March 16, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
211 
T his week’s Journal of Horticulture (March 9th) is to hand, 
and it has “ roused ” me to say a word or two in a very 
friendly spirit. I feel sorry the excellent and worthy estate 
manager, who has told us his mind on page 191, should be so bitter. 
He mixes up foxhounds, keepers, unjust stewards, and incompetent 
landlords in rather a funny manner. It does take a great deal of 
money to hunt the country, but your correspondent seems to 
forget how and where the money goes. Directly and indirectly 
the farmer gets hold of some (of course he could do with 
more), but the day of small things is not to be despised. It is a 
pity to let good gardens go, but between ourselves are they 
not sometimes very expensive hobbies, and only maintained for 
the benefit of outsiders ? I am afraid that if landowners had 
strained every energy to understand their land even that would 
have gone but a very small way to have kept them clear of present 
difficulties. I am acquainted, as are other readers of your Journal, 
with large holdings where all that skill backed by money has been 
done, and even there the end has been the Gazette. 
Again, Mr. Editor, I quite agree with you as to the ill-adapted 
men who fill (or, rather, do not fill) the post of agent on many 
estates ; but remember, on a large estate with capitalists and 
University men as tenants, a man their own equal in point of birth 
is a necessity. A man of the people, however clever, lacks that 
savoir faire without which there will always be friction between 
the two parties. I come of a farmer and agent-producing stock, 
and am convinced that the most successful steward is one born and 
bred to the profession. He at any rate knows his business, and 
his first object is to conduct it well. 
Now, passing to the last article on the Home Farm, farmers are 
really not such ignoramuses as the writer implies. There are new 
departures on every hand. Perhaps your correspondent forgets 
that in farm agreements there may be certain stringent clauses 
which bind men down to the ways of their ancestors ; but apart 
from this, money, time, and energy are expended with judgment by 
competent men ; nothing is overlooked from the largest to the 
smallest item. What of the “ middleman ?” Yes, he is a product 
of the times, an evil, but at present a necessary one. In old days 
fairs were held near home twice or at most four times a year ; buyer 
and seller were well known to each other. Now fairs are things of 
the past, the weekly and fortnightly market taking their place. Is 
it possible that a farmer with stock to sell three or four times a 
year could do so well as a man who never misses a market year 
in year out, a man specially adapted for the business ? If 
Government would take up the railway system of this country, 
and so lower the rates for small quantities, much farm and 
garden produce would pass direct from producer to consumer, 
and so benefit both. 
Just a few instances of farm enterprise, not taken from any 
farming journal, but just selected as being cases near home. One 
man takes up milk, also Celery and Potato growing, always buying 
the best in the market, and not hesitating as to price. Another 
by special attention turns out such sheep as cannot be matched 
between the four seas. Another raises and puts on to the market 
one of the best Barleys of this decade. Another clears his rent 
by his hunters (do not try to emulate him, dear amateur). 
Another by hackney breeding has rehabilitated the lallen fortunes 
No. 664.—VoL. XXVI., Thied Series. 
of his family. Four wheels will not carry the wagon of another, 
so he adds a fifth in the shape of a willow garth. Strawberries 
figure largely in the balance-sheet of another. Acres (600) of bad 
weak land are bought, washed by the rich waters of the Trent, the 
produce sent to and manure brought from the Cottonopolis, the 
carriage of loMch has been raised since January 1st £700 per 
annum. Now it is a question as to whether that farm should not 
go out of cultivation. These new railway rates fairly kill all 
enterprise, and a change is imperative. 
Well, now, re feeding stuffs. Animals here do not like and 
will not have ensilage. Wheat and Barley may be good feeding 
stuffs, but it is very easy to over-use them, and their manurial 
value is not great (all land will not grow Oats, or that other 
valuable food. Beans). No one nowadays buys cake without 
analysis, and that analysis guarantees a good per-centage of oil. 
Has your friend had much experience in carting green stuff and 
cutting up the same to convert it into ensilage ? The carting 
alone costs more than the irhole process of hay maJciny, and a very 
inferior article is produced. 
I know all pasture land is not drained ; draining costs money, 
and a great deal too ; and what about that land (Holderness) 
that must be re-drained at least every eight years ? Unless the 
landlord does it, the farmer must have a long purse and a large 
heart to face such a difficulty. In the parish in which I reside 
elementary classes for agricultural chemistry are being held ; very 
good, too, but not quite elementary enough. Science without 
practice leads to starvation, “Twitch out, tillage in,” must be 
learnt first, then the rest may follow. 
Passing to Potatoes, there is an advertisement in your front 
page which interests me. A few days ago a friend gave me 
twelve “Jeannie Deans” as a great favour; some were steamed, 
some roasted, all were simply splendid, I think I shall send 
for a few pecks. I hope I have hurt no one’s feelings by this 
little critique. I do not want to do so, but there are two sides 
to a question always, even if the other is but that of—A Farmer’s 
Wife. 
[We like a change of fare, as do our readers, and we insert the 
able critique with the utmost readiness ; and as a lady “ born and 
bred,” as well as a real farmer’s wife, we concede our correspondent 
the privilege of presenting one or two of her strong points in¬ 
italics, and telling points they are, as will be admitted. We 
happen to know that the farmer himself, whose life our corre¬ 
spondent does so much to make happy, and whose alertness of 
intellect must often have been helpful to him, is one of the most 
diligent, competent, and successful of the important class to which 
he belongs, and we have no hesitation whatever in saying that if 
all farmers were like him in knowledge of his business, means 
acquired in it, and prudential habits of life, numbers of estates, 
and in the aggregate hundreds of thousands of acres of land, would 
not be in the sad plight they are to-day. 
We do not think this excellent farmer has wasted much money 
in the hunting field, and we suspect if he indulged in that sport 
he would make it pay ; but he is somewhat of a sportsman all the 
same, and enjoys himself, as he has full right to do, in the form 
of recreation which he finds pleasurable and health-giving ; but 
business first, we have not a doubt, has been and is his motto, and 
that is why he is what he is—a prosperous man, though a farmer. 
Nor is his garden neglected ; and if all the great gardens were as 
well kept as his is they would be more creditable to the proprietors 
and beneficial to the dependants on the estate?. We are glad to 
know that in this particular farmer’s case that the “ old and new 
styles’" indicated in the ancient doggerel on page 192 are happily 
blended, and we are conscious that both he and his accomplished 
help-meet will take very good care not to be “ gazetted,” as will 
our home farmer and estate critic, who can look after themselves 
and live by their good work on the land. We thank (jinr fair 
correspondent for her interesting communication.] 
No. 2320.—VoL. LXXXVIII., Old Series 
