THE DAIRY--CATTLE--SHEEP--LAMBS--PIGS--POULTRY.
"And brushing ankle-deep in flowers,
We heard behind the woodbine veil
The milk that bubbled in the pail,
And buzzings of the honied hours."
--_In Memoriam_.
My farm had the reputation of being a good cheese farm, but a bad
butter farm; in spite, however, of this tradition I determined to
establish a pedigree Jersey herd for butter-making. For early in my
occupation I had abandoned the cheese manufacture of my predecessor
and later the production of unprofitable beef. My wife attended
various lectures and demonstrations and was soon able to prove that
the bad character of the farm for this purpose was not justified.
Within a few years she covered one wall of the dairy with prize cards
won at all the leading shows, and found a ready market for the
produce, chiefly by parcel post to friends. The butter, although it
commanded rather a better price than ordinary quality, was considered
not only by them but by the villagers more economical, as owing to its
solidity and freedom from butter milk, it would keep good
indefinitely, and "went much further."
The cream from my Jerseys was so thick that the cream crock could be
lifted up by the wooden spoon used for stirring, by merely plunging it
into the crock full of cream and raising it, without touching the
crock in any other way. With fifteen cows and heifers in milk on an
average, the Jerseys brought me in quite £300 a year in butter and
cream, without considering the value of the calves, and of the
skim-milk for the pigs, and they were worth a good deal besides from
the æsthetic point of view. I think that the word "dainty" describes
the Jersey better than any other adjective; their beautiful lines and
colouring in all shades of fawn and silver grey make them a continual
delight to behold. After all, however, the shorthorn is a magnificent
creature; they, too, have their aesthetic side; the outline is more
robust, their colouring more pronounced, and I think that "stately" is
the best description to apply to their distinguished bearing.
At Worcester, on market days, a great deal of butter is brought in by
the country people and retailed in the Market Hall, and many of these
farmers' wives and daughters have regular customers, who come each
week for their supply. On one occasion when the inspector of weights
and measures was making a surprise visit, and testing the weights of
the goods on offer, a man, standing near a stall where only one pound
of butter was left unsold, noticed that as soon as the owner became
aware of the inspector's entrance, she slipped two half-crowns into
the pat, obliterating the marks where they had been inserted. She was
evidently aware that the butter was not full weight, but with the
addition it satisfied the inspector's test, the two half-crowns just
balancing the one ounce short. No sooner was he gone than the
spectator came forward to buy the butter. She guessed that he had seen
the trick, and dared not refuse to sell, although she tried hard to
avoid doing so; so the cunning buyer walked off with fifteen ounces of
butter worth 1s. 2d., and 5s. in silver for his outlay of 1s. 3d.
In farm-houses where old-fashioned ways of butter-making are still
followed, and the thermometer is ignored, it happens sometimes that
after some hours' churning the butter does not "come." The traditional
remedy is then tried of introducing one or two half-crowns into the
churn, partly, I think, as a kind of charm, and partly with the idea
of what is called "cutting the curd." The remedy is certainly
sometimes successful, probably the coins set up a new movement in the
rotating cream, which causes an almost immediate appearance of the
butter. On the outside of the framework of the windows in some of
these old places, the word "dairy" or "cheese-room" may still be seen,
painted or incised. This is a survival from the days of the window
tax, and was necessary to claim the exemption which these rooms as
places of business enjoyed by law.
My former tutor, the late vicar of Old Basing in Hampshire, decided to
keep a cow on his glebe, and consulted the old parish clerk as to the
kind of cow he would recommend. The old man was the oracle of the
village on all matters secular as well as those connected with his
calling. "Well," he said, "what you wants is a nice pretty little cow,
not a great big beast as'll stand a-looking and a-staring at you all
day long." The vicar followed his advice, avoided the stony regard of
an unintelligent animal, and purchased a charming little tender-eyed
Brittany, which was quite an ornament to his meadow.
People were very shy of American beef when first imported but, being
lower in price than English it was bought by those who were willing to
sacrifice quality to cheapness. It was said that the most inferior
English was sold under the name of American, the best of the American
doing duty for medium quality English. I remember seeing a very
ancient and poverty-stricken cow knocked down to a Birmingham dealer,
who exclaimed exultingly as the hammer fell, "I'll make 'em some
'Merican biff in Brummagem this week."
The neglected and overgrown hedges, now so often seen on what was
formerly good wheat-growing land, have a useful side as shelter when
surrounding pasture. In the bitter winds which often occur in May,
when the cattle are first turned out after a winter in the yards well
littered with clean straw, they can be seen on the southern side
protected from the blast. Referring to the May blossom of the
white-thorn, an old proverb says, with a faulty rhyme:
"May come early or May come late
'Tis sure to make the old cow quake."
May Day has always been the customary date for turning out cattle to
grass, but people forget that old May Day was nearly a fortnight
later, which makes a great difference as to warmth and keep at that
time of year.
With changes of dates and times old customs and sayings lose their
force. Under the "daylight saving" arrangement we should alter, "Rain
before seven, fine before eleven," to "Rain before eight, fine before
twelve," which spoils the rhyme. And "Between one and two, you'll see
what the day means to do," into, "Between two and three, you'll see
what the day means to be."
A few years ago, when _Antony and Cleopatra_ was reproduced at a
London theatre by an eminent actor-manager, it was reported that his
mind was much exercised over the lines referring to the flight of
Pompey's galley:
"The breese upon her, like a cow in June,
Hoists sails and flies."
It was suggested that for "cow," the correct reading should be "crow,"
who might very well spread her wings to the breeze and fly. The
difficulty was caused by the word "breese" (the gad-fly)--no doubt
presumed to be an archaic spelling of "breeze." Shakespeare knew all
about farming, as about nearly everything else, and a year on a farm
would illustrate many of his allusions which the ordinary reader finds
somewhat cryptic; anyone who has seen the terrified stampede of cattle
with their tails erect when attacked by the gad-fly, will recognize
the force of the simile. The gad-fly pierces the skin of the animal,
laying its eggs beneath, just as the ichneumon makes use of a
caterpillar to provide a host for its progeny. No doubt the operation
is a painful one, but the caterpillar may survive, even into its
chrysalis stage, and the cow in due time is relieved, after an
uncomfortable experience, by the exit of the maggot or fly.
A branch of the Roman road, Ryknield Street, commonly called Buckle
Street, leaving the former near Bidford-on-Avon and running over the
Cotswolds via Weston Subedge, was known in former times as Buggilde or
Buggeld Street, derived possibly from the Latin _buculus_, a young
bullock. No doubt vast herds of cattle traversed the road from the
vale to the hills, or vice versa, according to the abundance of keep
and the time of year. Similar roads in Dorset and Wiltshire are still
known as "ox droves," and in the former county, at least, both young
heifers and bullocks are known as "bullicks."
Cattle are subject to all manner of disorders which, though puzzling
to the owner to diagnose, are not as a rule beyond the skill of a good
veterinary surgeon to alleviate; but there are also accidents which
are much more annoying, being impossible to foresee. I had occasional
losses from the latter causes: once in the night when a cow was thrown
on her back into a deep brick manger; and once when a small piece of
sacking, part of a decorticated cotton-cake bag, was somehow mixed in
with the food, and induced internal inflammation.
It is a difficult matter for a farmer when selling fat cattle direct
to the butcher, to compete with him in a correct estimate of the
weight, and it is therefore advisable to sell at a price per pound of
the dead weight when dressed; this, however, is not always feasible,
and a very close estimate can be arrived at by measurement of the
girth and length of the live animal, following rules laid down in the
handbooks on the subject of fat stock. It is a mistake to suppose that
the fattening of stock is a profitable undertaking _per se_. On all
arable farms there is a certain amount of food, hay, straw, chaff,
roots, etc., which must be consumed on the premises for the sake of
keeping up the fertility of the land, but I believe that only under
very exceptional circumstances can a shilling's-worth of food and
attendance be converted into a shilling's-worth of meat, so that if in
the future the price of corn is to fall back into anything approaching
pre-war values, the corn crops, as well as the intermediate green
crops, which are only a means for producing corn, must be
discontinued, and the land will again become inferior pasture.
Old-fashioned farmers recognized the absence of direct profit in the
winter of fattening cattle especially on the produce of arable land,
and the saying is well known that, "the man who fattens many bullocks
never wants much paper on which to make his will."
There are few pleasanter sights about farm premises than to see, as
the short winter day is drawing to an end, and the twilight is
stealing around the ricks and buildings, a nicely sheltered yard full
of contented cattle deeply bedded down in clean bright wheat straw,
and settling themselves comfortably for the night; and, when one pulls
the bed-clothes up to one's ears, one can go to sleep thinking happily
that they too are enjoying a refreshing sleep. Cattle and sheep can
stand severe cold, if they are sheltered from bitter winds and have
dry quarters in which to lie; even lambs are none the worse for coming
into the world in a snow-covered pasture; and an opened stable window
without a draught will often cure a horse of a long-standing chronic
cough. It was pitiful in the early days of the war to see the Indian
troops with their mountain batteries at Ashurst, near Lyndhurst, in
the New Forest, the mules up to their knees and hocks in black mud,
owing to the unfortunate selection of an unsound site for the camp.
A "deadly man for ship"--one of those expressions not uncommon in
Worcestershire, on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle--signifies a
celebrated sheep breeder; the word "deadly," in this sense, is akin to
the Hampshire and Dorset "terrible," or, "turrble," as a term of
admiration or the appreciation of excellence; but there are occasions
even in the most carefully tended flocks where accidents cannot be
anticipated. Such an event occurred to a Cotswold ram, which after
washing was placed in an orchard near my house to dry before shearing.
The ram had an immense fleece on him, nineteen pounds as it afterwards
proved, and the wool round the neck was somewhat ragged. As he lay
asleep with his head turned round and muzzle pointing backwards, some
little movement caused his head to become entangled in the loose wool,
and he was found hanged in his own fleece.
I was watching, with my bailiff, a splendid lot of lambs fat and ready
for the butcher; two of them were having a game--walking backwards
from each other, and suddenly rushing together like two knights in a
medieval tournament, their heads meeting with a concussion and a
resounding smack--when one instantly fell to the ground with a broken
neck. Had no one been present the meat would have been worthless, but
my man was equal to the occasion, and, borrowing my pocket knife,
produced the flow of blood necessary to render the meat fit for human
food. My villagers had a feast that week, and my own table was graced
by an excellent joint of real English lamb. Of course we never
attempted to consume any of the meat from animals which had been
killed when suffering from a doubtful complaint, though some people
are by no means particular in this matter.
A doctor told me that when attending a case at a farmhouse he was
invited to join the family at their midday meal, and was surprised to
see a nice fore-quarter of lamb on the table. His host gave him an
ample helping, and he had just made a beginning with it and the mint
sauce, green peas, and new potatoes, when the founder of the feast
announced by way of excusing the indulgence in such a luxury: "This
un, you know was a bit casualty, so we thought it better to make sure
of un." My informant told me that then and there his appetite
completely failed, and, to the dismay of his host he had to relinquish
his knife and fork.
It is always policy to kill a sheep to save its life, as the saying
is, and the way to make the most of it is to send any fat animal,
which is off its feed and looking somewhat thoughtful, to the butcher
at once. He knows quite well whether the sheep is fit for food, and if
he decides against it, all one expects is the value of the skin. But
people are very shy of buying meat about which they have any
misgiving, and my butcher once told me not to send him an "emergency
sheep" _in one of my own carts_, but to ask him to fetch it himself:
"It's like this," he explained, "when a customer comes in for a nice
joint of mutton, if he is a near neighbour, he will perhaps add, 'I
would rather not have a bit of the sheep that came in a day or two ago
in one of Mr. S.'s carts'!"
It was always cheering in February, "fill dyke, be it black or be it
white," on a dark morning, to hear the young lambs and their mothers
calling to each other in the orchards, where there is some grass all
the year round under the shelter of the apple trees; or when a
springlike morning appears, about the time of St. Valentine's Day, and
the thrushes are singing love-songs to their mates, and the first
brimstone butterfly has dared to leave his winter seclusion for the
fickle sunshine, to realize that Spring is coming, and the active work
of the farm is about to recommence. There is a superstition that when
the master sees the firstling of the flock, if its head is turned
towards him, good luck for the year will follow, but it is most
unlucky if its head is turned away.
After the disastrous wet season of 1879 immense losses ensued from the
prevalence of the fatal liver rot; many thousands of sheep were sold
at the auctions for 3s. or 4s. apiece, and sound mutton was
exceedingly scarce and dear. It was represented to a very August
personage, that if the people could be induced to forgo the
consumption of lamb, these in due course would grow into sheep, and
the price of mutton would be reduced. Accordingly an order was issued
forbidding the appearance of lamb on the Court tables. It had not
occurred to the proposer of this scheme that a scarcity of food for
the developing lambs would result, nor was it understood that the
producers of fat lambs make special cropping arrangements for their
keep, with the object of clearing out their stock about Easter, in
time to plough the ground, and follow the roots where the ewes and
lambs have been feeding, with barley. The "classes" copied the example
of the Court, as in duty bound, and the demand fell to zero. But the
lambs had to be sold for the reasons mentioned, and, in the absence of
the usual demand, the unfortunate producers offered them at almost any
price. The miners and the pottery workers in Staffordshire were not so
loyal as the "classes"; they welcomed the unusual opportunity of
buying early lamb at 9d. a pound, and trains composed entirely of
trucks full of lambs from the south of England to the Midlands
supplied them abundantly.
The edict, when its effect was apparent, was therefore revoked, but it
was too late, the lambs were gone, and as everybody was hungry for his
usual Easter lamb, the demand was immense, and the price rose in
proportion. I had thirty or forty lambs intended for the Easter
markets, and had, with great difficulty and the sacrifice of grass
which should have stood for hay, managed to keep them on, scarcely
knowing what to do with them. But the sudden demand arose just in
time, and I sent them to the Alcester auction sale, where buyers from
Birmingham and the neighbourhood attend in large numbers. A capital
sale resulted, the price going as high as 60s., in those days a big
figure for lambs about four months old. I was so pleased with the
result and my deliverance from the dilemma, that, passing through the
town on my way home, and spying an old Worcester china cup and saucer,
and a bowl o£ the same, all with the rare square mark, I invested some
of my plunder in what time has proved an excellent speculation, and my
cabinet is still decorated with these mementoes, which I never see
without calling to mind the story of the lamb edict and its result.
During the Great War some controlling wiseacre evolved precisely the
same scheme for bringing about an imaginary increase in the supply of
mutton, by prohibiting the slaughter of any lambs until June. The
Dorset breeders, who buy in ewes at high prices for the special
production of early lamb--the lambs of this breed are born in October
and November--were more particularly affected, and the absurdity of
the prohibition having been later represented to the authorities, the
order was withdrawn, though not before great loss and difficulty were
inflicted upon the unfortunate producers. It goes to prove the
necessity of the administration of such matters by competent men, and
how easily apparently sound theory in inexperienced hands may conflict
with economical practice.
Of late years the competition of the importations of New Zealand lamb
has reduced the price of English lamb to an unremunerative level. This
thin dry stuff bears about the same resemblance to real fat home-grown
lamb, as do the proverbial chalk and cheese to each other; but it is
good enough for the restaurants and eating-houses; and the consumer
who lacks the critical faculty of the connoisseur in such matters,
devours his "Canterbury" lamb, well disguised with mint sauce, in
sublime ignorance, and, apparently, without missing the succulence of
the real article--convinced as he is that it was produced in the
neighbourhood of the cathedral city of the same name, and unaware of
the existence of such a place as Canterbury in New Zealand, or that
the name, if not exactly a fraud, is calculated to mislead. Doubtless
it is the mint sauce that satisfies the uncritical palate. Just as the
boy who, when asked after a treat of oysters how he liked them, said
with gusto, "The oysters was good, but the vinegar and pepper was
_de_licious!"
It is well known that there is a tendency among men in charge of
special kinds of domestic animals gradually to approximate to them in
appearance, and we are told that men sometimes gradually acquire a
resemblance to men they admire. I knew a pedigree-pig herdsman, very
successful in the show-ring, who was curiously like his charges, and I
had at least two shepherds whose profiles were extraordinarily
sheepish--though not in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Such an
appearance confers a singularly simple expression. It must have been a
man whose character justified such a facial peculiarity, who, having
to bring the flock of one of my neighbours over a railway crossing
between two of his fields, neglected to open the further gate first,
drove the sheep on to the rails, and proceeded to do so, only to find
the sheep, in the meantime, had wandered down the line. Before he
could collect them a train dashed into them, and many were killed and
others injured. The railway company not only repudiated all liability,
but sent in a counterclaim for damage to their engine!
But the tables were turned morally, if not actually, by a friend of
mine, who certainly scored off a railway company. My friend's waggon,
with two horses and a load of hay, was passing over a level crossing
on his land, when the London express came into view slinging downhill
in all the majesty of triumphant speed, but far enough away to be
brought up in time, ignominiously and abruptly. The railway company
wrote my friend a letter of remonstrance suggestive of pains and
penalties, and telling him that his waggoner should have made sure of
the safety of crossing before attempting it--not an easy thing to do
at this particular place. My friend replied that his right of way
existed centuries before the railway was dreamed of, that the crossing
was a concession for the company's convenience, it had saved the
expense of a bridge, and that his hay was an urgent matter in view of
the weather; and that uninterrupted harvesting was of more importance
than the punctuality of their passengers.
I have sometimes passed through a remote village on a Sunday where the
obsequies of a pig were to be seen in full view from the road; these
were usually places where the church was in an adjoining
mother-parish, and of course there are times when, for reasons of
health or perhaps more correctly ill-health, it is impossible to defer
the ceremony. As a rule, I should imagine that greater privacy is
sought, at any rate so far as the public point of view is concerned.
One remembers the story of the man doing some Sunday carpentering; his
wife expostulated with him as a Sabbath breaker; he replied that in
driving in the nails he could not help making some noise; "then why,"
said she, "don't you use screws?"
An old Dorset labourer who helped with the removal of the pig-wash,
and did other small jobs for successive tenants of mine at a furnished
cottage on my land in Hampshire, invariably estimated the social
status and resources of each new tenant by the consistency of the
wash. When some rather extravagant occupiers were in possession, he
reported them as, "Quite the right sort; their wash is real good,
thick stuff." The villagers at Aldington did not smoke their bacon,
but, as it usually hung in the kitchen not far from the big open
hearth, and as the place was often full of fragrant wood smoke, the
bacon acquired a pleasant suggestion of the smoked article of the
southern counties. The cottagers rarely complained of the smoky state
of their kitchens, consoling themselves with the saying, "'Tis better
to be smoke-dried nor starred [starved with the cold] to death." Bacon
naturally suggests eggs; many of the villagers kept a few fowls which
sometimes strayed into my orchards; as a rule, I made no objection,
but it was not pleasing, when the apples were over-ripe and dropping
from the trees, to notice the destructive marks of their beaks on some
extra fine Blenheim oranges.
My wife determined to take over our fowls into her own jurisdiction;
hitherto they had been under my bailiff's care, and he rather resented
the change as an implication on his management, until it was explained
that she was anxious to undertake the poultry as a hobby. One of the
carter boys was detailed to collect the eggs, as some of the
hen-houses were in out-of-the-way corners of the yards and difficult
to approach. My wife thought the middleman was appropriating most of
the profit; she was determined to get as directly to the consumer as
possible and, among others, she arranged with the head of a large
school for a weekly supply of dairy and poultry produce. All went well
for a time until one day the boy, anxious to produce as many eggs as
possible, as he received a royalty per dozen for collecting,
discovered some nests which my man had set for hatching before he
retired from the post. The boy, not recognizing this important fact,
came in greatly pleased with an unusually large quantity, and it so
happened that the school received the eggs from this special lot. Next
morning forty eggs appeared at the boys' breakfast table, and forty
boys simultaneously suffered a terrible shock on the discovery of
forty incomplete chickens. The head wrote an aggrieved letter of
complaint, and though my wife was by that time able to explain the
matter, and regret her own loss too of forty chickens, he removed his
custom to a more reliable source.
This schoolmaster was a collector of antique furniture and china, and,
knowing that I was interested, he asked me to come and see some
Chippendale chairs he had just acquired. It happened that some months
before I had declined to buy four or five chairs that were offered at
10s. apiece. I had not then fully developed the taste for the antique,
which once acquired forbids the connoisseur to refuse anything good,
whether really wanted or not, and at that time there was much more
choice in such matters than at the present day. The chairs were very
dilapidated and I did not recognize their possibilities, but I noticed
the arms of the elbow chairs were particularly good, being carved at
the junction of the horizontal and vertical pieces with eagles' heads.
Deciding that I did not want them I sent a dealer to the house and
forgot all about the matter. The schoolmaster took me into his
drawing-room, and I instantly recognized the set I had refused; they
were quite transformed, nicely cleaned, lightly polished, and the
seats newly covered. I duly admired them, and on inquiry found that he
had purchased them in Worcester from the dealer I had sent to look at
them; they cost him £5 each, and I suppose at the present time they
would be worth £20 apiece at least.
I have previously mentioned old Viper as a family friend, but like all
dogs he had his faults. He acquired a liking for new laid eggs and
hunted the rickyard for nests in the straw. My bailiff determined to
cure him; he carefully blew an egg, and filled it with a mixture of
which mustard was the chief component. Viper was tempted to sample the
egg, which he accepted with a great show of innocence; the effect when
he had broken the shell was electrical; he fled with downcast tail and
complete dejection, and nothing would ever induce him to touch an egg
again.
The whirligig of time has indeed brought its revenge in the matter of
the market value of eggs. In Worcestershire we have had to give them
away at eighteen or twenty for a shilling; last (1918-1919) winter we
sold some at 7s. a dozen, and many more at 5s.