FARM SPECIALISTS.
"And who that knew him could forget
The busy wrinkles round his eyes."
--_The Miller's Daughter_.
Many specialists, in distinct professions, visited the farm in the
course of every twelve months, and each appeared at the season when
his particular services were likely to be required. Among these an
ancient grafter was one of the most important, and April was the month
which brought him to Aldington. In January we had usually beheaded
some trees that we considered not worth leaving as they were: these
would be trees producing inferior and nondescript cider apples, or
perry pears. And we had already cut, and laid in a shady place, half
covered with soil, the young shoots of profitable sorts to furnish the
grafts for converting the beheaded trees into valuable producers.
The old man's function was to prepare the grafts, and unite them in
deftly-cut notches with their new parents. His was a rosy-cheeked and
many-wrinkled face, reminding one of an apple stored all the winter,
and, in his brown velveteen coat, with immense pockets, he made a
notable figure. He loved a chat and was always happy and
communicative, and his arrival seemed as much a herald of spring as
that of the welcome cuckoo. He was paid "by the piece,"
"three-halfpence a graft and cider," quantity not specified, but an
important part of the bargain because of a superstition that grafts
"unwetted" would not thrive! Some of these large trees would have ten
or more limbs requiring separate grafting, and therefore they earned
him a considerable sum, but it is surprising how soon they make a new
head, come into bearing, and repay with interest the cost of the work.
He was a thoughtful old man and a moralist. I can see him now,
standing with his snuff-box open ready in his hand, and saying very
solemnly, "I often thinks as an apple-tree is very similar to a child,
for you know, sir, we're told to train up a child in the way he shall
go, and when he is old he will not depart therefrom." He then
refreshed himself with a mighty pinch of snuff, closing his box with a
snap that emphasized his air of complete conviction.
I think the sheep-dipper was one of the early arrivals. He brings with
him an apparatus which provides a bath, and a kind of gangway, rising
at an angle from it, upon which the sheep can stand after immersion,
to allow the superfluous liquid to find its way back into the bath;
each sheep is lifted by two men into the bath containing insecticide,
and has an interval for dripping before it rejoins the flock. In the
days when Viper was young, he was introduced to the process and given
a dip himself, much to his disgust; but that was the only time, for
ever afterwards no sooner did the sheep-dipper and his weird-looking
apparatus appear at night, in readiness for the performance on the
morrow, than Viper remembered his undignified experience, and, before
even the overture of the play commenced, vanished for the day. Nobody
saw him go, or knew where he went, but it was useless to call or
whistle, he was nowhere to be found.
I believe the active ingredient of the dip was a preparation of
arsenic, and upon one occasion I lost several sheep after the dipping,
presumably from arsenical poisoning absorbed through the skin. I met
the dipper a few days later, and he said with a beaming face that he
had "given 'em summat," meaning the parasites. His smiles disappeared
when I told him the result, and that the remedy had proved more fatal
than the disease. After this experience I used a more scientific dip
which was quite as effective and without the element of danger to the
sheep.
Entries are to be found in the old parish records of sums paid and
chargeable to the parish for killing "woonts" (moles), but later
private enterprise was alone responsible. A mole-catcher had been
employed throughout the whole of my predecessor's time at Aldington,
with a yearly remuneration of 12s. On my arrival he called and asked
me to forward the account for the last year to his employer; it ran as
follows: "To dastroyin thay woonts, 12s." The man hoped that I should
continue the arrangement, but, as I had not seen a mole or a mole-hill
on the farm, I told him I would wait, and would send for him if I
found them troublesome. As a matter of fact I never saw a mole, or
heard of one on my land, throughout the twenty-eight years of my
occupation.
Rat-catchers are necessary when rats are very numerous, but rats
appear to be very capricious, abounding in some seasons and scarce in
others. My particular rat-catcher was not a very highly evolved
specimen of humanity; he was thin and hungry-looking with an angular
face, bearing a strong resemblance to the creatures against whom he
waged warfare; he had a wandering, restless and furtive expression,
and appeared to be perpetually on the lookout for his prey, or for
manifestations of their cunning and other evil characteristics in the
humanity with which he came in contact. His terms were, "no cure, no
pay," which impressed one with his confidence in his own remedies; but
these were profound secrets, and I had to be content with the
assurance that he used nothing harmful to man or domestic animals. He
was certainly successful, and effectually cleared the ricks and
buildings at one of my outlying places previously badly infested; no
dead rats were ever found, but all disappeared very soon after I
engaged him.
It is well known that rats will unexpectedly desert quarters which
they have occupied for a long time, and travel in large bodies to a
new locality. An old man told me that, in walking by the brook-side
footpath from Aldington to Badsey, he once encountered one of these
armies; they looked so threatening and were in such numbers, that he
had to turn aside to allow them to pass, as they showed no signs of
giving way for him.
One morning my bailiff came in to say that a bean-rick had suddenly
been taken possession of by an immense number of rats, where shortly
before not one could have been found. A man going to the rick-yard
quite early had seen the roof of the rick black with them; they were
apparently drinking the dew hanging in drops on the straws of the
thatch. They were so close together, "so thick," as he expressed it,
that one was killed by a stone thrown "into the brown" of them. We
sent for the thrashing machine a day or two later, and killed over
seventy, and many escaped. Every dead rat was plastered with mud
underneath, especially on their tails, and it was evident that they
had only just arrived when first seen, and had travelled some
distance, probably the evening before, along the clayey overhanging
bank of the brook.
We always had great numbers of water-rats about brook; they are no
relation of the land-rat, having blunter, noses, shorter tails, and
very soft fur. They have not the loathsome appearance of the land-rat,
and live, almost entirely, on water-weeds, rushes, and other vegetable
matter. It is pretty to see them swimming across a stream; they dive
when alarmed, and remain out of sight a long time; they never leave
the water or the bank, and are quite innocent of depredations on corn.
In some counties, but not so far as I am aware in Worcestershire, one
of the harmless snappers up of unconsidered trifles is the
truffle-hunter. At Alton, in Hampshire, one of these men appeared in
summer; he carried an implement like a short-handled thistle spud, but
with a much longer blade, similar to that of a small spade but
narrower; he was accompanied by a frisky little Frenchified dog,
unlike any dog one commonly sees, and very alert. The hunting ground
was beneath the overhanging branches of beech-trees, growing on a
chalky soil; the man encouraged the dog by voice to hunt the surface
of the land regularly over; when the dog scented the truffles
underneath, he began to scratch, whereupon the implement came into
use, and they were soon secured. I have since been sorry that I did
not interview this truffle-hunter as to his methods and as to his dog,
for I believe he is no longer to be seen in his old haunts. But I did
get a pound or two to try, and was disappointed by the absence of
flavour. I have since read that the English truffle is considered very
inferior to the French, which is used in making _pâté de foie gras_.
The wool-stapler makes his rounds as soon as shearing is completed;
his first call is to examine the fleeces, and if a deal results a
second visit follows for weighing and packing. He is of course well up
in market values, probably receiving a telegram every morning, when
trade is active, from the great wool-trade centre, Bradford. He is not
unwilling to give a special price for quality, but will sometimes
stipulate for secrecy as to the sum, because farmers, naturally,
compare notes, and everyone thinks himself entitled to the top price
no matter how inferior or badly washed his wool may be. The Bradford
stapler has the northern method of speech, which sounds unfamiliar in
the midland and southern counties, but it is not so cryptic as that of
the Scottish wool trade. The following colloquy is reported as having
passed between two Scots over a deal in woollen cloth.
_Buyer_. "'Oo?"
_Seller_. "Ay, 'oo."
_Buyer_. "A' 'oo?"
_Seller_. "Ay, a' 'oo."
_Buyer_. "A' _a_ 'oo?"
_Seller_. "Ay, a' _a_ 'oo."
Which, being interpreted, is: "Wool?"--"Yes, wool." "All wool?"--"Yes,
all wool." "All one wool?"--"Yes, all one wool."
When the stapler arrives for the weighing he brings his steelyards and
sheets; the wool is trod into the sheets, sewn up, and each sheet
weighed separately, an allowance being made for "tare" (the weight of
the sheet), and for "draught" (1/2 a pound in each tod, or 28 pounds).
This last is a survival of the old method of weighing wool, when only
enough fleeces were weighed at a time on the farmer's small machine to
come to a tod as nearly as possible. Buyers did not recognize anything
but level pounds (no quarters or halves), and consequently they got on
the average half a pound over the tod at each separate weighing,
gratis.
Owing to the immense importations of Australian wool, the price of
English, which at one time was half-a-crown a pound, fell to the
miserable figure of sevenpence or thereabouts. When I was in
Lincolnshire, the tenant of the farm where I was a pupil clipped 14
pounds each from 200 "hoggs" (yearling sheep), which at 2s. 6d. per
pound produced 35s. per sheep, equal to £350, so the fall of
three-quarters of the value was a serious loss.
A story is told of a cunning wool buyer in the dim past weighing up
wool on an upper floor of some farm premises. As the fleeces passed
the machine they were thrown down an opening to the floor beneath in
readiness for packing. The pile of wool upstairs had been there some
time, and was full of rats. As the fleeces were moved a rat would
sometimes rush out trying to escape. No farm labourer can resist a rat
hunt, so the buyer being left alone beside the still unmoved fleeces,
whenever a rat appeared, and the men scattered in every direction in
pursuit, he took the opportunity to kick a few fleeces unweighed down
the opening. When the owner came to reckon the quantity the buyer
should have had, and compared it with the weight, the fraud was
discovered, and the deficiency had to be made good.
I heard of a Hampshire farmer whose wife was anxious for a
drawing-room to be added to an inadequate farmhouse, and the tenant
with some difficulty persuaded the landlord to make the alteration.
When the work was complete the farmer expressed the great satisfaction
of his wife and himself with the addition, and the landlord was
anxious to see the new room. Every time he suggested a day, the farmer
objected that it would be inconvenient to his wife, or that he himself
would be away from home. Time went on, and the landlord, finding it
impossible to arrange a day that was not objected to, made a surprise
visit, when shooting over the farm. The farmer protested as to the
inconvenience, but the owner insisted, and was conducted to the new
drawing-room. The door was thrown open, and the room was seen to be
stacked from floor to ceiling with wool, without a stick of furniture
in the place!
The veterinary surgeon is a necessary, but not very welcome visitor,
for, of course, his attendance means disease or accident to the stock.
He is not often mistaken in his diagnosis, though his patient cannot
detail his symptoms, or point to the position of the trouble. But the
vet is a man to be dispensed with as long as possible when epidemics,
like swine fever or foot and mouth disease, are raging in the
neighbourhood, because he may be a Government Inspector at such times,
and there is great danger to healthy stock if he has been officially
employed shortly before on an inspection. We had very little disease
at Aldington, being off the highroad, but we had one bad attack of
foot and mouth disease which I always thought was brought by a
veterinary surgeon. The complaint went all through my dairy cows and
fattening bullocks, and soon reduced them to lean beasts, but it was
surprising how quickly they picked up again in flesh and resumed their
normal appearance. It was curious to notice that, with the cows
standing side by side in the sheds, the disease would attack one and
miss the next two perhaps, then attack two and miss one, and so on;
doubtless it was a matter of predisposition on the part of those
affected.
The veterinary lecturer at Cirencester College told me that during the
cattle plague in the sixties he had a coat well worth £50 to any
veterinary surgeon, so impregnated was it with the infection. This man
was fond of scoring off the students, and had a habit at the
commencement of each lecture of holding a short _vivâ voce_
examination on the subject of the last. I remember when the tables
were turned upon him by a ready-witted student. The lecturer, who was
a superior veterinary surgeon, detailed a whole catalogue of
exaggerated symptoms exhibited by an imaginary horse, and selecting
his victim added, with a chuckle, "Now, Mr. K., perhaps you will
kindly tell us what treatment you would adopt under these
circumstances?" K. was not a very diligent student, and the lecturer
expected a display of ignorance, but his anticipated triumph was cut
short by the reply: "Well, if I had a horse as bad as all that _I_
should send for the vet." The lecturer expostulated, but could get
nothing further out of K., and was forced to recognize that the
general laugh which followed was against himself.
At a _post-mortem_, however, he was more successful in his choice of a
butt. A dead horse with organs exposed was the object before the
class, and the lecturer was asking questions as to their
identification. "Now, Mr. Jones, perhaps you will show us where his
lungs are?" Jones made an unsuccessful search. "Well, can we see where
his heart is?" and so on--all failures. Finally and scornfully, "Well,
perhaps you can show the gentlemen where his tail is!"
The village thatcher, Obadiah B., was an ancient, but efficient
workman when engaged upon cottages or farm buildings, for ricks
require only a comparatively temporary treatment. He was paid by the
"square" of 100 feet, and, although he was "no scholard," and never
used a tape, he was quite capable of checking by some method I could
never fathom my own measurements with it. The finishing touches to his
work were adjusted with the skill of an artist and the accuracy of a
mathematician; and a beautiful bordering of "buckles" in an elaborate
pattern of angles and crosses--"Fantykes" (Van Dycks), his
hard-working daughter Sally called them--completed the job. He
"reckoned" that each thatching would last at least twenty years, and
being well stricken in years, or "getting-up-along" as they say in
Hampshire, he would add gloomily, "_I_ shall never do it no more." He
was a true prophet, for on every building he thatched for me the work
outlived him, and even after the lapse of thirty years is not
completely worn out.
Passing him and his son in the village street, outside his house, when
he was packing fruit for market, I heard him, his voice raised for my
benefit, thus admonishing his son who was casually using some of the
newer hampers: "Allus wear out the old, fust." But I must not
attribute to his son the unfilial retort which another youth made
under similar circumstances, when told to fetch some more hampers from
a shed some distance away: "No, father, _you_ fetch them, allus wear
out the old fust, you know."
Occasional visitors come with goods for sale in quest of orders, and
some are very persistent and difficult to get rid of. A man professing
to sell some artificial fertilizer called upon me with a small tin
sample box, containing a mixture which emitted a most villainous
odour. He sniffed with appreciation at the compound, probably
consisting of some nitrogenous material such as wool treated with
sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, and began his address. He had not gone
far before I remembered a story of a similar person in Hampshire. This
man had called upon the leading farmers, and offered them a bargain,
explaining that some trucks of artificial manure that he had consigned
to Walton Station had been sent by mistake to Alton. He sold many tons
in this way without any guarantee as to the analysis, but the buyers
found on using it that it was worthless. The seller tried his game on
again the following year, without success. One farmer whom he followed
from the farm-house to a turnip-field went so far as to show him his
hunting-crop, and pointing to the field gate at the same time,
intimated that if he did not with all speed place himself outside the
latter, he would make unpleasant acquaintance with the former. So now
when my caller mentioned a truck of the manure which had come by
mistake to Evesham Station, though consigned to Evershot in Somerset,
my suspicions were confirmed, and when I innocently remarked, "I think
I remember that truck, didn't it go to Alton once in mistake for
Walton?" his countenance fell, and he wished me "good-morning" in a
hurry.
Hurdles in Worcestershire are generally made of "withy" (willow), and
it is interesting to watch the hurdle-maker at work. The poles have
first to be peeled, which can be done by unskilled labour, the pole
being fixed in an improvised upright vice made from the same material.
Then comes the skilled man, who cuts the poles into suitable lengths,
and splits the pieces into the correct widths. Next with an axe he
trims off the rough edges, shapes the ends of the rails, and pierces
the uprights with a centre-bit. Then he completes the mortise in a
moment with a chisel, the rails being laid in position as guides to
the size of the apertures. The rails are then driven home into the
mortise holes, and he skips backwards and forwards, over the hurdle
flat on the ground, as he nails the rails to the heads; two pieces, in
the form of a V reversed, connect the rails and keep them in place.
In counties where hazel is grown in the coppices, a wattled or "flake"
hurdle is the favourite, and they afford much more shelter to sheep in
the fold than the open withy hurdle, but, being more lightly made,
they require stakes and "shackles" to keep them in position. The hazel
hurdle-maker may be seen in the coppice surrounded by his material and
the clean fresh stacks of the work completed. The process of
manufacture differs from that of the open-railed hurdle: he has an
upright framework fixed to the ground with holes bored at the exact
places for the vertical pieces, and indicating the correct length of
the hurdle, when finished. The horizontal pieces or rods are
comparatively slender and easily twisted, and so can be bent back
where they reach the outside uprights, and they are interlaced with
the others in basket-making fashion. At this stage the hurdle presents
an unfinished appearance, with the ends of the horizontal rods
protruding from the face of the hurdle. Then the maker with a special
narrow and exceedingly sharp hatchet chops off at one blow each of the
projecting ends, with admirable accuracy, never missing his aim or
exceeding the exact degree of strength necessary to sever the
superfluous bit without injuring the hurdle itself. The hurdle-maker
is paid at a price per dozen, and he earns and deserves "good money."
The art of making wattled hurdles is passed on and carried down from
father to son for generations; the hurdle-maker is usually a cheery
man and receives a gracious welcome from the missus and the maids when
he calls at the farm-house, often emphasized by a pint of home-brewed.
He combines the accuracy of the draughtsman with the delicate touch of
the accomplished lawn-tennis player. His exits and his entrances from
and to the scene of his labours are made in the remote mysterious
surroundings of the seldom-trodden woods; overhead is the brilliant
blue of the clear spring sky; the sunshine lights up the quiet hazel
tones of his simple materials, his highly finished work, and his heaps
of clean fresh chips; and his stage is the newly cut coppice, carpeted
with primroses and wild hyacinths. I have never seen a representation
of this charming scene, and I commend the subject to the
country-loving artist as full of interest and colour, and as a theme
of natural beauty.
Our blacksmith came twice a week to the village when work was still
plentiful in the early days of my farming, and I was not yet the only
practical farmer in the place. I need not describe the forge: it has
been sung by Longfellow, made music of by Handel, and painted by
Morland; everybody knows its gleaming red-hot iron, its cascades of
sparks, and the melodious clank of the heavy hammer as it falls upon
the impressionable metal. In all pursuits which entail the use of an
open fire at night, its fascination attracts both busy and idle
villagers, and more especially in winter it becomes a centre for local
gossip. At that season the time-honoured gossip corner, close to the
Manor gate, was deserted for the warmth and action of the forge.
Blacksmiths, like other specialists, vary, and the difference may be
expressed as that between the man who fits the shoe to the hoof, and
the man who fits the hoof to the shoe--in other words, the workman and
the sloven. Doubtless many a slum-housed artisan in the big town,
driven from his country home by the flood of unfair foreign
competition, looks back with longing to the bright old cottage garden
of his youth and in his dreams hears the music of the forge, sees the
blazing fire, and sniffs the pungency of scorching hoof.