TO A FARMER'S YEAR 



To return to the Moat Farm at Bedingham. It is very stifl, 

 although not so stiff as some in this neighbourhood, that is, if 

 common repute and nomenclature go for anything. ' Muck and 

 Misery' one is called, and another 'Stark-Naked Farm.' They 

 are heavy land both of them. For a good many years before I 

 began to work it the land had been farmed ' off-hand,' that is to 

 say, the tenant did not live on the farm, but put in a working 

 bailiff. The result of this kind of arrangement is generally 

 apparent in the outward aspect of the homestead. When the 

 farmer lives on a place himself, in most cases it is kept tidy. His 

 wife or daughters look to the flowers; one of them is sure to grow a 

 few roses, wallflowers, dahlias, or hollyhocks. Vegetables for the 

 family use are cultivated also, either by the tenant himself, 

 though farmers are generally very bad gardeners, or by one of his 

 men in their spare time, when the weather is unsuitable for 

 other jobs. Often enough, however, the labourer in charge of an 

 ' off-hand ' farm takes little interest in such matters. The garden 

 grows up, the apple trees are unpruned, and a briar bush or two alone 

 remain to show where once the roses were which they have choked. 



Such was the case at Bedingham. The buildings, moreover, 

 were dilapidated and the yards like pit-holes. Year by year the 

 litter had been carted out of them, together with a portion of the 

 bed on which it lay ; but rarely, indeed, if ever, were any stones 

 put in to make them good. In these clay lands stones are 

 scarce. A certain number of flints are ploughed up and gathered 

 on the layers, but these are used for more urgent repairs, such as 

 that of the round where the horse walks when at work on the 

 chafifing-machine, or to mend the gate openings. The yards are 

 left to take their chance, and the muck in them to soak in a pond 

 of water till it could better be described as dirty straw than good 

 manure. 



Thus too often it is with everything ; so long as it will possibly 

 serve the thing is neglected, unless indeed it is some damage that the 

 landlord can be forced or worried into repairing. Especially is this 

 the case with gates, that on such a farm are often represented by a 



