A MAN OF PROGRESS
The sweet sound of rustling leaves, as soothing as the rush of falling
water, made a gentle music over a group of three persons sitting at the
extremity of a lawn. Upon their right was a plantation or belt of trees,
which sheltered them from the noonday sun; on the left the green sward
reached to the house; from the open window came the rippling notes of a
piano, and now and again the soft accents of the Italian tongue. The walls
of the garden shut out the world and the wind--the blue sky stretched
above from one tree-top to another, and in those tree-tops the cool
breeze, grateful to the reapers in the fields, played with bough and leaf.
In the centre of the group was a small table, and on it some tall glasses
of antique make, and a flask of wine. By the lady lay a Japanese parasol,
carelessly dropped on the grass. She was handsome, and elegantly dressed;
her long drooping eyelashes fringed eyes that were almost closed in
luxurious enjoyment; her slender hand beat time to the distant song. Of
the two gentlemen one was her brother--the other, a farmer, her husband.
The brother wore a pith helmet, and his bronzed cheek told of service
under tropical suns. The husband was scarcely less brown; still young, and
very active-looking, you might guess his age at forty; but his bare
forehead (he had thrown his hat on the ground) was marked with the line
caused by involuntary contraction of the muscles when thinking. There was
an air of anxiety, of restless feverish energy, about him. But just for
the moment he was calm and happy, turning over the pages of a book.
Suddenly he looked up, and began to declaim, in a clear, sweet voice:
'He's speaking now,
Or murmuring, "Where's my serpent of old Nile?"
For so he calls me. Now I feed myself
With most delicious poison!'
Just then there came the sharp rattle of machinery borne on the wind; he
recollected himself, shut the volume, and rose from his seat. 'The men
have finished luncheon,' he said; 'I must go and see how things are
getting on.' The Indian officer, after one glance back at the house, went
with him. There was a private footpath through the plantation of trees,
and down this the two disappeared. Soon afterwards the piano ceased, and a
lady came slowly across the lawn, still humming the air she had been
playing. She was the farmer's sister, and was engaged to the officer. The
wife looked up from the book which she had taken from the table, with a
smile of welcome. But the smile faded as she said--'They have gone out to
the reapers. Oh, this farm will worry him out of his life! How I wish he
had never bought it! Don't let Alick have anything to do with farms or
land, dear, when you are married.'
The girl laughed, sat down, took her hand, and asked if matters were
really so serious.
'It is not so much the money I trouble about,' said the wife. 'It is Cecil
himself. His nature is too fine for these dull clods. You know him, dear;
his mind is full of art--look at these glasses--of music and pictures.
Why, he has just been reading "Antony and Cleopatra," and now he's gone to
look after reapers. Then, he is so fiery and quick, and wants everything
done in a minute, like the men of business in the "City." He keeps his
watch timed to a second, and expects the men to be there. They are so
slow. Everything agricultural is so slow. They say we shall have fine
seasons in two or three years; only think, _years_. This is what weighs on
Cecil.'
By this time the two men had walked through the plantation, and paused at
a small gate that opened on the fields. The ground fell rapidly away,
sloping down for half a mile, so that every portion of the fields below
was visible at once. The house and gardens were situate on the hill; the
farmer had only to stand on the edge to overlook half his place.
'What a splendid view!' said the officer. The entire slope was yellow with
wheat--on either hand, and in front the surface of the crop extended
unbroken by hedge, tree, or apparent division. Two reaping-machines were
being driven rapidly round and round, cutting as they went; one was a
self-binder and threw the sheaves off already bound; the other only laid
the corn low, and it had afterwards to be gathered up and bound by
hand-labour. There was really a small army of labourers in the field; but
it was so large they made but little show.
'You have a first-rate crop,' said the visitor; 'I see no weeds, or not
more than usual; it is a capital crop.'
'Yes,' replied the farmer, 'it is a fine crop; but just think what it cost
me to produce it, and bear in mind, too, the price I shall get for it.' He
took out his pocket-book, and began to explain.
While thus occupied he looked anything but a farmer. His dress was indeed
light and careless, but it was the carelessness of breeding, not
slovenliness. His hands were brown, but there were clean white cuffs on
his wrist and gold studs; his neck was brown, but his linen spotless. The
face was too delicate, too refined with all its bronze; the frame was well
developed, but too active; it lacked the heavy thickness and the lumbering
gait of the farmer bred to the plough. He might have conducted a great
financial operation; he might have been the head of a great mercantile
house; he might have been on 'Change; but that stiff clay there, stubborn
and unimpressionable, was not in his style.
Cecil had gone into farming, in fact, as a 'commercial speculation,' with
the view of realising cent. per cent. He began at the time when it was
daily announced that old-fashioned farming was a thing of the past.
Business maxims and business practice were to be the rule of the future.
Farming was not to be farming; it was to be emphatically 'business,' the
same as iron, coal, or cotton. Thus managed, with steam as the motive
power, a fortune might be made out of the land, in the same way as out of
a colliery or a mine. But it must be done in a commercial manner; there
must be no restrictions upon the employment of capital, no fixed rotation
of crops, no clauses forbidding the sale of any products. Cecil found,
however, that the possessors of large estates would not let him a farm on
these conditions. These ignorant people (as he thought them) insisted upon
keeping up the traditionary customs; they would not contract themselves
out of the ancient form of lease.
But Cecil was a man of capital. He really had a large sum of money, and
this short-sighted policy (as he termed it) of the landlords only made him
the more eager to convince them how mistaken they were to refuse anything
to a man who could put capital into the soil. He resolved to be his own
landlord, and ordered his agents to find him a small estate and to
purchase it outright. There was not much difficulty in finding an estate,
and Cecil bought it. But he was even then annoyed and disgusted with the
formalities, the investigation of title, the completion of deeds, and
astounded at the length of a lawyer's bill.
Being at last established in possession Cecil set to work, and at the same
time set every agricultural tongue wagging within a radius of twenty
miles. He grubbed up all the hedges, and threw the whole of his arable
land into one vast field, and had it levelled with the theodolite. He
drained it six feet deep at an enormous cost. He built an engine-shed with
a centrifugal pump, which forced water from the stream that ran through
the lower ground over the entire property, and even to the topmost storey
of his house. He laid a light tramway across the widest part of his
estate, and sent the labourers to and fro their work in trucks. The
chaff-cutters, root-pulpers, the winnowing-machine--everything was driven
by steam. Teams of horses and waggons seemed to be always going to the
canal wharf for coal, which he ordered from the pit wholesale.
A fine set of steam-ploughing tackle was put to work, and, having once
commenced, the beat of the engines never seemed to cease. They were for
ever at work tearing up the subsoil and bringing it to the surface. If he
could have done it, he would have ploughed ten feet deep. Tons of
artificial manure came by canal boat--positively boat loads--and were
stored in the warehouse. For he put up a regular warehouse for the storage
of materials; the heavy articles on the ground floor, the lighter above,
hoisted up by a small crane. There was, too, an office, where the
'engineer' attended every morning to take his orders, as the bailiff might
at the back-door of an old farmhouse. Substantial buildings were erected
for the shorthorn cattle.
The meadows upon the estate, like the corn-fields, were all thrown
together, such divisions as were necessary being made by iron railings.
Machines of every class and character were provided--reaping-machines,
mowing-machines, horse-hoes, horse-rakes, elevators--everything was to be
done by machinery. That nothing might be incomplete, some new and
well-designed cottages were erected for the skilled artisans--they could
scarcely be called labourers--who were engaged to work these engines. The
estate had previously consisted of several small farms: these were now
thrown all into one, otherwise there would not have been room for this
great enterprise.
A complete system of booking was organised. From the sale of a bullock to
the skin of a calf, everything was put down on paper. All these entries,
made in books specially prepared and conveniently ruled for the purpose,
came under Cecil's eye weekly, and were by him re-entered in his ledgers.
This writing took up a large part of his time, and the labour was
sometimes so severe that he could barely get through it; yet he would not
allow himself a clerk, being economical in that one thing only. It was a
saying in the place that not a speck of dust could be blown on to the
estate by the wind, or a straw blown off, without it being duly entered in
the master's books.
Cecil's idea was to excel in all things. Some had been famous for
shorthorns before him, others for sheep, and others again for wheat. He
would be celebrated for all. His shorthorns should fetch fabulous prices;
his sheep should be known all over the world; his wheat should be the crop
of the season. In this way he invested his capital in the soil with a
thoroughness unsurpassed. As if to prove that he was right, the success of
his enterprise seemed from the first assured. His crops of wheat, in which
he especially put faith, and which he grew year after year upon the same
land, totally ignoring the ancient rotations, were the wonder of the
neighbourhood. Men came from far and near to see them. Such was the effect
of draining, turning up the subsoil, continual ploughing, and the
consequent atmospheric action upon the exposed earth, and of liberal
manure, that here stood such crops of wheat as had never previously been
seen. These he sold, as they stood, by auction; and no sooner had the
purchasers cleared the ground than the engines went to work again, tearing
up the earth. His meadow lands were irrigated by the centrifugal pump, and
yielded three crops instead of one. His shorthorns began to get known--for
he spared no expense upon them--and already one or two profitable sales
had been held. His sheep prospered; there was not so much noise made about
them, but, perhaps, they really paid better than anything.
Meantime, Cecil kept open house, with wine and refreshments, and even beds
for everybody who chose to come and inspect his place. Nothing gave him
such delight as to conduct visitors over the estate and to enter into
minute details of his system. As for the neighbouring farmers they were
only too welcome. These things became noised abroad, and people arrived
from strange and far-off places, and were shown over this Pioneer's Farm,
as Cecil loved to call it. His example was triumphantly quoted by every
one who spoke on agricultural progress. Cecil himself was the life and
soul of the farmers' club in the adjacent market town. It was not so much
the speeches he made as his manner. His enthusiasm was contagious. If a
scheme was started, if an experiment was suggested, Cecil's cheque-book
came out directly, and the thing was set on foot without delay. His easy,
elastic step, his bright eye, his warm, hearty handshake, seemed to
electrify people--to put some of his own spirit into them. The circle of
his influence was ever increasing--the very oldest fogeys, who had
prophesied every kind of failure, were being gradually won over.
Cecil himself was transcendently happy in his work; his mind was in it; no
exertion, no care or trouble, was too much. He worked harder than any
navvy, and never felt fatigue. People said of him--'What a wonderful man!'
He was so genuine, so earnest, so thorough, men could not choose but
believe in him. The sun shone brightly, the crops ripened, the hum of the
threshing-machine droned on the wind--all was life and happiness. In the
summer evenings pleasant groups met upon the lawn; the song, the jest went
round; now and then an informal dance, arranged with much laughter, whiled
away the merry hours till the stars appeared above the trees and the dew
descended.
Yet to-day, as the two leaned over the little gate in the plantation and
looked down upon the reapers, the deep groove which continual thought
causes was all too visible on Cecil's forehead. He explained to the
officer how his difficulties had come about. His first years upon the farm
or estate--it was really rather an estate than a farm--had been fairly
prosperous, notwithstanding the immense outlay of capital. A good
percentage, in some cases a high-rate of percentage, had been returned
upon the money put into the soil. The seasons were good, the crops large
and superabundant. Men's minds were full of confidence, they bought
freely, and were launching out in all directions.
They wanted good shorthorn cattle--he sold them cattle; they wanted
sheep--he sold them sheep. They wanted wheat, and he sold them the
standing crops, took the money, and so cleared his profit and saved
himself trouble. It was, in fact, a period of inflation. Like stocks and
shares, everything was going up; everybody hastening to get rich.
Shorthorns with a strain of blue blood fetched fancy prices; corn crops
ruled high; every single thing sold well. The dry seasons suited the soil
of the estate, and the machinery he had purchased was rapidly repaying its
first cost in the saving of labour. His whole system was succeeding, and
he saw his way to realise his cent. per cent.
But by degrees the dream faded. He attributed it in the first place to the
stagnation, the almost extinction, of the iron trade, the blowing out of
furnaces, and the consequent cessation of the demand for the best class of
food on the part of thousands of operatives and mechanics, who had
hitherto been the farmers' best customers. They would have the best of
everything when their wages were high; as their wages declined their
purchases declined. In a brief period, far briefer than would be imagined,
this shrinking of demand reacted upon agriculture. The English farmer made
his profit upon superior articles--the cheaper class came from abroad so
copiously that he could not compete against so vast a supply.
When the demand for high-class products fell, the English farmer felt it
directly. Cecil considered that it was the dire distress in the
manufacturing districts, the stagnation of trade and commerce and the
great failures in business centres, that were the chief causes of low
prices and falling agricultural markets. The rise of labour was but a
trifling item. He had always paid good wages to good men, and always meant
to. The succession of wet seasons was more serious, of course; it lowered
the actual yield, and increased the cost of procuring the yield; but as
his lands were well drained, and had been kept clean he believed he could
have withstood the seasons for awhile.
The one heavy cloud that overhung agriculture, in his opinion was the
extraordinary and almost world-spread depression of trade, and his
argument was very simple. When men prospered they bought freely, indulged
in luxurious living, kept horses, servants, gave parties, and consumed
indirectly large quantities of food. As they made fortunes they bought
estates and lived half the year like country gentlemen--that competition
sent up the price of land. The converse was equally true. In times of
pressure households were reduced, servants dismissed, horses sold,
carriages suppressed. Rich and poor acted alike in different degrees but
as the working population was so much more numerous it was through the low
wages of the working population in cities and manufacturing districts that
the farmers suffered most.
It was a period of depression--there was no confidence, no speculation.
For instance a year or two since the crop of standing wheat then growing
on the very field before their eyes was sold by auction, and several lots
brought from 16_l_. to 18_l_. per acre. This year the same wheat would not
fetch 8_l_. per acre; and, not satisfied with that price, he had
determined to reap and thresh it himself. It was the same with the
shorthorns, with the hay, and indeed with everything except sheep, which
had been a mainstay and support to him.
'Yet even now,' concluded Cecil, shutting his pocket-book, 'I feel
convinced that my plan and my system will be a success. I can see that I
committed one great mistake--I made all my improvements at once, laid out
all my capital, and crippled my self. I should have done one thing at a
time. I should, as it were, have grown my improvements--one this year, one
next. As it was, I denuded myself of capital. Had the times continued
favourable it would not have mattered, as my income would have been large.
But the times became adverse before I was firmly settled, and, to be
plain, I can but just keep things going without a loan--dear Bella will
not be able to go to the sea this year; but we are both determined not to
borrow.'
'In a year or two I am convinced we shall flourish again; but the waiting,
Alick, the waiting, is the trial. You know I am impatient. Of course, the
old-fashioned people, the farmers, all expect me to go through the
Bankruptcy Court. They always said these new-fangled plans would not
answer, and now they are sure they were right. Well, I forgive them their
croaking, though most of them have dined at my table and drank my wine. I
forgive them their croaking, for so they were bred up from childhood. Were
I ill-natured, I might even smile at them, for they are failing and
leaving their farms by the dozen, which seems a pretty good proof that
their antiquated system is at best no better than mine. But I can see what
they cannot see--signs of improvement. The steel industry is giving men
work; the iron industry is reviving; the mines are slowly coming into work
again; America is purchasing of us largely; and when other nations
purchase of us, part, at least, of the money always finds its way to the
farmer. Next season, too, the weather may be more propitious.
'I shall hold on, Alick--a depression is certain to be followed by a rise.
That has been the history of trade and agriculture for generations.
Nothing will ever convince me that it was intended for English
agriculturists to go on using wooden ploughs, to wear smock-frocks, and
plod round and round in the same old track for ever. In no other way but
by science, by steam, by machinery, by artificial manure, and, in one
word, by the exercise of intelligence, can we compete with the world. It
is ridiculous to suppose we can do so by returning to the ignorance and
prejudice of our ancestors. No; we must beat the world by superior
intelligence and superior energy. But intelligence, mind, has ever had
every obstacle to contend against. Look at M. Lesseps and his wonderful
Suez Canal. I tell you that to introduce scientific farming into England,
in the face of tradition, custom, and prejudice, is a far harder task than
overcoming the desert sand.'