One day late in July, Christian was so excited he could hardly eat his
dinner. School had closed for the summer vacation. The next morning
Christian, who was only nine years old, was going to a farm to stay four
whole weeks. In fact he would stay on the farm until time for school to
open again in August.
Christian lived in the largest city in Denmark. We call that city
Copenhagen, but Christian calls it Kjøbenhavn (Kuvn havn). Christian was
not the only boy in that city who was excited on that July day. Many
boys, and girls too, were leaving the city for a summer on a farm.
They were not going to visit aunts or uncles or grandfathers. No, their
visits were going to be more exciting even than visits to aunts and
uncles and grandparents would be, for many of them were going to be
guests of families whom they had never seen.
Those boys and girls live in very poor homes in the city. When school
closes for summer vacation, there is little for them to do. Their homes
are small and there are few places near their homes where they can play.
So every summer farmers invite boys and girls from the city to be their
guests for four weeks of their vacation. The officials of the railroads
and of steamship lines give those boys and girls free rides on the
trains and boats to the farms.
Perhaps Christian was happier than many of the boys. Only a few weeks
earlier a letter had come to him from the farmer whom he had visited the
summer before. The letter said, “All of us here on the farm want you to
come to us again this summer. I think that even the cows, the chickens,
the ducks, and the geese missed you when you left last August.” No
wonder Christian was excited and happy!
Morning came at last and Christian started very early on his journey to
the farm. He carried only a small bag of clothes with him, so he and his
mother went to the station on a street car. He passed through the gate
at the station and waited on the platform for his train. Other boys and
girls were waiting too. Soon they were on the train scrambling for seats
by a window for they were eager to see as much of Denmark as they could.
Christian had almost a whole day’s journey to the farm. Denmark is made
up of hundreds of small bodies of land with water separating them. To
reach the farm Christian had to travel on two trains and two boats.
Christian was interested in all that he saw. He was not surprised to see
the wide stretches of flat land, but after visiting farms of Norway you
may be surprised. Christian saw a field in which black and white cows
were eating the green grass. He could see far, far away across that
pasture. The land was as level as a floor, with not even a tiny hill in
sight.
At other places he did see hills—no very high ones though. That hilly
land looks very little like land of Norway made by the giants. But the
same ice-sheets did make these hills. As the glaciers that covered
Denmark melted, they left behind these piles of rocks and soil which we
call hills.
Some sights which Christian saw are much like the sights in the land of
the Dutch children. The land of Denmark is flat like Holland, so the
Danes have long made the wind work for them just as the Dutch have done.
So Christian saw windmills which still pump the water off the low lands
or grind the farmers’ grain.
Denmark has many small farms. Many of the farms have even less than two
acres. A piece of land so small as that in America would hardly be
called a farm. Of course Denmark has large farms also. But Christian saw
many of the small farms as he rode across the country. The farm
buildings form three sides of a square. Many times the buildings are of
red brick and the roof of straw woven into a covering called a thatched
roof.
The farmer was at the train to meet Christian. They rode out to the farm
in a wagon behind two bay horses. After what seemed to Christian a very
short ride he was opening the gate to the farm and could see the white
farmhouse and barns far back across the fields.
Then began happy days for Christian. He liked the big light room at the
top of the clean white house which was his own, but he liked best the
big out-of-doors. He drank all the milk he wanted. He ate potatoes with
heaps of butter, and eggs, and cheese, and sausages, and bread.
[Illustration: A FARMHOUSE WITH A THATCHED ROOF]
But Christian worked too. One of his tasks was to help gather in the
eggs. The baskets were so quickly filled with eggs that the farmer took
them to town twice each week. Christian went with him. They took the
eggs to a large building where eggs are packed for shipping. Such a lot
of eggs in that building! Christian wanted to know what the workmen did
with the eggs and before the summer was over he had learned.
Some of the workers sorted the eggs, putting the big ones in one box,
the middle-sized ones in another, and the small ones in another. Other
workers tested them to see whether they were fresh. The fresh eggs were
sent to other workmen who stamped on each egg in red the word “Danish”
with a red line around it.
[Illustration: AN EGG WITH "Danish" STAMPED ON IT.]
Christian asked, “Why do you put ‘Danish’ on the eggs?”
The workman said, “Many of these eggs are sent away from Denmark to
other countries. We put the word ‘Danish’ on the eggs so that people
will know that the eggs come from Denmark. Then if they like the eggs,
they will know where to send for more. If they find bad eggs, they can
tell us.”
Then the workman showed Christian some sheets of paper on which he kept
records. From those sheets he could tell just what farmer brought in
each box of eggs. He said, “You see, Christian, we keep such good
records and each farmer keeps such good records that if a customer gets
a bad egg, we can find the very hen that laid that egg.”
Christian knew that the workman was only joking, but the workman did
know the date when the egg was laid. Christian knew too that the farmers
knew which hens lay many eggs, and which hens lay large eggs.
Christian learned to milk cows too. He could milk only a little, as his
hands got tired. He milked only cows that were easy to milk. But he
could carry buckets of milk to the house.
In the large stable where the cows are milked, Christian saw a sheet of
heavy paper tacked up over each stall. He read what was on some of those
papers. They were the cows’ _grade cards_. There were good grade cards
too, for they told exactly what each cow can do—how much each eats, how
much milk each gives, whether that test is better or worse than other
tests.
Christian felt sorry when the farmer showed him one record. That record
was for a cow that was eating a great deal, but giving milk that tested
low in butter fat. The farmer said that he would have to fatten that cow
and use it for meat.
Christian went with the farmer to take big cans of milk and cream to the
cheese factory and the creamery. The factory was in an old, old town.
Christian liked to play on the narrow street near the factory.
But he always went with the farmer to take the milk and cream to the
factories. Over those buildings he saw a word that he asked the farmer
about. The word was the Danish word that means “Co-operative.” The
farmer told Christian the “co-operative” means that the farmers are
working together for the good of all. So instead of each farmer making
cheese and butter on his own farm and selling it at whatever price he
wishes, a group of farmers take their milk and cream to factories where
cheese and butter are made for them. There the milk and cream are tested
and each farmer is paid a fair price for his cans.
In the cheese factory were cheese balls marked with the word “Danish” in
the oval just as the eggs were marked. The man at the cheese factory
said, “We put the name ‘Danish’ upon _good_ cheese only. Anybody in any
country may be sure that cheese marked ‘Danish’ has been tested before
it is sold.”
[Illustration: AN OLD TOWN IN DENMARK]
Christian began to feel that it was a splendid idea to have the name
“Danish” put upon only _good_ products. In that way people everywhere
would come to trust their country. The farmer told him that the idea was
the same for each person. He said that Christian could make his own name
stand only for good things. He said, “See to it always that the work
upon which you write your name is the very best work that you can do.”
[Illustration: A CO-OPERATIVE DAIRY FARM]
One day Christian went to visit a farm that had eight hundred acres.
Eight hundred acres is a large farm even in America where there is much
land, and is, of course, a very large farm in a small country like
Denmark. On that farm Christian learned more about the word
“co-operation” which means “working together for the good of all.”
On that big farm the farmer works with a college which teaches young
people how to run a farm. The young men who do the work on the farm for
the farmer are studying with the college teachers how to farm. The young
women who cook the meals and take care of the house are also studying
with college teachers how to cook and care for a house.
Christian had already decided that he wanted to be a farmer when he was
old enough. Now he thought he wanted to study how to be a good farmer on
that large farm which worked with the college.