Henry Stephens's Book of the Farm E-Book

Alex Langlands

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 486

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The Book of the Farm, written by the 19th-century farming expert Henry Stephens, was the indispensable farming 'bible' referred to by the historians living and working on the BBC series Victorian Farm. This brand new version has been fully revised and edited by Alex Langlands, who starred on the programme, to bring its timeless wisdom to a fresh audience. Beautifully illustrated throughout with both black-and-white and colour illustrations, the book is a complete guide to the farming year, from planting thorn hedges in winter to pulling up potatoes in autumn. Along the way it gives fascinating information about every aspect of farming, from sheep shearing to bringing in the harvest, and practical instructions for skills such as cheese- making, animal husbandry, sheepdog training and other traditional country pastimes. Although farming has changed irrevocably since the 19th century, there are some aspects that remain timeless, and this exquisite book is a nostalgic celebration of our rural past.

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To my darling Libby

First published in the United Kingdom in 2011 by Batsford

10 Southcombe Street

London W14 0RA

An imprint of Anova Books Company Ltd

Copyright © Batsford 2011

Introduction and revised text © Alex Langlands 2011

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

First eBook publication 2013

ISBN: 978-1-84994-125-9

Also available in hardback

ISBN: 978-1-906388-91-1

Design by Lee-May Lim

This book can be ordered direct from the publisher at

www.anovabooks.co.uk, or try your local bookshop.

CONTENTS

Introduction

THE PERSONS WHO LABOUR ON THE FARM

WINTER

Introduction

Soils and subsoils

Planting of thorn hedges

The plough

Draining

Yoking and harnessing the plough, and swing trees

Drawing and storing turnips, cabbage,carrots and parsnips

Driving and slaughtering sheep

Rearing and feeding cattle on turnips in winter

Driving and slaughtering cattle

Treatment of farm horses in winter

Fattening, driving and slaughtering swine

The treatment of fowl in winter

Thrashing and winnowing grain, and the thrashing machine

Straw

The forming of dunghills

SPRING

Introduction

Cows calving, and calves

Sowing spring wheat

Sowing oat seed

Sowing barley seed

Seed germination

Sowing grass seed

Sowing flax and hemp

Sowing beans

Switching, pruning and water tabling thorn hedges

The lambing of ewes

Training and working the shepherd’s dog

Turning dunghills and composts

Planting potatoes

Breaking in young draught horses

Sows farrowing or littering

The hatching of fowls

SUMMER

Introduction

Sowing turnips, mangelwurzel, rape, carrots and parsnips

Clearing stones, repairing fences, and the proper construction of field gates

Weaning calves and bulls, and grazing cattle till winter

Sheep washing, sheep shearing and weaning lambs

Making butter and cheese

Weeding corn, green crops, pastures and hedges, and casualties to plants

Haymaking

Summer fallowing and liming the soil

Building stone dykes

AUTUMN

Introduction

Pulling, steeping and drying flax and hemp

Harvesting rye, wheat, barley, oats, beans and pease

Carrying in and stacking wheat, barley, oats, beans and pease

Drafting ewes and gimmers, tupping ewes, and bathing and dipping sheep

Lifting and pitting potatoes

Sowing autumn wheat

Agricultural wheel carriages

Eggs

Conclusion

Index

INTRODUCTION

The middle decades of the nineteenth century represent the apogee of Queen Victoria’s reign and the point at which Britain, globally, was at the height of its powers. Britannia was seen to be ruling the waves and in terms of its industry and economy, Britain was truly leading the world. At home, the towns and cities of the nation were growing at an unprecedented rate, with the ranks of the urban middle and working classes swelled to a population of unparalleled proportions. If the ‘workshop of the world’ was to keep pace with its global ambitions and see the threat of foreign imports kept at bay, it would need its larder stocked with basic foodstuffs to support its army of workers. This duty would fall, in the first instance, squarely upon the shoulders of British farmers. The optimism of the age, fuelled by the proven capital gains of large-scale industry and mass manufacture, was to spread its tentacles into agriculture. It gave fresh impetus to the existing developments that had begun to characterise what we now term the Agricultural Revolution, and the aim of the great farming magnates of the mid-nineteenth century was to turn the British landscape into a home-growing money-making machine.

It was in this climate that Henry Stephens’ Book of the Farm was written. It was a time for British agriculture that has often been dubbed a ‘Golden Age’, when vast sums of capital investment were set down to increase productivity and modernise farming practices. ‘High Farming’ – a term coined by James Caird, contemporary agriculturalist and writer – was the order of the day and a substantially remunerative farming was believed achievable through an intensive form of agriculture where high inputs led to high outputs. Nowhere better would the innovation and technical developments in farming have been observed than in the Agricultural Court at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Here the latest designs in agricultural implements vied for the attention of the finest entrepreneurial minds of the mid-Victorian Age. Not only could these new-fangled contraptions cut through the relentless back-breaking drudgery of an industry timelessly enslaved by the natural elements of weather, terrain and geology, but they could also increase productivity and, better still, generate that fundamental of any industry: profit.

Henry Stephens

WHAT ISBOOK OF THEFARMAND who was it written for?

TheBook of the Farm is first and foremost a practical guide to farming in the Victorian period. Its focus is on the kinds of small details that make practical manuals so popular in the modern day and comprehensively guides the reader through the agricultural year of a ‘mixed’ farm; one that both breeds livestock for meat and dairy and grows crops for human and livestock consumption. From the types of farming that can be undertaken, to the breeds of livestock, the tools employed, the deployment of labour, the methods of sowing, feeding, weeding, harvesting and breeding, there is no aspect of farming that Stephens doesn’t cover in minute detail. The resulting text, originally published in six volumes, is one that is, at times, verbose and confusing with details that seem, at first glance, irrelevant to the distant 21st-century reader. But to the budding mid-nineteenth century agriculturalist, this was the kind of detail that could shave down costs on every aspect of farming. It would have represented the best means with which to bypass the hard-earned experience and decades of knowledge gleaned from trial and error. It would also have included best farming practice elsewhere, detailing innovations and new ideas being written about in agricultural journals of the time and practised through experimentation on the leading farms of the nation.

In the Britain of the 1840s, agricultural education was a rather informal affair, with no clear national standard. Much of what was seen as best practice was passed down from either interested landowners or their farm bailiffs to their sons and younger members of the farming community. Similar arrangements are known, for all the country crafts and the agricultural skills of growing and breeding were very much kept in the family, where the farm cattleman, shepherd, waggoner and ploughman thought nothing of passing on their knowledge to their immediate or once-removed offspring. Put simply, you learnt ‘on the job’. For the gentry, however, and the middling tenant farmers, the first stages of formal agricultural education were beginning to emerge. While it was not possible to take a degree in agriculture until the early twentieth century, the Agricultural College was founded in 1846 in Cirencester, Gloucestershire (later, in 1880, to become the ‘Royal Agricultural College’). Alone as a college that set out to provide practical instruction in the embryonic field of agricultural science, there was still a sense in wider society of agriculture being a diversion for gentlemen perhaps rather than a business for farmers. There were some informal arrangements in existence whereby boys could take up residence at leading and progressive farms in the district and undertake a form of apprentice-ship. Stephens himself benefited from a number of years of on-the-job learning at George Brown’s farm at Whitsome Hill, Berwickshire.

Accessible and practical guides were, however, a feature of this period. Clark Hillyard’s Practical Farming and Grazing (1836), for example, was a product of the popularity of a summary he’d written for the benefit of his son back in 1814. Expanding upon his notes, he was motivated by what he read in practical texts of the age and bemoaned of them that they were ‘so verbose and theoretical that I soon laid them aside’. Another notable contemporary work was the Manual of British Husbandry, published in three volumes between 1834 and 1840, edited by J. French Burke under the auspices of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

David Low’s Elements of Practical Agriculture (1834) demonstrates the early links made between chemistry and farming. Low, like Stephens, had an early schooling in chemistry and had spent his formative years on his father’s farm assisting in its day-to-day running. It is Humphrey Davy, however, in his 1813 publication Elements of Agricultural Chemistry in a Course of Lectures who should be credited, in Great Britain at least, with the first advocation of the application of the principles of chemistry to agriculture. Building on Davy’s work, J. F. W. Johnston’s Elements of Agricultural Chemistry and Geology was published in 1842, and in a climate where chemistry was increasingly being seen as key to the manufacture of fertilizers, the German chemist Justus Von Liebig’s Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture was translated into English and published in 1840.

There is, of course, the task of turning the hard science of Davy and Liebig into practical application, and from there into hard cash. Low’s book goes some way towards doing that, with his voice of experience from the fields providing balance. It is perhaps, with these more practically orientated texts, such as J. C. Morton’s Cyclopedia of Agriculture (1855) and J. C. Loudon’s Encyclopaedia of Agriculture (1825) that Stephens’ work sits most comfortably, although Stephens’ departure from these was in his arrangement of information in seasonal order. In doing this, Stephens, more so than any agricultural writer of his day, was appealing to the newcomer. Thus, the enterprising young professional who wished to forge himself a career in the industry of agriculture, perhaps the son of a squire or a well-to-do tenant farmer, could be guided step-by-step through the agricultural year. The implementation of improvements and the introduction of new and innovative methods were very much the business of the land agent or farm manager, and The Book of the Farm would almost certainly have been one of the first acquisitions for the bookshelf, detailing best practice and highlighting the pitfalls as it does, in a clear and logically arranged seasonal order.

WHO WASHENRYSTEPHENS?

Henry Stephens was born in Bengal on 25th June 1795 to a surgeon, Andrew Stephens, of the East India Company. It was upon the death of his father in Calcutta on the 26th August 1806 that he was returned to the family home in Scotland and was from there sent to be educated in Dundee. From 1809 to 1811 he studied natural philosophy, mathematics and chemistry at the Dundee Academy under rector Thomas Duncan, and he went on to attend lectures in chemistry and agriculture at the University of Edinburgh where, incidentally, both Loudon and Low had also been educated.

It was on leaving Edinburgh and taking up an informal apprentice-ship on George Brown’s farm that he gained an understanding of all the processes entailed with mixed farming – from the day-to-day management of livestock to the seasonal field work required for the growing of crops. He worked in the dairy, the poultry house, the cattle byre, the sheep fold, the threshing barn and in the fields seeing and understanding first-hand the labour and method employed in the successful running of a farm. After several years working on Brown’s farm, he travelled to Europe, where he explored Continental methods of farming, and upon his return to Scotland he took up the running of a large farm at Balmadies in the parish of Rescobie, Forfarshire. He is believed, through a programme of improvement, to have drastically improved the productivity of the farm at Balmadies and it is clear that many of the methods he advocates in TheBook of the Farm, such as netting sheep on turnips in the field, a varied approach to drainage, and stock-proofing through well-maintained thorn-hedges and stone dykes, are given their first try-out at Balmadies.

Perhaps buoyed up by the success of his first years of farm management, Stephens began to write about his improvements. He published his initial findings in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture (1829), which he went on to become editor of, and his taste for writing saw him take on the editorial of the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society. But Stephens’ position as a pioneer in the field of improved mixed farming was short-lived, for between 1830 and 1832 the failure of the chief East India Agency Houses at Calcutta through mismanaged business and over-speculated trade saw the collapse of his financial interests, and this was soon to prove calamitous to his farming ambitions.

Here there is an interesting parallel with another doyen of the ‘High-Farming’ age. John Joseph Mechi had made his fortune through a patent razor strop, and with his new-found wealth he bought a 130-acre farm at Tiptree in Essex, where he set about building the model farm. He was an ardent promoter, like Stephens, of investment in drainage, buildings, equipment and imported fertilisers as a means to raise fertility and increase production, and published his findings widely in talks to agricultural societies, in letters to the agricultural press and in his best-selling publication How to Farm Profitably (1859). However, it is clear that as his other business affairs started to take a downturn, so did his farming enterprise. In both Mechi and Stephens’ cases it would appear that the ‘best practice’ that they so eloquently extolled was very much underpinned by external sources of funding – private capital – and their story is perhaps symbolic of the wider flaws in high farming that were so brutally exposed by the agricultural depression of the 1870s. Rising grain prices, a series of disastrous harvests and cheap imports had caused the collapse of the home-grown wheat market, and the ramifications had been catastrophic for many arable farmers in Britain. Much of the capital that had been so enthusiastically invested in farm buildings, implements and increased soil fertility was never recovered, and many landowners and tenant farmers stared financial ruin in the face.

Fortunately for Stephens, his financial meltdown had been a generation earlier than the depression, and although the collapse of his investments meant that he had to give up Balmadies, he was able to turn his hand to writing for a still-optimistic agricultural community. Taking up residence in a suburb of Edinburgh, Stephens set about establishing himself as a full-time writer on all things agricultural. From 1842 to 1871 he published on numerous aspects of British farming and wrote The Book of Farm Implements and Machines (1858), The Book of Farm Buildings (1867), Catechism of Practical Agriculture (1855) and A Manual of Practical Draining (1846–48) but it is his first major work, The Book of the Farm, that is his most famous and most widely read. Beautifully illustrated by Gourlay Steell – more famous as Queen Victoria’s animal painter and brother of John Steell the Scottish sculptor – The Book of the Farm proved an overriding success and numerous editions were published in Stephens’ own lifetime (1842–4, 1849–51, and 1871) and beyond.

A prize-winning Ayrshire cow owned by Mark J. Stewart Esq. of Southwick, Dumfries

SO WHY A NEW AND REVISEDEDITION OFBOOK OF THEFARM?

Despite its popularity at the time, Stephens’ Book of the Farm has received little recognition since the last editions were revised and published in the early twentieth century. It may very well be the case that for the general commentator on the changing fortunes of Britain’s agricultural economy, Stephens’ text is both impenetrable in its detail and somewhat myopic in its scope. Although there are occasional insightful observations on his part about the place that farming occupies in the national economy, teasing these out from pages and pages of technical and practical detail would require a depth of reading that would ultimately outweigh the fruits borne.

Yet it is precisely this level of detail that is the appeal for the archaeologist, historian and historical farmer like me. In the pre-industrial age, farming was the backbone of society, and the overwhelming majority of folk were rural dwellers concerned with the growing of food and the raising of stock to support the economy. Understanding this day-to-day existence on the land is therefore key to our understanding of pre-industrial societies. What Stephens provides us with is one of the first and most detailed commentaries on the technical issues – the tool use, the labour organisation, time taken, yields and management of resources. Although he was writing during a period of increased mechanisation, Stephens would regularly provide commentary on traditional methods in which the bulk of the work was carried out by labourers and draught animals. This is where the intrigue is for me. In these descriptions of processes conducted by hand can be found a window into agricultural practices that were, even in the mid-nineteenth century, hundreds of years old.

Of course, there are a myriad of other more contemporary sources available to the student of earlier agricultural history, but they come not without their problems of interpretation. For example, Thomas Tusser had, in the sixteenth century, provided us with a farming manual detailing A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie (first published in 1557). Yet, Tusser was a musician and poet first and a husbandman second, and as a consequence it often comes across that he is more at pains to achieve a rhyming couplet than he is to present an accurate portrayal of practical farming techniques. Virgil, the classical Roman poet, was a farmer’s son, and his Georgics (literally meaning ‘to farm’ and dated to around 37bc) are rich in detail concerning the cultivation of crops and fruits and the raising of livestock in northern Italy. Again, however, the work has a motive beyond practical instruction and the rhetorical tone he sets creates tensions in purpose, often making it difficult to differentiate good from bad practice.

Early and later medieval manuscript illustrations and their depictions of farming life can be useful for the study of medieval farming. I have often found the Julius Work Calendar, an Anglo-Saxon manuscript produced in Canterbury Cathedral around 1020, instructive with regards to the various activities that might be carried out in the agricultural year. But caution is required, as the illustrator was undoubtedly a highly trained scribe rather than a skilled farmer, and the accuracy of each pictorial presentation should always be brought into question.

The month of August depicted in the Julius Work Calendar. Produced in Canterbury around the year 1020, this illustration depicts the bringing in of the harvest

Similar problems arise from later medieval illuminated manuscripts such as the many surviving ‘Books of Hours’, popular devotional texts containing calendars of holy feasts, prayers and psalms. The various illustrations that feature in these texts are fraught with artistic licence and the biases of pious idealism alays need to be kept in mind. Having said this, however, the old adage ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ has some relevance here, as the detail in some of these illustrations is fascinating and I often find myself studying them intensely for insights into how the agricultural landscape was organised.

Of course, none of the authors or illustrators of the sources mentioned above set out primarily to give instruction in agricultural practices, and as such shouldn’t be judged on these grounds. The student of historical farming who is interested in actual ‘process’ is left with the tricky business of piecing together oblique references from sweeping verse and tantalising detail from religiously loaded imagery to form a greater understanding of the ‘how to’. This, however, is where Stephens is so useful, as his first and only objective was to provide detailed instruction on method and practice. When we want to know exactly how, historically, people went about preparing the land, what methods they adopted to sow the seed, how they tended the crop in the field and how it was harvested under a range of conditions, it is to Stephens we turn.

August in Da Costa Hours, where labourers take a welcome break from cutting cereals with sickles, illuminated by Simon Bening (1483/84–1561)

Reaping with the Hainault scythe. Developed in the Walloon region of Belgium in the sixteenth century, this method of reaping cereals was still being used well into the nineteenth century

To many, this obsession with the practical may seem a little dry and colourless, but it brings me to the crux of why I find TheBook of the Farm so interesting. I am a great believer in making history work for itself and in the past being made as relevant as it can be for the present. While I love a good historical yarn about a king or queen, these tales are usually nothing more than stories of passing interest. Can we learn from them or is this history for amusement’s sake? It is rare that the everyday people of the past have great narratives written about them, and we access their world through an understanding of the day-to-day tasks that made up their lives. Much of this, certainly in the pre-industrial age, was concerned with the provision and preparation of food – farming – and this is where I see TheBook of the Farm as an historical document with surprising relevance for the now. It is my great belief that in these times of increasing uncertainty, in terms of how we feed, clothe and sustain ourselves, something of the methods of the past will find new audiences among society. We are already aware of the enormous carbon cost of global food production and our total reliance on non-renewable energy to sow, grow, harvest, process and transport our food. It is not just the stuff that is flown in from thousands of miles away, but that which is also grown in our immediate environment that is dependent on an ever-diminishing supply of fossil fuels. It may seem like a million years away now but for future generations – in maybe as little as fifty years’ time – simply putting food on the kitchen table may prove extremely difficult. Confronted with this uncertainty I find myself flicking through the pages of TheBook of the Farm and wondering whether some of the ‘old ways’ could still have a role to play. Of course, it would be naive of me to think that a reversion back to the methods of over one hundred years ago can simply replace the practices of today without a detrimental affect on yields and productivity. The situation is, unsurprisingly, much more complex than that. However, can we learn something from how once farms operated? Under ‘closed’ systems, fertility was kept in the ground by the dunging of livestock who were, in turn, fed by crops grown on the land, and in this we observe a cycle of life which supported those who lovingly tended and expertly managed the natural world around them. Alongside the wind, rain and sun, the source of energy was to be found in the muscular frames of the labourers, men and women, and in draught beasts, both horses and oxen. Yes, by the 1860s steam engines were playing an increasing role on the farm, and by the end of the century static oil engines made their first appearance, but before these it was people and horses that made food production on these islands tick. Should we today therefore, as individuals and groups, play a greater role in the production of the food we provide for ourselves, our families and our friends? Should the fields, meadows, woodlands, hedgerows and pastures that surround our towns and cities serve, as they once did, neighbouring markets and local outlets? Indeed, would it not be prudent for our local and regional communities to become less reliant on international markets for basic foodstuffs and thus more resilient to the whims and vagaries of a much less stable global economy?

The text I have selected from Henry Stephens’ Book of the Farm leans heavily towards that which I find most interesting and that which excites the dreamer, like me, who believes that one day the old ways which served our ancestors so well will find a new momentum and experience something of a renaissance. Maybe, just maybe, there will come a time when more of us need to know how to harness a horse, how to set a plough, how to work a tilth and the depth to which the grain should be sown, and I hope that this revised edition of Henry Stephens’ Book of the Farm will keep fresh in the mind of another generation the traditional skills of the Victorian farmer.

THE PERSONS WHO LABOUR ON THE FARM

THE FARMER

First, the duties of the farmer. It is his province to originate the entire system of management: to determine the period for commencing and pursuing every operation; to issue general orders of management to the steward, when there is one, and if there be none, to give minute instructions to the ploughmen for the performance of every separate field operation; to exercise a general superintendence over the fieldworkers; to observe the general behaviour of all; to see if the cattle are cared for; to ascertain the condition of all the crops; to guide the shepherd; to direct the hedger or labourer; to effect the sales of the surplus produce; to conduct the purchases conducive to the progressive improvement of the farm; to disburse the expenses of management; to pay the rent to the landlord, and to fulfil the obligations incumbent on him as a resident of the parish.

The gentleman farmer instructs one of his smock-clad labourers

Fahrenheit thermometer, mounted

Funnel rain gauge

THE BAILIFF

The duty of steward, or grieve as he is called in some parts of Scotland, and bailiff in England, consists of receiving general instructions from his master, the farmer, which he sees executed by the people under his charge. He exercises a direct control over the ploughmen and fieldworkers, and unreasonable disobedience on their part of his commands is reprehended as strongly by the farmer as if the affront had been offered to himself.

The farmer reveals to the steward alone the plans of his management; entrusts him with the keys of the corn barn, granaries and provision stores; delegates to him the power to act as his representative on the farm in his absence; and takes every opportunity of showing confidence in his integrity, truth and good behaviour.

The steward should always deliver the daily allowance of corn to the horses. He should, moreover, be the first person out of bed in the morning and the last in it at night.

THE PLOUGHMAN

The duties of the ploughman are clearly defined. The principal duty is to take charge of a pair of horses, and work them at every kind of labour for which horses are employed on a farm. Horse labour on a farm is various. It is connected with the plough, the cart, sowing machines, the roller and the thrashing mill, when horse power is employed in the thrashing of corn; so that the knowledge of a ploughman should comprehend a variety of subjects. In the fulfilment of his duties, the ploughman has a long day’s work to perform; for, besides expending the appointed hours in the fields with the horses, he must groom them before he goes to the field in the morning and after he returns from it in the evening, as well as at midday between the two periods of labour.

It is the duty of the ploughman to work his horses with discretion and good temper; not only for the sake of the horses, but that he may execute his work in a proper manner. It is also his duty to keep his horses comfortably clean.

A lad leads the heavy horses as the ploughman guides the plough

THESHEPHERD

His duty is to undertake the entire management of the sheep; and, when he bestows the pains he should on his flock, he has little leisure for any other work. His time is occupied from early dawn, when he should be among his flock before they rise from their lair, and during the whole day, to the evening, when they again lie down for the night. To inspect a large flock at least three times a day, over extensive bounds, implies a walking to fatigue. Besides this daily exercise, he has to attend to the feeding of the young sheep on turnips in winter, the lambing of the ewes in spring, the washing and shearing of the fleece in summer, and the bathing of the flock in autumn. And, over and above these major operations, there are the minor ones of weaning, milking, drafting and marking, at appointed times; not to omit the unwearied attention to be bestowed, for a time, on the whole flock, to evade the attacks of insects.

The only assistance which he depends upon in personally managing his flock is that of his faithful dog, whose sagacity in that respect is little inferior to his own.

Shepherd’s house on wheels

THE CATTLEMAN

The services of the cattleman are most wanted at the steading in winter, when the cattle are all housed. He has the sole charge of them. It is his duty to clean out the cattle houses, and supply the cattle with food, fodder and litter, at appointed hours every day, and to make the food ready for them, should prepared food be given them.

In summer and autumn, when the cows are at grass, it is his duty to bring them into the byre or to the gate of the field, as the case may be, to be milked at their appointed times; and it is also his duty to ascertain that the cattle in the fields are plentifully supplied with food and water. He should see the cows served by the bull in due time, and keep an account of the cows’ reckonings of the time of calving. He should assist at the important process of calving.

An elderly person answers the purpose quite well, the labour being neither constant nor heavy, but well-timed and methodical. The cattleman ought to exercise much patience and good temper toward the objects of his charge, and a person in the decline of life is most likely to possess those qualities.

Bullock holder

FIELDWORKERS

Fieldworkers are indispensable servants on every farm devoted to arable culture.

The duties of fieldworkers, as their very name implies, are to perform all the manual operations of the fields, as well as those with the smaller implements, which are not worked by horses. The manual operations consist chiefly of cutting and planting the sets of potatoes, gathering weeds, picking stones, collecting the potato crop, and filling drains with stones. The operations with the smaller implements are pulling turnips and preparing them for feeding stock and storing in winter, performing barn work, carrying seed corn, spreading manure upon the land, hoeing potatoes and turnips and weeding and reaping corn crops.

Turnip hand hoe

A field labourer reaps a field of wheat with a sickle

THE DAIRYMAID

The duties of the dairymaid are well-defined. She is a domestic servant, domiciliated in the farmhouse. Her principal duties are, as her name implies, to milk the cows, manage the milk in all its stages, bring up the calves and make into butter and cheese the milk that is obtained from the cows after the weaning of the calves.

Should any lambs lose their mothers, the dairymaid should bring them up with cow’s milk until the time of weaning, when they are returned to the flock. At the lambing season, should any of the ewes be scant of milk, the shepherd applies to the dairymaid to have his bottles replenished with warm new milk for the hungered lambs. The dairymaid also milks the ewes after the weaning of the lambs and makes cheese of the ewe milk. She should attend to the poultry, feed them, set the brooders, gather the eggs daily, take charge of the broods until they are able to provide for themselves, and see them safely lodged in their respective apartments every evening, and let them abroad every morning. It is generally the dairymaid, when there is no housekeeper, who gives out the food for the reapers and takes charge of their articles of bedding. The dairymaid should therefore be an active, attentive and intelligent person.

Milking stool

WINTER

‘ALL NATURE FEELS THE RENOVATING FORCE

OF WINTER, ONLY TO THE THOUGHTLESS EYE

IN RUIN SEEN. THE FROST-CONCOCTED GLEBE

DRAWS IN ABUNDANT VEGETABLE SOUL,

AND GATHERS VIGOR FOR THE COMING YEAR.’

THOMSON

INTRODUCTION

The labours of the field in winter are confined to a few great operations. These are ploughing the soil in preparation of future crops and supplying food to the livestock. When the soil is naturally damp underneath, winter is the season selected for removing the damp by draining. Where fields are unenclosed and intended to be fenced with the thorn hedge, winter also is the season for performing the operation of planting it.

Almost the entire livestock of an arable farm is dependent on the hand of man for food in winter. It is this circumstance which, bringing the stock into the immediate presence of their owner, creates a stronger interest in their welfare than in any other season. The feeding of stock is so important a branch of farm business in winter that it regulates the time for prosecuting several other operations. It determines the quantity of turnips that should be carried from the field for the cattle in a given time, and causes the farmer to consider whether it would not be prudent to take advantage of the first few dry, fresh days to store up a quantity of them, to be held in reserve for the use of the stock during the storm that may be at the time portending. It also determines the quantity of straw that should be provided from the stack yard, in a given time, for the use of the animals; and upon this, again, depends the supply of grain that can be sent to the market in any given time.

All the stock in the farmstead in winter, that are not put to work, are placed under the care of the cattleman. The feeding of that portion of the sheep stock which are barren, on turnips in the field, is a process practised in winter. The flock of ewes roaming at large over the pastures requires attention in winter, especially in frosty weather, or when snow is on the ground, when they should be supplied with hay, or turnips when the former is not abundant. The preparation of grain for sale constitutes an important branch of winter farm business, and should be strictly superintended. A considerable portion of the labour of horses and men is occupied in carrying the grain to the market town and delivering it to the purchasers – a species of work which jades farm horses very much in bad weather. In hard frost, when the plough is laid to rest, or when the ground is covered with snow, and as soon as possible the farmyard manure is carried from the courts and deposited in a large heap, in a convenient spot near the gate of the field which is to be manured with it in the ensuing spring or summer.

The weather in winter is of the most precarious description and, being so, the farmer’s skill to anticipate its changes in this season is severely put to the test. Seeing that all operations of the farm are so dependent on the weather, a familiar acquaintance with the local prognostics which indicate a change for the better or worse is incumbent on the farmer.

Winter is to the farmer the season of domestic enjoyment. The fatigues of the long summer day leave little leisure, and much less inclination, to tax the mind with study; but the long winter evening, after a day of bracing exercise, affords him a favourable opportunity, if he has the inclination at all, of partaking in social conversation, listening to instructive reading or hearing the delights of music. In short, I know of no class of people more capable of enjoying a winter’s evening in a rational manner than the family of the country gentleman or the farmer.

Double horse cart

SOILS AND SUBSOILS

The leading characters of ordinary soils are derived from only two earths, clay and sand, and it is the greater or lesser admixture of these which stamps the peculiar character of a soil. The properties of either of these earths are even found to exist in what seems a purely calcareous [chalky] or purely vegetable soil. When either earth is mixed with decomposed vegetable matter, whether supplied naturally or artificially, the soil becomes a loam, the distinguishing character of which is derived from the predominating earth. Thus, there are clay soils and sandy soils, when either earth predominates; and when either is mixed with decomposed vegetable matter, they are then clay loams and sandy loams.

APURE CLAY SOIL

This has an unctuous feel in the hand, by which it can be kneaded into a smooth homogeneous mass, and retain any shape given to it. It is cold to the touch, and easily soils the hand and anything else that touches it. It cuts like soft cheese with the spade, and is then in an unfit state to be worked with the plough, or any other implement. A large strength of horses is thus required to work a clay land farm; for its workable state continues only for a short time, and it is the most obdurate of all soils to labour. But it is a powerful soil, its vegetation being luxuriant and its production great.

Clay cutters

ASANDY CLAY SOIL

When a little sand and gravel are mixed with clay, its texture is very materially altered, but its productive powers are not improved. It does not easily ball in the hand. It renders water very muddy, and soils everything by adhering to it; and, on that account, never comes clean off the spade, except when much wetted with water. This kind of soil never occurs in deep masses, but is rather shallow; is not naturally favourable to vegetation, nor is it naturally prolific.

ACLAY LOAM

Clay loam – that is either of the clay soils mixed with a large proportion of naturally decomposed vegetable matter – constitutes a useful and valuable soil. It yields the largest proportion of the fine wheats raised in this country, occupying a larger surface of the country than the carse clay [literally meaning ‘coarse’ or ‘rough’]. It forms a lump by a squeeze of the hand, but soon crumbles down again. It is easily laboured, and may be so at any time after a day or two of dry weather. It is generally of some depth, forming an excellent soil for wheat, beans, Swedish turnips and red clover.

Clay soils are generally slow of bringing their crops to maturity, which in wet seasons they never arrive at; but in dry seasons they are always strong, and yield quantity rather than quality.

APURE SANDY SOIL

A pure sandy soil is as easily recognized as one of pure clay. When wet, sandy soil feels firm underfoot, and then admits of a pretty whole furrow being laid over by the plough. It feels harsh and grating to the touch. In an ordinary state, it is well adapted to plants that have fusiform roots, such as the carrot and parsnip. Sandy soil generally occurs in deep masses, near the termination of the estuaries of large rivers, or along the sea shore, and is evidently a deposition from water.

AGRAVELLY SOIL

A gravelly soil consists of a large proportion of sand; but the greater part of its bulk is made up of small rounded fragments of rock brought together by the action of water. Gravelly deposits sometimes occupy a large extent of surface, and are of considerable depth. It can be easily laboured in any weather, and is not unpleasant to work, though the numerous small stones, which are seen in countless numbers upon the surface, render the holding of the plough rather unsteady. This soil is admirably adapted to plants having bulbs and tubers; and no kind of soil affords so dry and comfortable a lair to sheep on turnips, and on this account it is distinguished as ‘turnip soil’.

SANDY AND GRAVELLY LOAMS

Sandy and gravelly loams, if not the most valuable, are certainly the most useful of all soils. They become neither too wet nor too dry in ordinary seasons, and are capable of growing every species of crop, in every variety of season, to considerable perfection. On this account, they are esteemed ‘kindly soils’.

PLANTING OF THORN HEDGES

There are only two kinds of fences usually employed on farms, namely, thorn hedges and stone dykes. As winter is the proper season for planting, or running, as it is termed, thorn hedges, I shall here describe the process of planting the hedge.

The proper time for planting thorn hedges extends from the fall of the leaf, in autumn, to April, the latter period being late enough. The state of the ground usually chosen for the process is when in lea. If its line of direction is determined by existing fences (that is to say, if one side of a field only requires fencing), then the new fence should be made parallel with the old one that runs north or south, and it may take any convenient course, if its general direction is east and west. Should a field, or a number of fields, require laying off anew, the north and south fences should run due north and south, for the purpose of giving the ridges an equal advantage of the sun both forenoon and afternoon. To accomplish this parallelism a geometrical process must be gone through; and to perform that process with accuracy, certain instruments are required.

Hand pick

No. 5 hedge spade

Ditcher’s shovel

Mattock

In the first place, three poles at least in number, of at least 8½ feet [2.6m] in length, should be provided. Three of such poles are required to determine a straight line, even on level ground; but if the ground is uneven, four or more are requisite. An optical square for setting off lines at right angles, or a cross table, for the same purpose, should also be provided. You should also have an imperial measuring chain, of 66 feet [20m] in length, which costs 13s, for measuring the breadth or length of the fields.

Being provided with these instruments, one line of fence is set off parallel to another in this way. Set off, in the first instance, at right angles, a given distance from near one end of the old thorn fence, if there be one, or of the ditch. At about 100 yards’ [91.5m] distance, plant another pole in the same manner, and so on along the length of the fence from which the distances are set off. If there lie no fence to set off the distances from, then let a pole be set up perpendicularly in the line the new fence is intended to occupy and, at noon, on a clear day, observe the direction the shadow of the pole takes on level ground, and that is north and south; poles, at about 100 yards’ [91.5m] distance, should be set up in the line of the shadow.

The next process is to plant it with thorns, and for this purpose certain instruments are required. 1. A strong garden line or cord. 2. A few pointed pins of wood with hooked heads. 3. A wooden rule, 6 feet [1.8m] in length, divided into feet and inches, having a piece of similar wood about 2 feet [60cm] in length, fastened at right angles to one end. 4. No. 5 spades (shown previously) are the most useful size for hedging. 5. A light hand pick. 6. An iron tramp pick. 7. A ditcher’s shovel.

Three men are the most convenient number to work together in running a hedge; and they should, of course, be all well acquainted with spade work. A mattock (shown previously) for cutting will be required by each man, as well as a sharp pruning knife. The plant usually employed in this country, in the construction of a hedge, is the common hawthorn. ‘On account of the stiffness of its branches,’ says Withering, ‘the sharpness of its thorns, its roots not spreading wide, and its capability of bearing the severest winters without injury, this plant is universally preferred for making hedges, whether to clip or grow at large.’ Thorns ought never to be planted in a hedge till they have been transplanted at least two years from the seed bed.

Thorn plant

In forming the thorn bed, raise a large, firm, deep spadeful of earth from the edge of the first rutted line of the hedge, and invert it along that line, with its rutted face toward the ditch. Having placed a few spadefuls in this manner, side by side, beat down their crowns with the back of the spade, paring down their united faces in the slope given to the first rut, and then slope their crowns with an inclination downward and backward from you, forming an inclined bed for the thorn plant to lie upon.

Push each plant firmly into the mould of the bed, with the cut part of the stem projecting not more than ½ of an inch [1.5cm] beyond the front of the thorn bed, and the root end lying away from the ditch, at distances varying from 6 to 9 inches [15 to 23cm]. The two assistants having finished laying the thorns, dig and shovel up with the spade all the black mould [loose soil] in the ditch, throwing it upon the roots and stems of the plants, until a sort of level bank of earth is formed over them. When the hedger has finished covering the plants with mould, and while the assistants are proceeding to clear all the mould from the ditch, he steps upon the top of the mound and, with his face toward the ditch, firmly compresses, with his feet, the mould above the plants, as far as they extend. By the time the compression is finished, all the mould will have been taken out of the ditch.

THE PLOUGH

The plough serves the same purpose to the farmer as the spade to the gardener, both being used to turn over the soil, and the object of doing this is that this form of operation is the only means known of obtaining such a command over the soil as to render it friable and enclose manure within it, so that the seeds sown into it may grow into a crop of the greatest perfection. The spade is an implement so simple in construction, that there seems but one way of using it, whatever peculiarity of form it may receive, namely, that of pushing its mouth or blade into the ground with the foot, lifting up as much earth with it as it can carry, and then inverting it so completely as to put the upper part of the earth undermost. This operation, called digging, may be done in the most perfect manner; and any attempt at improving it, in so far as its uniformly favourable results are concerned, seems unnecessary. Hitherto it has only been used by the hand, no means having yet been devised to supply greater power than human strength to wield it. It is thus an instrument which is entirely under man’s personal control.

The effect attempted to be produced on the soil by the plough is an exact imitation of the work of the spade. From the circumstance, however, of the plough being too large and heavy an implement to be wielded by the hand, it is not so entirely under man’s control as the spade. To wield it as it should be, he is obliged to call in the aid of horses, which, though not capable of wielding it personally, as man does the spade, can, nevertheless, through the means of appropriate appliances, such as harness, do so pretty effectually. It is not so simple a problem in practical mechanics, as it at first sight may appear, to construct a light, strong, durable, convenient instrument, which is easily moved about, and which, at the same time, though complex in its structure, operates by a simple action; and yet the modern plough (see following) is an instrument possessing all these properties in an eminent degree.

A Ransome’s plough

A good ploughman will temper the irons, so there shall be no tendency in the plough to go too deep or too shallow into the ground, or make too wide or too narrow a furrow slice, or cause less or more draught to the horses, or less or more trouble to himself, than the nature of the work requires to be performed in the most proper manner. If he has a knowledge of the implement he works with – I mean, a good practical knowledge of it, for a knowledge of its principles is not requisite for his purpose – he will temper all the parts, so as to work the plough with great ease to himself and, at the same time, have plenty of leisure to guide his horses aright, and execute his work in a creditable manner.

THE ACTION OF THE PLOUGH

The coulter, the share and the mould board being the principal active parts of the plough, and those which supply the chief characteristics to the implement, it may be useful to the farmer, as well as to the agricultural mechanic, to enter into a more minute descriptive detail of the nature and properties of these members.

The coulter is a simple bar which makes an incision through the soil, in the direction of the furrow slice that is to be raised. It is a remarkable fact that, in doing this, it neither increases nor decreases the resistance of the plough to any appreciable degree. Its sole use, therefore, is to cut a smooth edge in the slice which is to be raised, and an unbroken face for the land side of the plough to move against in its continued progress.

The share takes a more important and much more extensive part in the process. Its duty is very much akin to that of a spade. The share may be conceived as a spade wherein one of its angles has been cut off obliquely, leaving only a narrow point remaining, adapted to make the first impression on the slice. The share passes under the furrow slice, making a partial separation of it from the sole of the furrow, rising as the share progresses; the rise, however, being confined entirely to the land side edge of the slice – the furrow edge, as has been shown, remaining still in connection with the solid ground. The shield and back of the share are a continuation of the mould board; the latter, in its progress forward, receives the slice from the share and passes it onward or, more properly speaking, the plough passes under it.

The duty of the mould board is to transmit and deposit that slice in the best possible manner – the mould board is only a medium through which the slice is conveyed from the share to its destined position. To do this, however, in the most perfect manner, the mould board has to perform several highly important functions: first, the transmission of the slice; second, depositing it in the proper position; and third, performing both these operations with the least possible resistance.

View of the movement of the furrow slice

In the case of the furrow slice movement, it appears as in the annexed perspective view (shown previously), where a b is the edge of the land as cut by the preceding furrow; c d the slice in the act of turning over; e f, the edge of the land from which the slice c d is being cut; g k, the sole of the furrow, and i k and l m are slices previously laid up.

THE MODE OF PLOUGHING RIDGES

The first process in ridging up land from the flat surface is called feering or striking the ridges. This is done by planting three or more of such poles, graduated into feet and half feet, as were recommended for setting off the lines of a fence, and which are used both for directing the plough employed to feer in straight lines, and for measuring off the breadth of the ridges into which the land is to be made up, from on side of the field to the other.

Land is feered for ridging in this way: Let a b (see next image) represent the south and east fences of a field, of which let x be the head ridge or head hind, of the same width as that of the ridges, namely 15 feet [4.6m]. To mark off its width distinctly, let the plough pass in the direction of r e, with the furrow slice lying toward x. Do the same along the other headland, at the opposite end of the field. Then take a pole and measure off the width of a quarter of a ridge, viz. 3 feet 9 inches [115cm], from the ditch lip a to c, and plant a pole at c. With another pole set off the same distance from the ditch a to d, and plant it there. Then measure the same distance from the ditch at e to f, and at f look if d has been placed in the line of f c; if not, shift the poles a little until they are all in a line. Make a mark on the ground with the foot, or set up the plough staff at f. Then plant a pole at g in the line of f d c. Before starting to feer, the ploughman measures off 1¼ ridges – namely, 18 feet 9 inches [5.7m] – from f to k, and plants a pole at k. He then starts with the plough from f to d, where he stops with the pole standing between the horses’ heads, or else pushed over by the tying of the horses. He then, with it, measures off, at right angles to f c, a hue equal to the breadth of 1¼ ridges, 18 feet 9 inches [5.7m], toward t until he comes to the line of k l, where he plants the pole. In like manner he proceeds from d to g, where he again stops, and measures off 1¼ ridges, 18 feet 9 inches [5.7m] breadth, from g toward v at a point in the line of k l, and plants the pole there. He then proceeds toward the other head ridge to the last pole c from g, and measures off 1¼ ridges, 18 feet 9 inches [5.7m], from c to l, and plants the pole at l. From l he looks toward k to see if the intermediate poles are in the line l k; if not, he shifts them to their proper points as he returns to the head ridge x along the furrow he had made in the line f c.

On coming down c f he obviates any deviation from the straight line that the plough may have made. In the line of f c the furrow slices of the feering have been omitted, to show you the setting of the poles. It is of much importance to the correct feering of the whole field to have those first two feerings, f c and k l, drawn correctly; and, to attain this end, it is proper to employ two persons in the doing of it – namely, the ploughman and the farm steward, or farmer himself. It is obvious that an error committed at the first feerings will be transmitted throughout the whole field. A very steady ploughman and a very steady pair of horses, both accustomed to feer, should only be entrusted with the feering of land. Horses accustomed to feer will walk up of their own accord to the pole standing before them. In like manner the ploughman proceeds to feer the fine k l, and so also the line o p; but in all the feerings after the first, from f to k, the poles, of course, are set off to the exact breadth of the ridge determined on – in this case 15 feet [4.6m], such as from s to t, u to v, p to w, in the direction of the arrows. And the reason for setting off cl at so much a greater distance than l p or p w is that the half ridge a h may be ploughed up first and without delay, and that the rest of the ridges may be ploughed by half ridges. The half ridge a h is, however, ploughed in a different manner from the rest; it is ploughed by going round the feering f c until the open furrow comes to a e on the one side and to h i on the other. Then h i constitutes the feering, along with k l, for ploughing the 2 half ridges z i and z k, which, when done, the open furrow is left in the line z y, corresponding to the open furrow left in the line e a, and between which is embraced and finished the full ridge of 15 feet [4.6m] e z. The half ridges z k and z o are ploughed at the same time by another pair of horses, and the open furrow z y is left between them, and the full ridge z k z is then completed. In like manner the half ridges z o and z r are afterward ploughed by the same horses, and the open furrow z y is left between them, and the full ridge z o z is then completed.

As a means of securing perfect accuracy in measuring off the breadths of ridges at right angles to the feerings, lines at right angles to f c should be set off across the field, from the cross table, and poles set at d and g, in the direction of d t and g v, and a furrow made by the plough in each of these lines, before the breadths of the feerings are measured along them. Most people do not take the trouble of doing this, and a very careful ploughman renders it a precaution of not absolute necessity, but every proficient farmer will always do it, even at the sacrifice of a little time and some trouble, as a means of securing accuracy of work.

As the plough completes each feering, the furrow slices appear laid over as at m and n