in and a good place--up-stairs--for seed corn. But in
many instances I suspect he leaves it that he may look upon it and upon
the new one likewise in the same glance, and call a justifiable pride to
his mind, that the new palace, comparatively speaking, grew from the old
log-house, now holding his seed corn and implements. You call on him,
and he passes by the old log-house without a remark, but you speak of
it, and with just a tinge of pride he tells you, as he pulls down his
cap and thrusts his hands in his trousers’ pockets, that on that site
where the old log-house now stands, forty-five years or so ago, he cut
down four maple trees to make room for it, for there was then no room
elsewhere for it on his lot.
In former days, as has already been remarked, the great fertility of the
soil caused people to farm rather carelessly and without any
consideration of the desirableness of a rotation of crops. Time has
changed that to a great extent. I have a number of farm tenants, and
would not allow them to crop continually without seeding, etc.--not
because my soils are exhausted, but because I do not want them
exhausted. While we sympathize with Ireland and would like to see her
condition bettered, still to-day I, as a landlord, would not accept her
land law and abide by it. If I had to send my leases in to a land
commissioner to tell me what I must charge for my lands, I would not any
longer own lands, but would sell them out at once and put the proceeds
in Government bonds. It is obvious that here in Ontario each landlord
and tenant ought to make his own bargain, just the same as regarding
interest for money. Until our country is as thickly populated as Ireland
is, we need not raise this question of adjudicating upon rents but if
that time were to come I would not any longer consider my position as a
landlord in Ontario desirable. By this means I would let Ireland have a
home parliament, and I was in favor of the Gladstonian programme, but I
should think it extremely hard for any government to dictate to me what
I must receive as income for my estate, Henry George to the contrary
notwithstanding. Should our fair Ontario ever get to entertaining
communistic notions, the tenure of property and estates would be not
worth the effort to retain, and, as far as I am concerned (and there are
many like me), I would rather go over to Old England and take up my
abode.
In some instances there is too much liberty in Ontario. In this wise the
general public think nothing of tramping over fields, either in crop or
not, as the case may be, for short cuts, rather than follow the
highways. Some of us are endeavoring to preserve a grove of trees, but
there are those who, whenever they are in want of any especial stick for
poles, or axe handles, or what not, think nothing of cutting and taking
away one or more of the trees of a prized grove. No doubt heretofore it
has been thoughtlessness on the part of the public, and the example
handed down from the time when timber could be got anywhere for the
cutting. But that has passed from us, never to return, and in the future
we shall necessarily have to be more strict, as our country is
increasing in population. To prevent persons walking over fields is not
the idea. I well recollect an anecdote told me in England when I was
over there a year or two ago. A man was walking along a stream through
a pasture, when he was met by the owner, who asked, “Do you know whose
land you are walking on?” “No, I do not.” “Well, it is mine, and you
have no business to walk on my land.” “But I have no land of my own to
walk on, and where shall I walk?” And the poor man was correct. In
Ontario we do not wish even to restrain the poor man to that extent, but
the thoughtless and lawless trespass upon crops and timber, and the
tearing down of fences cannot much longer be allowed. Those living in
the vicinity of large towns keenly feel the need of change in this
particular.
Aside from all reasons of utility, it is a very great pity that all our
trees are disappearing in the older portions of Ontario. It has been
felt that our trees would never be all cut away, and it was thought
fifteen years ago that we would not have to rely upon coal. The beauty
of England is largely made up by her small groves of trees interspersed
throughout the country, and if not great in extent, they relieve the eye
and serve as wind-breaks. We have been too prodigal of our forests, but
since we have had to go to coal we begin to realize the use, beauty, and
benefit of even a few acres of woods here and there upon our farms. I
heard an owner of a 200-acre farm near here last year say, that if it
were possible he would give $300 per acre to have the ten acres of woods
replaced upon the north end of his farm. And this farmer had to draw
what wood he did use ten miles, but he wanted the forest on his farm to
serve as a wind-break and a thing of beauty.