JOURNAL  OF  HOnriCULTURE  AXD  COTTAGE  GARDENER, 
May  1,  1902. 
go  on  while  the  need  lasts.  Now,  again,  there  is  gentleman 
amateur  No.  2.  Probably  he  is  a  man  who  has  amassed  a 
fortune,  and  wishes  to  become,  or  to  found,  a  county 
family.  The  first  step  appears  to  be  achieved  when  he  gets 
hold  of  a  nice  estate,  and  because  time  hangs  heavy,  or  his 
neighbour.  Lord  So-and-So,  does  it,  he  takes  in  hand  some 
land.  He  has  got  many  theories,  and  he  is  keen  of  working 
them  out.  Money  being  of  no  object,  everything  he  has  is 
of  the  best  and  most  expensive  ;  in  fact,  the  farm  is  a  perfect 
model  so  far  as  buildings  and  appliances  go. 
For  the  first  year  or  two  his  pleasure  in  his  new  toy  is 
unbounded.  He  was  prepared  not  to  expect  much  return 
just  at  once,  but  presently  his  commercial  mind  asserts 
itself,  and  when  he  begins  to  try  and  balance  books  they 
won’t  balance.  There  are  factors  on  which  he  never  counted, 
and  he  finds  he  is  powerless  when  it  comes  to  the  point 
of  weather  and  unfavourable  markets  ;  besides,  too,  he  is 
now  a  dealer  in  live  stock,  and  he  finds  his  petted  and 
pampered  herds  do  not  bring  him  much  beside  anxiety.  He 
is  not  quite  pubhc  spirited  enough  to  care  that  he  is  making 
work  for  the  villagers,  and  that  he  is  improving  (at  great 
personal  expense)  stock  for  the  benefit  of  his  neighbours. 
The  chances  are  that  after  a  few  years  (if  he  gets  as  far)  he 
stops  this  work,  and  is  much  out  of  love  with  himself  and 
farming  generally.  If  he  is  a  shooting  man  he  turns  his 
attention  to  his  coverts,  or  else  throws  up  his  country  life 
in  disgust. 
Now  for  the  gentleman  farmer  as  we  know  him.  Alas! 
he  is  rapidly  dying  out.  He  has  been  a  brave  man,  and  a 
sorely  tried  one,  and  he  has  only  laid  down  his  arms  after 
a  severe  struggle  with  the  enemy  Poverty.  Presently  he 
will  exist  in  novels  alone  ;  for,  to  our  knowledge,  no  gentle¬ 
man  farmer  of  our  acquaintance  has  the  remotest  idea  of 
bringing  up  any  of  his  sons  to  this  calling.  Thirty  or  forty 
years  ago  the  gentleman  farmer  was  much  in  evidence. 
There  was  a  living  then  to  be  got  out  of  the  land.  There 
was  sure  to  be  a  fairly  comfortable  house,  nice  neighbours, 
and  all  the  pleasures  of  rural  life.  The  men  of  that  day  had 
received  a  good  education — many  of  them  in  public  schools. 
They  had  capital,  and  put  it  freely  into  the  land.  There 
were  people  who  charged  them  with  over-expenditure  ;  but 
they  spent  no  more  than  any  tradesman  who  was  working  on 
the  same  amount  of  capital. 
They  were  men  who  had  been  brought  itp  to  have  things 
nice  around  them,  and  they  did  not  grudge  to  their  children 
the  educational  advantages  they  themselves  had  enjoyed. 
They  farmed  to  live,  never  for  one  moment  expecting  that 
times  Avould  come  when  it  was  impossible  to  get  a  living 
out  of  the  land.  They  were  good  employers  of  labour,  and 
their  money  circulated  freely.  By-and-by  the  pinch  came, 
rents  went  up,  there  was  an  unnatural  competition  for 
land,  labourers  struck,  cost  of  production  increased  on  every 
side,  that  terrible  visitation  rinderpest  appeared,  and  where 
the  full  viridence  of  the  disease  showed  itself  that  farmer, 
if  not  ruined,  was  crippled  for  years  ;  in  fact,  we  know  of 
several  who  never  afterwards  looked  up. 
Foot  and  mouth  disease  wrought  sad  havoc,  and  there 
were  no  wise  restrictions.  Then  came  the  drop  in  Wheat. 
\ye  remember  so  well  that  Tuesday  market  in  our  nearest 
big  town  when  news  came  that  Wheat  had  dropped  10s.  per 
quarter.  It  was  thought  to  be  only  temporary,  and  due  to 
the  fine  harvest  weather  and  bumper  crop  ;  but  w^e  were 
only  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  trouble.  Down— down  it 
tumbled  till  we  saw  it  reach  a  pitiful  18s.  Ah,  me  !  we  have 
lived  through  sad  times.  Then  another  staple  product  went 
the  same  W’ay.  The  wool  that  brought  in  such  nice  money 
against  summer  rent— it  is  hardly  now  worth  the  shearing. 
Rents  at  last  began  to  fall  ;  but  not  in  proportion  to  the 
farmer’s  losses,  and  the  labourer  still  held  out  for  the 
higher  wage. 
The  farmer  began  to  look  anxioirs,  and  wonder  where  he 
could  curtail  expenses.  First  went  the  luxuries,  then  the 
comforts,  then  the  necessaries.  No  more  expensive  schools 
for  the  children,  the  bit  of  shooting  was  let,  the  waggonette 
replaced  by  a  pony  tub,  domestic  help  reduced— cheese¬ 
paring  m  every  direction.  At  first  those  who  had  enjoyed 
the  years  of  plenty  had  their  surplus  to  fall  back  upon  ; 
those  who  had  only  lately  begun  had  nothing,  and  the 
struggle  was  soon  over  with  them.  The  pleasant  homes  had 
to  be  given  up.  There  ivas  a  forced  sale  of  stock ;  possibly 
the  landlord  had  been  easy  with  rent  to  give  a  good  tenant 
a  chance,  then  all  back  reckonings  had  to  be  paid,  and  the 
value tions  on  going  out  did  not  realise  anything  like  the 
amount  paid  on  entering,  and  the  man  had  to  begin  life 
over  again,  with  a  wife  and  family,  little  or  no  capital,  and 
no  experience  of  anything  but  farming.  He  had  been 
taught  that  headwork  was  all  that  was  expected  of  him  in 
connection  with  a  large  farm ;  he  found  always  he  had 
plenty  to  do  to  direct  and  think  and  plan.  The  work  was 
like  an  elaborate  puzzle,  and  just  when  each  piece  was 
nearly  adjusted  a  change  in  the  weather  jumbled  all  up 
again. 
We  know  of  farming  personally  in  several  counties,  and 
know  farms  of  all  sizes  up  to  1,000  and  1,400  acres  ;  but  in  no 
case  when  there  has  been  a  change  of  tenancy  has  the 
change  been  for  the  better  from  a  social  point  of  view.  The 
new  men  are  derived  from  quite  a  lower  walk  in  life — 
successful  butchers  and  cattle  jobbers,*  Potato  dealers, 
auctioneers,  the  better  class  of  foreman  and  skilled  labourer. 
We  don’t  say  they  ai’e  not  clever  men,  but  they  are  not  the 
old  stamp — they  are  too  nearly  allied  to  their  own  work¬ 
people.  In  fact,  much  of  the  work  is  done  by  the  family, 
the  sons  standing  in  as  labourers.  Muscle  and  sinew  against 
brain.  The  tone  of  the  villages  has  gone  down ;  the  clock 
has  been  put  back  sixty  years,  and  when  these  men  are 
tired  of  incessant  toil  for  little  result,  we  don’t  know  quite 
who  is  to  follow  them. 
The  old  class  is  gone,  never  to  return,  and  we  are  loth  to 
think  all  England  is  to  be  cut  up  into  small  holdings. 
Putting  aside  the  money  aspect,  well-educated,  pleasant 
people  exercised  a  refining  influence  in  the  country.  There 
is  much  public  work  that  they  willingly  undertook  and 
carried  out  to  a  successful  issue  without  fee  or  reward.  The 
present  day  men,  even  if  willing,  are  not  equal,  through 
want  of  previous  training  and  broadmindedness,  to  be  of 
much  value,  and  the  parson  and  the  squire  have  to  make 
good  the  deficiency.  It  is  said  the  yeoman  proper  has  dis¬ 
appeared  ;  he  merged  into  the  gentleman  farmer,  who  in 
his  turn  has  given  place  to  the  working  foreman. 
Work  on  tlie  Home  Farm. 
The  tide  always  ebbs  and  flows,  and  so  does  farming.  There 
is  a  silver  lining  to  every  cloud,  though  we  cannot  always^ — nay, 
very  seldom — see  it,  but  the  sun  is  there  all  the  time,  awaiting 
the  opportunity  for  his  rays  to  break  through.  We  farmers 
should  take  a  lesson  from  his  steadfastness,  and  keeping  a  watch¬ 
ful  eye  open,  miss  no  opportunity  of  a  break  in  the  clouds.  Here 
we  are  with  fallows  practically  clean  and  only  waiting  for  the 
proper  season  to  drill  Turnips.  Our  seeds  are  bad,  very  bad. 
They  will  carry  no  stock,  or,  at  any  rate,  vei-y  little.  Why  cannot 
we  see  our  way  to  sow  tlie  fallow  land  with  Barley,  or  at  any 
rate,  some  of  it^ — say,  the  portion  that  should  have  been  sown 
with  common  Turnips  late  in  June?  But  the  difficulty  is  with 
the  sheep.  On  farms  where  there  is  a  large  proportion  of  grass 
the  trouble  is  not  so  great,  but  on  arable  farms  like  those  we 
have  to  deal  with,  the  loss  of  the  seed  plant  almost  means  the 
sale  of  our  sheep.  Perhaps  the  sowing  of  one  of  the  seed  fields 
witJi  a  mixture  of  Vetches  and  Rye  would  be  more  useful  in 
keeping  the  sheep  at  midsummer  and  disturb  the  rotation  of  the 
farm  less  than  sowing  fallow  land  with  corn  and  Tumiping  a 
piece  of  seed  land. 
Another  beautiful  rain  is  followed  by  genial  weather,  and  we 
see  rapid  growth  everywhere.  The  thin  Wheats  are  improving, 
but  some  of  them  will  never  make  paying  crops.  They  look 
greener  now,  but  it  is  the  weeds  which  are  making  the  greater 
show. 
It  is  not  too  late  to  plough  the  land  and  drill  Barley,  and  the 
warm  growing  weather  is  decidedly  encouraging  to  such  a  course. 
Spring  corn  has  come  up  well  and  looks  beautiful.  Our  pro¬ 
spects  in  this  one  respect,  are  very  good.  Notwithstanding 
scarcity  of  keep  live  stock  is  advancing  in  price.  Buyers  are 
driving  round  on  the  look  out  for  desirable  bargains,  and' farmers 
are  in  good  spirits  accordingly.  If  they  are  compelled  to  sell 
their  sheep  they  at  any  rate  can  get  good  value  for  them. 
We  have  not  cleared  all  the  Potatoes  yet,  but  a  few  consign¬ 
ments’ are  still  going  to  New  York,  vihere  the  market  reports 
read  better.  _  Trade  is  still  bad  here,  except  for  a  few  of  the 
very  best,  which  are  now  in  increased  demand.  They  are  growing 
very  rapidly  in  the  pits,  especially  those  which  have  been 
recently  moved  for  the  purpose  of  taking  out  the  seed. 
It  is  an  old  axiom  of  Potato  management  that  Potatoes  keep 
better  untouched.  So  far  they  have  kept  their  firmness  well, 
but  we  notice  that  the  bags  are  much  fuller  than  they  were,  so 
there  must  have-  been  considerable  loss  of  weight. 
Low  prices  have  not  frightened  some  of  our  neighbours,  and 
they  are  planting  much  greater  acreages.  Potatoes  are  very 
pleasant  things  when  they  pay  well,  but  they  are  exhausting  to 
the  land,  and  may  easily  be  overdone.  There  may  be  finger 
burning  in  store  for  some  of  us. 
