A WHEAT COUNTRY
The aspect of a corn-growing district in the colder months is perhaps more
dreary than that of any other country scene. It is winter made visible.
The very houses at the edge of the village stand out harsh and angular,
especially if modern and slated, for the old thatched cottages are not
without a curve in the line of the eaves. No trees or bushes shelter them
from the bitter wind that rushes across the plain, and, because of the
absence of trees round the outskirts, the village may be seen from a great
distance.
The wayfarer, as he approaches along the interminable road, that now rises
over a hill and now descends into a valley, observes it from afar, his
view uninterrupted by wood, but the vastness of the plain seems to shorten
his step, so that he barely gains on the receding roofs. The hedges by the
road are cropped--cut down mercilessly--and do not afford the slightest
protection against wind, or rain, or sleet. If he would pause awhile to
rest his weary limbs no friendly bush keeps off the chilling blast.
Yonder, half a mile in front, a waggon creeps up the hill, always just so
much ahead, never overtaken, or seeming to alter its position, whether he
walks slow or fast. The only apparent inhabitants of the solitude are the
larks that every now and then cross the road in small flocks. Above, the
sky is dull and gloomy; beneath, the earth, except, where some snow
lingers, is of a still darker tint. On the northern side the low mounds
are white with snow here and there. Mile after mile the open level fields
extend on either hand; now brown from the late passage of the plough, now
a pale yellow where the short stubble yet remains, divided by black lines;
the low-cropped hedges bare of leaves. A few small fir copses are
scattered about, the only relief to the eye; all else is level, dull,
monotonous.
When the village is reached at last, it is found to be of considerable
size. The population is much greater than might have been anticipated from
the desert-like solitude surrounding the place. In actual numbers, of
course, it will not bear comparison with manufacturing districts, but for
its situation, it is quite a little town. Compared with the villages
situate in the midst of great pastures--where grass is the all-important
crop--it is really populous. Almost all the inhabitants find employment in
the fields around, helping to produce wheat and barley, oats and roots. It
is a little city of the staff of life--a metropolis of the plough.
Every single house, from that of the landowner, through the rent; that of
the clergyman, through the tithe--down to the humblest cottage, is
directly interested in the crop of corn. The very children playing about
the gaps in the hedges are interested in it, for can they not go gleaning?
If the heralds had given the place a coat of arms it should bear a sheaf
of wheat. And the reason of its comparative populousness is to be found in
the wheat also. For the stubborn earth will not yield its riches without
severe and sustained labour. Instead of tickling it with a hoe, and
watching the golden harvest leap forth, scarifier and plough, harrow and
drill in almost ceaseless succession, compel the clods by sheer force of
iron to deliver up their treasure. In another form it is almost like the
quartz-crushing at the gold mines--the ore ground out from the solid rock.
And here, in addition, the ore has to be put into the rock first in the
shape of manure.
All this labour requires hands to do it, and so--the supply for some time,
at all events, answering the demand--the village teemed with men. In the
autumn comes the ploughing, the couch-picking and burning, often second
ploughing, the sowing by drill or hand, the threshing, &c. In the spring
will come more ploughing, sowing, harrowing, hoeing. Modern agriculture
has increased the labour done in the fields. Crops are arranged to succeed
crops, and each of these necessitates labour, and labour a second and a
third time. The work on arable land is never finished. A slackness there
is in the dead of winter; but even then there is still something
doing--some draining, some trimming of hedges, carting manure for open
field work. But beyond this there are the sheep in the pens to be attended
to as the important time of lambing approaches, and there are the horned
cattle in the stalls still fattening, and leaving, as they reach maturity,
for the butcher.
The arable agriculturist, indeed, has a double weight upon his mind. He
has money invested in the soil itself, seed lying awaiting the genial warm
rain that shall cause it to germinate, capital in every furrow traced by
the plough. He has money, on the other hand, in his stock, sheep, and
cattle. A double anxiety is his; first that his crops may prosper, next
that his stock may flourish. He requires men to labour in the field, men
to attend to the sheep, men to feed the bullocks; a crowd of labourers are
supported by him, with their wives and families. In addition to these he
needs other labour--the inanimate assistance of the steam-engine, and the
semi-intelligent co-operation of the horse. These, again, must be directed
by men. Thus it is that the corn village has become populous.
The original idea was that the introduction of machinery would reduce all
this labour. In point of fact, it has, if anything, increased it. The
steam-plough will not work itself; each of the two engines requires two
men to attend to it; one, and often two, ride on the plough itself;
another goes with the water-cart to feed the boiler: others with the
waggon for coal. The drill must have men--and experienced men--with it,
besides horses to draw it, and these again want men The threshing-machine
employs quite a little troop to feed it; and, turning to the stock in the
stalls, roots will not pulp or slice themselves, nor will water pump
itself up into the troughs, nor chaff cut itself. The chaff-cutter and
pump, and so on, all depend on human hands to keep them going. Such is but
a very brief outline of the innumerable ways in which arable agriculture
gives employment. So the labourer and the labourer's family flourish
exceedingly in the corn tillage. Wages rise; he waxes fat and strong and
masterful, thinking that he holds the farmer and the golden grain in the
hollow of his hand.
But now a cloud arises and casts its shadow over the cottage. If the
farmer depends upon his men, so do the men in equal degree depend upon the
farmer. This they overlooked, but are now learning again. The farmer, too,
is not independent and self-sustained, but is at the mercy of many
masters. The weather and the seasons are one master; the foreign producer
is another; the markets, which are further influenced by the condition of
trade at large, form a third master. He is, indeed, very much more in the
position of a servant than his labourer. Of late almost all these masters
have combined against the corn-growing farmer. Wheat is not only low but
seems likely to remain so. Foreign meat also competes with the dearly-made
meat of the stalls. The markets are dull and trade depressed everywhere.
Finally a fresh master starts up in the shape of the labourer himself, and
demands higher wages.
For some length of time the corn-grower puts a courageous face on the
difficulties which beset him, and struggles on, hoping for better days.
After awhile, however, seeing that his capital is diminishing, because he
has been, as it were, eating it, seeing that there is no prospect of
immediate relief, whatever may happen in the future, he is driven to one
of two courses. He must quit the occupation or he must reduce his
expenditure. He must not only ask the labourer to accept a reduction, but
he must, wherever practicable, avoid employing labour at all.
Now comes the pressure on the corn village. Much but not all of that
pressure the inhabitants have brought upon themselves through endeavouring
to squeeze the farmer too closely. If there had been no labour
organisation whatever when the arable agriculturist began to suffer, as he
undoubtedly has been suffering, the labourer must have felt it in his
turn. He has himself to blame if he has made the pain more acute. He finds
it in this way. Throughout the corn-producing district there has been
proceeding a gradual shrinkage, as it were, of speculative investment.
Where an agriculturist would have ploughed deeper, and placed extra
quantities of manure in the soil, with a view to an extra crop, he has,
instead, only just ploughed and cleaned and manured enough to keep things
going. Where he would have enlarged his flock of sheep, or added to the
cattle in the stalls, and carried as much stock as he possibly could, he
has barely filled the stalls, and bought but just enough cake and foods.
Just enough, indeed, of late has been his watchword all through--just
enough labour and no more.
This cutting down, stinting, and economy everywhere has told upon the
population of the village. The difference in the expenditure upon a
solitary farm may be but a trifle--a few pounds; but when some score or
more farms are taken, in the aggregate the decrease in the cash
transferred from the pocket of the agriculturist to that of the labourer
becomes something considerable. The same percentage on a hundred farms
would amount to a large sum. In this manner the fact of the corn-producing
farmer being out of spirits with his profession reacts upon the corn
village. There is no positive distress, but there is just a sense that
there are more hands about than necessary. Yet at the same moment there
are not hands enough; a paradox which may be explained in a measure by the
introduction of machinery.
As already stated, machinery in the field does not reduce the number of
men employed. But they are employed in a different way. The work all comes
now in rushes. By the aid of the reaping machine acres are levelled in a
day, and the cut corn demands the services of a crowd of men and women all
at once, to tie it up in sheaves. Should the self-binders come into
general use, and tie the wheat with wire or string at the moment of
cutting it, the matter of labour will be left much in the same stage. A
crowd of workpeople will be required all at once to pick up the sheaves,
or to cart them to the rick; and the difference will lie in this, that
while now the crowd are employed, say twelve hours, then they will be
employed only nine. Just the same number--perhaps more--but for less time.
Under the old system, a dozen men worked all the winter through, hammering
away with their flails in the barns. Now the threshing-machine arrives,
and the ricks are threshed in a few days. As many men are wanted (and at
double the wages) to feed the machine, to tend the 'elevator' carrying up
the straw to make the straw rick, to fetch water and coal for the engine,
to drive it, &c. But instead of working for so many months, this rush
lasts as many days.
Much the same thing happens all throughout arable agriculture--from the
hoeing to the threshing--a troop are wanted one day, scarcely anybody the
next. There is, of course, a steady undercurrent of continuous work for a
certain fixed number of hands; but over and above this are the periodical
calls for extra labour, which of recent years, from the high wages paid,
have been so profitable to the labourers. But when the agriculturist draws
in his investments, when he retrenches his expenditure, and endeavours, as
far as practicable, to confine it to his regular men, then the
intermittent character of the extra work puts a strain upon the rest. They
do not find so much to do, the pay is insensibly decreasing, and they
obtain, less casual employment meantime.
In the olden times a succession of bad harvests caused sufferings
throughout the whole of England. Somewhat in like manner, though in a
greatly modified degree, the difficulties of the arable agriculturist at
the present day press upon the corn villages. In a time when the
inhabitants saw the farmers, as they believed, flourishing and even
treading on the heels of the squire, the corn villagers, thinking that the
farmer was absolutely dependent upon them, led the van of the agitation
for high wages. Now, when the force of circumstances has compressed wages
again, they are both to submit. But discovering by slow degrees that no
organisation can compel, or create a demand for labour at any price, there
are now signs on the one hand of acquiescence, and on the other of partial
emigration.
Thus the comparative density of the population in arable districts is at
once a blessing and a trouble. It is not the 'pranks' of the farmers that
have caused emigration, or threats of it. The farmer is unable to pay high
wages, the men will not accept a moderate reduction, and the idle crowd,
in effect, tread on each other's heels. Pressure of that kind, and to that
extent, is limited to a few localities only. The majority have sufficient
common sense to see their error. But it is in arable districts that
agitation takes its extreme form. The very number of the population gives
any movement a vigour and emphasis that is wanting where there may be as
much discontent but fewer to exhibit it. That populousness has been in the
past of the greatest assistance to the agriculturist, and there is no
reason why it should not be so in the future, for it does not by any means
follow that because agriculture is at present depressed it will always be
so.
Let the months roll by and then approach the same village along the same
road under the summer sun. The hedges, though low, are green, and bear the
beautiful flowers of the wild convolvulus. Trees that were scarcely
observed before, because bare of leaves, now appear, and crowds of birds,
finches and sparrows, fly up from the corn. The black swifts wheel
overhead, and the white-breasted swallows float in the azure. Over the
broad plain extends a still broader roof of the purest blue--the landscape
is so open that the sky seems as broad again as in the enclosed
countries--wide, limitless, very much as it does at sea. On the rising
ground pause a moment and look round. Wheat and barley and oats stretch
mile after mile on either hand. Here the red wheat tinges the view, there
the whiter barley; but the prevailing hue is a light gold. Yonder green is
the swede, or turnip, or mangold; but frequent as are the fields of roots,
the golden tint overpowers the green. A golden sun looks down upon the
golden wheat--the winds are still and the heat broods over the corn. It is
pleasant to get under the scanty shadow of the stunted ash. Think what
wealth all that glorious beauty represents. Wealth to the rich man, wealth
to the poor.
Come again in a few weeks' time and look down upon it. The swarthy reapers
are at work. They bend to their labour till the tall corn overtops their
heads. Every now and then they rise up, and stand breast high among the
wheat. Every field is full of them, men and women, young lads and girls,
busy as they may be. Yonder the reaping-machine, with its strange-looking
arms revolving like the vast claws of an unearthly monster beating down
the grain, goes rapidly round and round in an ever-narrowing circle till
the last ears fall. A crowd has pounced upon the cut corn. Behind
them--behind the reapers--everywhere abroad on the great plain rises an
army, regiment behind regiment, the sheaves stacked in regular ranks down
the fields. Yet a little while, and over that immense expanse not one
single, solitary straw will be left standing. Then the green roots show
more strongly, and tint the landscape. Next come the waggons, and after
that the children searching for stray ears of wheat, for not one must be
left behind. After that, in the ploughing time, while yet the sun shines
warm, it is a sight to watch the teams from under the same ash tree,
returning from their labour in the afternoon. Six horses here, eight
horses there, twelve yonder, four far away; all in single file, slowly
walking home, and needing no order or touch of whip to direct their steps
to the well-known stables.
If any wish to see the work of farming in its full flush and vigour, let
them visit a corn district at the harvest time. Down in the village there
scarcely any one is left at home; every man, woman, and child is out in
the field. It is the day of prosperity, of continuous work for all, of
high wages. It is, then, easy to understand why corn villages are
populous. One cannot but feel the strongest sympathy with these men. The
scene altogether seems so thoroughly, so intensely English. The spirit of
it enters into the spectator, and he feels that he, too, must try his hand
at the reaping, and then slake his thirst from the same cup with these
bronzed sons of toil.
Yet what a difficult problem lies underneath all this! While the reaper
yonder slashes at the straw, huge ships are on the ocean rushing through
the foam to bring grain to the great cities to whom--and to all--cheap
bread is so inestimable a blessing. Very likely, when he pauses in his
work, and takes his luncheon, the crust he eats is made of flour ground
out of grain that grew in far distant Minnesota, or some vast Western
State. Perhaps at the same moment the farmer himself sits at his desk and
adds up figure after figure, calculating the cost of production, the
expenditure on labour, the price of manure put into the soil, the capital
invested in the steam-plough, and the cost of feeding the bullocks that
are already intended for the next Christmas. Against these he places the
market price of that wheat he can see being reaped from his window, and
the price he receives for his fattened bullock. Then a vision rises before
him of green meads and broad pastures slowly supplanting the corn; the
plough put away, and the scythe brought out and sharpened. If so, where
then will be the crowd of men and women yonder working in the wheat? Is
not this a great problem, one to be pondered over and not hastily
dismissed?
Logical conclusions do not always come to pass in practice; even yet there
is plenty of time for a change which shall retain these stalwart reapers
amongst us, the strength and pride of the land. But if so, it is certain
that it must be preceded by some earnest on their part of a desire to
remove that last straw from the farmer's back--the last straw of
extravagant labour demands--which have slowly been dragging him down. They
have been doing their very best to bring about the substitution of grass
for corn. And the farmer, too, perhaps, must look at home, and be content
to live in simpler fashion. To do so will certainly require no little
moral courage, for a prevalent social custom, like that of living fully up
to the income (not solely characteristic of farmers), is with difficulty
faced and overcome.