FARMING AND FOXHUNTING 



pursuits during the last half-century. Even the 

 medical profession now admits that the dairy 

 cow must play a big part in the health of the 

 rising generation. We will take off our hats to 

 the dairy cow, and leave it at that. 



Up to the time of his death in 1909 my father 

 led a very active life, and it must be admitted a 

 successful one as far as farmers' incomes were 

 common at the end of the nineteenth century. He 

 had a large family of eleven all fairly well schooled. 

 Perhaps some of it might have been better ; it 

 may, or may not, have given better results. To 

 leave us each a thousand pounds when the Great 

 Call came, was not a bad effort in those days. 



It might be charged against him that he was to 

 some extent of a driving nature. Well, who is 

 not when Nature has furnished him with a forceful 

 character ? Strong men are generally impatient 

 with the weaker man's slower movements. I well 

 remember him on one occasion during harvest. 

 Three of us began building a rick, the only other man 

 present enquired where the other men were coming 

 from. " What," he replied, " more men why, I am 

 always as good as two men." He really was. 



He would stand and take the sheaves in from 

 the man unloading and hand them to me, and, at 

 the same time, give me instruction how to make 

 the rick. There was never a sheaf put in a wrong 

 place, his argument being that once put a sheaf 

 in the right place, no further replacing should be 

 necessary. How true this is and yet how little 

 do farm men practise it. Unfortunately they 



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