_situation_ and circumstances. I am always supposing that the cottage is a
real _cottage_, and not a house in a town or village street; though,
wherever there is the quarter of an acre of ground, the cow _may_ be kept.
Let me, however, suppose that which will generally happen; namely, that
the cottage stands by the side of a road, or lane, and amongst fields and
woods, if not on the side of a common. To pretend to tell a country
labourer how to build a shed for a cow, how to stick it up against the end
of his house, or to make it an independent erection; or to dwell on the
materials, where poles, rods, wattles, rushes, furze, heath, and
cooper-chips, are all to be gotten by him for nothing or next to nothing,
would be useless; because a man who, thus situated, can be at any loss for
a shed for his cow, is not only unfit to keep a cow, but unfit to keep a
cat. The warmer the shed is the better it is. The floor should _slope_,
but not too much. There are _stones_, of some sort or other, every-where,
and about six wheel-barrow-fulls will _pave_ the shed, a thing to be by no
means neglected. A broad trough, or box, fixed up at the head of the cow,
is the thing to give her food in; and she should be fed three times a day,
at least; always at _day-light_ and at _sun-set_. It is not _absolutely
necessary_ that a cow ever quit her shed, except just at calving time, or
when taken to the bull. In the former case the time is, nine times out of
ten, known to within forty-eight hours. Any enclosed field or place will
do for her during a day or two; and for such purpose, if there be not room
at home, no man will refuse place for her in a fallow field. It will,
however, be good, where there is no _common_ to turn her out upon, to have
her led by a string, two or three times a week, which may be done by a
child only five years old, to graze, or pick, along the sides of roads and
lanes. Where there is a _common_, she will, of course, be turned out in
the day time, except in very wet or severe weather; and in a case like
this, a smaller quantity of ground will suffice for the keeping of her.
According to the present practice, a miserable "_tallet_" of bad hay is,
in such cases, the winter provision for the cow. It can scarcely be called
food; and the consequence is, the cow is both _dry_ and _lousy_ nearly
half the year; instead of being dry only about fifteen days before
calving, and being sleek and lusty at the end of the winter, to which a
_warm lodging_ greatly contributes. For, observe, if you keep a cow, any
time between September and June, out in a field or yard, to endure the
chances of the weather, she will not, though she have food precisely the
same in quantity and quality, yield above _two-thirds_ as much as if she
were lodged in house; and in _wet_ weather she will not yield _half_ so
much. It is not so much the _cold_ as the _wet_ that is injurious to all
our stock in England.
132. _The Manure._ At the _beginning_ this must be provided by collections
made on the road; by the results of the residence in a cottage. Let any
man clean out _every place_ about his dwelling; rake and scrape and sweep
all into a heap; and he will find that he has a _great deal_. Earth of
almost any sort that has long lain on the surface, and has been trodden
on, is a species of manure. Every act that tends to neatness round a
dwelling, tends to the creating of a mass of manure. And I have very
seldom seen a cottage, with a plat of ground of a quarter of an acre
belonging to it, round about which I could not have collected a very large
heap of manure. Every thing of animal or vegetable substance that comes
into a house, must _go out of it again_, in one shape or another. The very
emptying of vessels of various kinds, on a heap of common earth, makes it
a heap of the best of manure. Thus goes on the work of _reproduction_; and
thus is verified the words of the Scripture, "_Flesh is grass_, and there
is _nothing new under the sun_." Thus far as to the _outset_. When you
have _got the cow_, there is no more care about manure; for, and
especially if you have a _pig_ also, you must have enough annually for _an
acre_ of ground. And let it be observed, that, after a time, it will be
unnecessary, and would be injurious, to manure _for every crop_; for that
would produce more stalk and green than substantial part; as it is well
known, that wheat plants, standing in ground too full of manure, will
yield very thick and long _straws_, but grains of little or no substance.
You ought to depend more on the spade and the hoe than on the dung-heap.
Nevertheless, the greatest care should be taken to preserve the manure;
because you will want _straw_, unless you be by the side of a common which
gives you rushes, grassy furze, or fern; and to get straw you must give a
part of your dung from the cow-stall and pig-sty. The best way to preserve
manure, is to have a pit of sufficient dimensions close behind the
cow-shed and pig-sty, for the run from these to go into, and from which
all runs of _rain water_ should be kept. Into this pit would go the
emptying of the shed and of the sty, and the produce of all sweepings and
cleanings round the house; and thus a large mass of manure would soon grow
together. Much too large a quantity for a quarter of an acre of ground.
One good load of wheat or rye straw is all that you would want for the
winter, and half of one for the summer; and you would have more than
enough dung to exchange against this straw.
133. Now, as to _the quantity of labour_ that the cultivation of the land
will demand in _a year_. We will suppose the whole to have _five complete
diggings_, and say nothing about the little matters of sowing and planting
and hoeing and harvesting, all which are a mere trifle. We are supposing
the owner to be _an able labouring man_; and such a man will dig 12 rods
of ground in a day. Here are 200 rods to be digged, and here are little
less than 17 days of work at 12 hours in the day; or 200 _hours'_ work, to
be done in the course of the long days of spring and summer, while it is
light long before _six_ in the morning, and long after six at night. What
_is it_, then? Is it not better than time spent in the ale-house, or in
creeping about after a miserable hare? Frequently, and most frequently,
there will be a _boy_, if not two, big enough to help. And (I only give
this as a _hint_) I saw, on the 7th of November last (1822,) _a very
pretty woman_, in the village of _Hannington, in Wiltshire, digging_ a
piece of ground and planting it with Early Cabbages, which she did as
handily and as neatly as any gardener that ever I saw. The ground was
_wet_, and therefore, _to avoid treading the digged ground in that state_,
she had her line extended, and put in the rows as she advanced in her
digging, standing _in the trench_ while she performed the act of planting,
which she did with great nimbleness and precision. Nothing could be more
skilfully or beautifully done. Her clothes were neat, clean, and tight
about her. She had turned her handkerchief down from her neck, which, with
the glow that the work had brought into her cheeks, formed an object which
I do not say would have made me _actually stop my chaise_, had it not been
for the occupation in which she was engaged; but, all taken together, the
temptation was too strong to be resisted. But there is the _Sunday_; and I
know of no law, human or divine, that forbids a labouring man to dig or
plant his garden on Sunday, if the good of his family demand it; and if
he cannot, without injury to that family, find other time to do it in.
Shepherds, carters, pigfeeders, drovers, coachmen, cooks, footmen,
printers, and numerous others, work on the Sundays. Theirs are deemed by
the law _works of necessity_. Harvesting and haymaking are allowed to be
carried on on the Sunday, in certain cases; when they are always carried
on by _provident farmers_. And I should be glad to know the case which is
more a _case of necessity_ than that now under our view. In fact, the
labouring people _do work on the Sunday_ morning in particular, all over
the country, at something or other, or they are engaged in pursuits a good
deal less religious than that of digging and planting. So that, as to _the
200 hours_, they are easily found, without the loss of any of the time
required for constant daily labour.
134. And what a _produce_ is that of a cow! I suppose only an average of
5 _quarts of milk a day_. If made into butter, it will be _equal every
week to two days of the man's wages_, besides the value of the skim milk:
and this can hardly be of less value than another day's wages. What a
thing, then, is this cow, if she earn half as much as the man! I am
greatly under-rating her produce; but I wish to put all the advantages at
the lowest. To be sure, there is work for the wife, or daughter, to milk
and make butter. But the former is done at the two ends of the day, and
the latter only about once in the week. And, whatever these may subtract
from the _labours of the field_, which all country women ought to be
engaged in whenever they conveniently can; whatever the cares created by
the cow may subtract from these, is amply compensated for by the
_education_ that these cares will give to the children. They will _all_
learn to milk,[7] and the girls to make butter. And which is a thing of
the very first importance, they will all learn, from their infancy, to
_set a just value upon dumb animals_, and will grow up in the _habit_ of
treating them with gentleness and feeding them with care. To those who
have not been brought up in the midst of rural affairs, it is hardly
possible to give an adequate idea of the importance of this part of
_education_. I should be very loth to intrust the care of my horses,
cattle, sheep, or pigs, to any one whose father never had cow or pig of
his _own_. It is a general complaint, that servants, and especially
farm-servants, are not _so good as they used to be_. How should they? They
were formerly the sons and daughters of _small farmers_; they are now the
progeny of miserable property-less labourers. They have never seen an
animal in which they had any interest. They are careless by habit. This
monstrous evil has arisen from causes which I have a thousand times
described; and which causes must now be speedily removed; or, they will
produce a dissolution of society, and give us a _beginning afresh_.
135. The circumstances vary so much, that it is impossible to lay down
precise rules suited to all cases. The cottage may be on the side of a
forest or common; it may be on the side of a lane or of a great road,
distant from town or village; it may be on the skirts of one of these
latter: and then, again, the family may be few or great in number, the
children small or big, according to all which circumstances, the extent
and application of the cow-food, and also the application of the produce,
will naturally be regulated. Under some circumstances, half the above crop
may be enough; especially where good commons are at hand. Sometimes it may
be the best way to sell the calf as soon as calved; at others, to fat it;
and, at others, if you cannot sell it, which sometimes happens, to knock
it on the head as soon as calved; for, where there is a family of small
children, the price of a calf of two months old cannot be equal to the
half of the value of the two months' milk. It is pure weakness to call it
"_a pity_." It is a much greater pity to see hungry children crying for
the milk that a calf is sucking to no useful purpose; and as to the cow
and the calf, the one must lose her young, and the other its life, after
all; and the respite only makes an addition to the sufferings of both.
136. As to the pretended _unwholesomeness_ of milk in certain cases; as to
its not being adapted to _some constitutions_, I do not believe one word
of the matter. When we talk of the _fruits_, indeed, which were formerly
the chief food of a great part of mankind, we should recollect, that those
fruits grew in countries that had a _sun to ripen_ the fruits, and to put
nutritious matter into them. But as to _milk_, England yields to no
country upon the face of the earth. Neat cattle will touch nothing that is
not wholesome in its nature; nothing that is not wholly innoxious. Out of
a pail that has ever had grease in it, they will not drink a drop, though
they be raging with thirst. Their very breath is fragrance. And how, then,
is it possible, that unwholesomeness should distil from the udder of a
cow? The milk varies, indeed, in its quality and taste according to the
variations in the nature of the food; but no food will a cow touch that is
any way hostile to health. Feed young puppies upon _milk from the cow_,
and they will never die with that ravaging disease called "_the
distemper_." In short, to suppose that milk contains any thing essentially
unwholesome is monstrous. When, indeed, the appetite becomes vitiated:
when the organs have been long accustomed to food of a more stimulating
nature; when it has been resolved to eat ragouts at dinner, and drink
wine, and to swallow "a devil," and a glass of strong grog at night; then
milk for breakfast may be "_heavy_" and disgusting, and the feeder may
stand in need of tea or laudanum, which differ only as to degrees of
strength. But, and I speak from the most ample experience, milk is not
"_heavy_," and much less is it _unwholesome_, when he who uses it rises
early, never swallows strong drink, and never _stuffs_ himself with flesh
of any kind. Many and many a day I scarcely taste of meat, and then
chiefly at _breakfast_, and that, too, at an early hour. Milk is the
natural food of _young people_; if it be too rich, _skim_ it again and
again till it be not too rich. This is an evil easily cured. If you have
now to _begin_ with a family of children, they may not like it at first.
But _persevere_; and the parent who does not do this, having the means in
his hands, shamefully neglects his duty. A son who prefers a "devil" and a
glass of grog to a hunch of bread and a bowl of cold milk, I regard as a
pest; and for this pest the father has to thank himself.
137. Before I dismiss this article, let me offer an observation or two to
those persons who live in the vicinity of towns, or in towns, and who,
though they have _large gardens_, have "_no land to keep a cow_," a
circumstance which they "_exceedingly regret_." I have, I dare say,
witnessed this case at least a thousand times. Now, how much garden ground
does it require to supply even a large family with _garden vegetables_?
The market gardeners round the metropolis of this wen-headed country;
round this Wen of all wens;[8] round this prodigious and monstrous
collection of human beings; these market gardeners have about _three
hundred thousand families to supply with vegetables_, and these they
supply well too, and with summer fruits into the bargain. Now, if it
demanded _ten rods to a family_, the whole would demand, all but a
fraction, _nineteen thousand acres of garden ground_. We have only to cast
our eyes over what there is to know that there is not a _fourth_ of that
quantity. A _square mile_ contains, leaving out parts of a hundred, 700
acres of land; and 19,000 acres occupy more than _twenty-two square
miles_. Are there twenty-two square miles covered with the Wen's market
gardens? The very question is absurd. The whole of the market gardens from
Brompton to Hammersmith, extending to Battersea Rise on the one side, and
to the Bayswater road on the other side, and leaving out loads, lanes,
nurseries; pastures, corn-fields, and pleasure-grounds, do not, in my
opinion, cover _one square mile_. To the north and south of the Wen there
is very little in the way of market garden; and if, on both sides of the
Thames, to the eastward of the Wen, there be _three square miles_ actually
covered with market gardens, that is the full extent. How, then, could the
Wen be supplied, if it required _ten rods_ to each family? To be sure,
potatoes, carrots, and turnips, and especially the first of these, are
brought, for the use of the Wen, from a great distance, in many cases.
But, so they are for the use of the persons I am speaking of; for a
gentleman thinks no more of raising a large quantity of these things in
his _garden_, than he thinks of _raising wheat there_. How is it, then,
that it requires half an acre, or eighty rods, in a _private_ garden to
supply a family, while these market gardeners supply all these families
(and so amply too) from ten, or more likely, five rods of ground to a
family? I have shown, in the last Number, that nearly fifteen tons of
vegetables can be raised in a year upon forty rods of ground; that is to
say, _ten loads for a wagon and four good horses_. And is not a fourth, or
even an eighth, part of this weight, sufficient to go down the throats of
a family in a year? Nay, allow that only _a ton_ goes to a family in a
year, it is more than _six pound weight a day_; and what sort of a family
must that be that really _swallows_ six pounds weight a day? and this a
market gardener will raise for them upon less than _three rods_ of ground;
for he will raise, in the course of the year, even more than fifteen tons
upon forty rods of ground. What is it, then, that they _do_ with the
eighty rods of ground in a private garden? Why, in the first place, they
have _one crop_ where they ought to have _three_. Then they do not half
_till_ the ground. Then they grow things that are _not wanted_. Plant
cabbages and other things, let them stand till they be good for nothing,
and then wheel them to the rubbish heap. Raise as many radishes, lettuces,
and as much endive, and as many kidney-beans, as would serve for ten
families; and finally throw nine-tenths of them away. I once saw not less
than three rods of ground, in a garden of this sort, with lettuces all
bearing _seed_. Seed enough for half a county. They cut a cabbage _here_
and a cabbage _there_, and so let the whole of the piece of ground remain
undug, till the _last_ cabbage be cut. But, after all, the produce, even
in this way, is so great, that it never could be gotten rid of, if the
main part were not _thrown away_. The rubbish heap always receives
four-fifths even of the _eatable_ part of the produce.
138. It is not thus that the market gardeners proceed. Their rubbish heap
consists of little besides mere cabbage stumps. No sooner is one crop _on_
the ground than they settle in their minds what is to follow it. They
_clear as they go_ in taking off a crop, and, as they clear they dig and
plant. The ground is never without seed in it or plants on it. And thus,
in the course of the year, they raise a prodigious bulk of vegetables from
eighty rods of ground. Such vigilance and industry are not to be expected
in a _servant_; for it is foolish to expect that a man will exert himself
for another as much as he will for himself. But if I was situated as one
of the persons is that I have spoken of in Paragraph 137; that is to say,
if I had a garden of eighty rods, or even of sixty rods of ground, I would
out of that garden, draw a sufficiency of vegetables for my family, and
would make it yield enough for a _cow_ besides. I should go a short way to
work with my gardener. I should put _Cottage Economy_ into his hands, and
tell him, that if he could furnish me with vegetables, and my cow with
food, he was my man; and that if he could not, I must get one that could
and would. I am not for making a man toil like a slave; but what would
become of the world, if a well-fed healthy man could exhaust himself in
tilling and cropping and clearing half an acre of ground? I have known
many men _dig_ thirty rods of garden ground in a day; I have, before I was
fourteen, digged twenty rods in a day, for more than ten days
successively; and I have heard, and believe the fact, of a man at Portsea,
who digged forty rods in one single day, between daylight and dark. So
that it is no slavish toil that I am here recommending.
KEEPING PIGS.
139. Next after the _Cow_ comes the _Pig_; and, in many cases, where a cow
cannot be kept, a pig or pigs may be kept. But these are animals not to be
ventured on without due consideration as to the means of _feeding_ them;
for a starved pig is a great deal worse than none at all. You cannot make
bacon as you can milk, merely out of the garden. There must be _something
more_. A couple of flitches of bacon are worth fifty thousand Methodist
sermons and religious tracts. The sight of them upon the rack tends more
to keep a man from poaching and stealing than whole volumes of penal
statutes, though assisted by the terrors of the hulks and the gibbet. They
are great softeners of the temper, and promoters of domestic harmony. They
are a great blessing; but they are not to be had from _herbage_ or _roots_
of any kind; and, therefore, before a _pig_ be attempted, the means ought
to be considered.
140. _Breeding sows_ are great favourites with Cottagers in general; but I
have seldom known them to answer their purpose. Where there is an outlet,
the sow will, indeed, keep herself by grazing in summer, with a little
_wash_ to help her out: and when her pigs come, they are many in number;
but they are a heavy expense. The sow must live as well as a _fatting
hog_, or the pigs will be good for little. It is a great mistake, too, to
suppose that the condition of the sow _previous to pigging_ is of no
consequence; and, indeed, some suppose, that she ought to be rather _bare
of flesh_ at the pigging time. Never was a greater mistake; for if she be
in this state, she presently becomes a mere rack of bones; and then, do
what you will, the pigs will be poor things. However fat she may be before
she farrow, the pigs will make her lean in a week. All her fat goes away
in her milk, and unless the pigs have a _store_ to draw upon, they pull
her down directly; and, by the time they are three weeks old, they are
starving for want; and then they never come to good.
141. Now, a cottager's sow cannot, without great expense, be kept in a way
to enable her to meet the demands of her farrow. She may _look_ pretty
well; but the flesh she has upon her is not of the same nature as that
which the _farm-yard_ sow carries about her. It is the result of grass,
and of poor grass, too, or other weak food; and not made partly out of
corn and whey and strong wash, as in the case of the farmer's sow. No food
short of that of a fatting hog will enable her to keep her pigs _alive_;
and this she must have for _ten weeks_, and that at a great expense. Then
comes the operation, upon the principle of _Parson Malthus_, in order to
_check population_; and there is some risk here, though not very great.
But there is the _weaning_; and who, that knows any thing about the
matter, will think lightly of the weaning of a farrow of pigs! By having
nice food given them, they seem, for a few days, not to miss their mother.
But their appearance soon shows the want of her. Nothing but the very best
food, and that given in the most judicious manner, will keep them up to
any thing like good condition; and, indeed, there is nothing short of
_milk_ that will effect the thing well. How should it be otherwise? The
very richest cow's milk is poor, compared with that of the sow; and, to be
taken from this and put upon food, one ingredient of which is _water_, is
quite sufficient to reduce the poor little things to bare bones and
staring hair, a state to which cottagers' pigs very soon come in general;
and, at last, he frequently drives them to market, and sells them for less
than the cost of the food which they and the sow have devoured since they
were farrowed. It was, doubtless, pigs of this description that were sold
the other day at Newbury market, for _fifteen pence a piece_, and which
were, I dare say, dear even as a gift. To get such a pig to _begin_ to
grow will require _three months_, and with good feeding too in winter
time. To be sure it does come to be a hog at last; but, do what you can,
it is a dear hog.
142. The _Cottager_, then, can hold no competition with the _Farmer_ in
the _breeding_ of pigs, to do which, with advantage, there must be _milk_,
and milk, too, that can be advantageously applied to no other use. The
cottager's pig must be bought ready weaned to his hand, and, indeed, at
_four months old_, at which age, if he be in good condition, he will eat
any-thing that an old hog will eat. He will graze, eat cabbage leaves, and
almost the stumps. Swedish turnip tops or roots, and such things, with a
little wash, will keep him along in very good growing order. I have now to
speak of the time of purchasing, the manner of keeping, of fatting,
killing, and curing; but these I must reserve till my next Number.
No. VI.
KEEPING PIGS--(_continued._)
143. As in the case of cows so in that of pigs, much must depend upon the
situation of the cottage; because all pigs will _graze_; and therefore, on
the skirts of forests or commons, a couple or three pigs may be kept, if
the family be considerable; and especially if the cottager brew his own
beer, which will give him grains to assist the wash. Even in _lanes_, or
on the sides of great roads, a pig will find a good part of his food from
May to November; and if he be _yoked_, the occupiers of the neighbourhood
must be churlish and brutish indeed, if they give the owner any annoyance.