382 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER . 
May  2,  1901. 
l!(r.  Rider  Haggard  on  Tonr. 
A  second  Arthur  Young.  A  man  desirous  of  seeing  for  himself 
how  matters  agricultural  stand  in  various  parts  of  England.  He  does 
not  trust  to  books  or  other  people’s  versions,  but  he  will  have  the 
knowledge  at  first  hand.  Farming  portions  of  his  own  property  in 
Norfolk,  he  is  quite  alive  to  the  difficulties  and  disaster  which  beset 
the  path  of  the  farmer.  He  has  ever  been  a  close  observer  of  Nature, 
and  is  as  much  at  home  on  the  African  veldt  as  on  the  Wiltshire 
Downs  or  the  high  Wolds.  Never,  we  fancy,  will  the  tour  of  any 
man  be  read  with  greater  interest  than  this  which  Eider  Haggard 
has  now  begun.  To  landowners  great  and  small,  to  farmers,  and  all 
connected  with  agriculture,  the  topic  is  one  ot  vital  interest.  To 
outsiders  the  writing  is  so  easy,  and  the  descriptions  so  picturesque, 
that  they  will  read  on  and  on,  though  they  barely  know  what  arable 
means,  and  could  not  for  the  life  of  them  point  out  salient  features 
of  stock. 
We  are  just  having  the  census  returns,  which  fully  endorse  our 
worst  fears  as  to  ttr e  depopulation  of  rural  parts.  Of  course,  some 
districts  are  worse  than  others,  but  the  cry  is  the  same  all  over — the 
people  leaving  the  land  and  crowding  into  the  cities,  not  alt'gether 
for  the  sake  ot  the  work,  but  in  a  great  measure  for  companionship,  and 
for  ther  doubtful  blessings  of  civilisation.  One  good  parson,  writing 
to  a  well  known  daily  paper,  suggests  lhat  better  footpaths  and 
electric  lighting  would  do  much  to  keep  the  people  at  home  in  the 
villages.  Well,  as  to  the  footpaths,  that  want  is  bee  ming  supplied; 
electric  light  seems  further  off.  We  know  a  large  agricultural  village 
with  asphalt  paths  and  gas  lamps,  but  it  is  just  about  at  a  standstill 
with  regard  to  population.  Will  some  of  the  Journal  chaplains — for 
we  have  several — throw  out  a  few  suggestions  ?  They  are  men  that 
think,  and  also  they  are  men  that  know  the  country  people,  and  their 
words  of  wisdom  would  carry  weight. 
Mr.  Haggard  takes  the  south  of  England  first,  and  Salisbury  Plain 
is  the  tit  e  of  the  first  paper.  There  is  much  food  for  reflection  in 
some  startling  facts  connected  with  the  first  farm  visited  :  700  acres 
of  Down  land  sold  in  1812  for  £27,000,  ploughed  up  for  Wheat  when 
Wheat  was  at  a  remunerative  price.  Now,  again,  alas  !  the  owners 
would  prefer  the  short  sweet  grass,  but  that  tefuses  to  grow.  Sequel — 
the  700  acres  fetched  in  1892,  £7000.  There  is  no-mistake  here,  the 
20  has  disappeared,  and  for  ever  we  fear.  Twenty-seven  ye^rs  ago 
the  rent  was  £600  with  £196  tithe.  To-day  the  rent  is  £250,  and 
the  landlord  pays  the  tithe,  and  the  farmer  says  he  made  bigger  piofits 
when  he  paid  the  old  rent.  What  can  the  landlord  have  in  pocket  ? 
What  is  to  become  of  the  small  landowner,  the  man  with  heavy 
mortgages  to  meet,  and  only  falling  rents  to  meet  them  with  ?  There 
is  only  one  solution  to  that  problem,  a  short  word  of  four  letters — 
ruin.  The  large  men  and  rich,  though  they  feel  the  pinch,  are  still 
able  to  help  their  tenants  ly  adjusted  ieu  p,  and  by  suitable  and 
necessary  buildings.  A  man  cannot  build  or  do  even  the  barest 
repairs  out  of  an  empty  pocket. 
There  is  one  great  beautv  of  a  Down  farm.  No  drains,  no  fences, 
but  as  there  never  was  an  E  ien  with  mt  a  serpent,  water  carting  may 
become  rather  more  than  a  pastime.  Here  the  farmer  and  the  dairy¬ 
man  work  in  a  sort  of  partnership;  the  farmer  finds  the  dairyman 
with  cows  at  £10  per  head,  the  farmer  feeds  and  takes  charge  of  them 
when  dry,  and  keeps  the  calf.  What  the  da  ryman  makes  over  the 
£10  is  profit.  Mr.  Haggard  had  not  heard  of  this  system  before,  but 
the  same  thing  is  olten  done  with  respect  to  a  foreman’s  cjw,  or, 
perhaps,  if  he  boards  many  lads,  his  two  cows;  and  mind  you, dors  not 
the  foreman  se-  they  are  well  fed  ?  Of  couise  here  it  is  sheep,  always 
sheep,  and  Sainfoin  seed  makes  a  better  return  than  Wheat,  44s.  per 
quarter.  The  labour  question  here  is  most  acute  ;  n  >  Swedes  pied  or 
pitted  for  waut  of  hands.  On  this  farm  only  one  young  man  left 
What  can  be  done?  labour  can  only  be  minimised  up  to  a  certain 
point,  and  when  we  read  of  a  larmer  cowmanless,  with  thirty  cows  on 
his  hands,  which  he  must  milk  himself  twice  a  day,  seven  days  a 
week,  the  question  assumes  great  pro;  ortions.  Another  farmer  has 
to  bring  his  three  sons  homa  from  school  on  Saturdays  to  do  the 
Sunday  milking,  as  the  men  will  not. 
Just  another  case  of  farm  rents.  In  1870  a  farm,  the  rental  ol 
which  had  been  £2100,  is  now  let  for  £825,  tithe  free.  Another,  £1 
per  acre,  13s.,  and  out  of  that  13s.  per  acre  the  landlord  pays  5s.  for 
tithe,  does  the  main  repairs  and  half  the  minor  ones.  Very  short 
workiug  hours  and  few  men  under  fifty  years  of  age,  and  as  these 
if  parted  with  cannot  be  replaced,  they  can  practically  dictate  their 
own  terms. 
Mr.  Haggard  gives  an  account  of  the  wonderful  success  that  has 
attended  the  establishment  of  small  holdings  at  Wintersiow.  Major 
Poore  bought  a  farm  in  1892,  sold  off  80  acres  at  once,  and  the  rest 
was  divided  into  portions  varying  from  1  rood  to  16  acres.  Some  lots 
were  sold  outright  at  once  at  the  rate  of  £15  per  acre  ;  the  rest  pay 
up  principal  and  interest  in  fifteen  years.  In  1901  there  is  not  a 
defaulter,  or  one  who  has  fallen  into  arrears.  Besides  this,  on  the 
estate  over  thirty  houses  have  been  erected,  some  with  six  rooms, 
some  smaller,  all  well  built  and  good.  Money  has  been  borrowed  to 
the  extent  of  £6000  to  build  these  houses.  Mr.  Haggard  tells  us  of 
three  of  th»se  landowner  occupiers — one  is  a  woodman  who  works  at 
hurdle  making,  felling  the  greater  part  of  the  year  ;  another  finds 
employment  on  a  farm  ;  and  a  third  is  a  baker.  That  the  land  cannot 
be  first  rate  is  proved  by  the  price  paid  for  it ;  and  yet  in  a  cold, 
ungenial  neighbourhood,  with  lack  of  water,  these  holders  are  paying 
their  way  and  bringing  back  to  the  land  her  sods.  At  Bishopstone, 
some  ten  miles  away.  Major  Poore  tried  a  similar  experiment  on  a 
larger  scale,  and  instead  of  paying  by  instalments  the  holders  have 
taken  over  the  land  at  once,  and  are  doing  well.  We  do  want  some 
more  particulars  ;  our  appetite  is  only  whetted.  We  should  like  to 
know  what  these  men  grow,  where  are  their  market*,  and  a  thousand 
and  one  other  particulars.  If  a  scheme  like  this  will  answer  at 
Wintersiow  and  Bishopstone,  why  not  elsewhere  ?  We  could  think 
that  in  cases  like  this  the  village  credit  banks  might  do  good  and 
useful  work.  We  have  heard  of  land  as  cheap  as  this,  but  never 
seen  it. 
Are  undertakings  of  this  nature  to  emanate  from  public  bodies, 
such  as  County  Councils,  or  are  they  rather  to  be  the  work  of  private 
individuals  ?  The  m  ijor  says  emphatically  private  persons  ;  but  men 
who  can  and  will  undertake  such  work  are  few  and  far  between. 
Money  is  wanted,  faith  wanted,  and  a  business  mind  ;  indeed,  we 
might  venture  to  say  it  is  a  nice  life- wot k  for  a  hardworking 
man,  and  only  a  man  who  is  a  lover  of  his  kind,  arid  one  who  truly 
grieves  to  see  the  depletion  of  the  rural  districts,  is  fit  to  take  up 
the  office. 
The  schoolmaster  at  Wintersiow  is  alive  to  his  responsibilities,  for 
Mr.  Haggard  found  him  giving  lessons  on  the  effect  of  deep  and  shallow 
cultivation  on  root  action,  and  of  those  of  good  and  bad  tilth  upon  the 
growth  of  plants.  Just  the  very  things  a  country  bjy  ought  to  learn, 
and  whrch  once  learnt  will  never  be  forgotten.  We  do  not  know  when 
we  have  enjoyed  anything  more  than  we  have  these  first  three  papers 
(the  beginning  of  a  long  series,  we  hope)  on  “The  State  Outlook  of 
the  English  Country  Side.” 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
Farmers  who  are  not  contented  with  the  weather  we  are  now 
enjoying  must  indeed  be  hopeless  grumblers.  There  are  some  even 
now  who  are  prophesying  evil  things  in  the  way  of  belated  May  frosts, 
but  sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof,  and  this  glorious  sunshine 
and  balmy  night  air  are  indeed  making  all  things  gay.  Barley,  which 
had  been  got  in  with  difficulty  and  doubt,  has  come  up  very  well  and 
looks  beautiful.  What  a  lovely  tint  of  green  is  that  of  the  young  blade 
with  the  bright  sunshine  upon  it ! 
Mangold  sowing  is  the  important  work  now.  The  land  is  clean  and 
the  tilth  good  ;  there  is  plenty  of  moisture  in  the  soil,  and  there  should 
be  no  doubt  about  the  germination  of  the  seed  if  it  is  good.  Six  pounds 
per  acre  is  not  too  much  to  insure  a  plant,  but  we  often  meet  with 
farmers  who  only  sow  4  lbs.,  and  they  say  they  generally  get  a  good 
plant ;  but  that  word  generally  rather  hints  at  occasional  exceptions  to 
the  rule.  Is  it  wisdom  to  risk  such  occasional  failures  for  the  sake  of  a 
saving  of  2  lbs.  of  seed  costing  about  Is.  6d.  ? 
Roots  have  lasted  well,  and  by  dint  of  lavish  use  Swedes  are  finished, 
except  a  few  loads  which  are  being  cut  for  the  hoggs  on  grass  whilst 
they  are  being  washed  and  clipped  for  market.  The  last  breadth  of 
Swede  land  is  beiug  ploughed.  It  turns  up  rather  rough,  bat  the  heavy 
flat  roll  following  quickly  after  the  ploughing  breaks  the  big  clots  before 
they  have  time  to  get  hard.  Harrowing  and  drilling  will  follow  as 
quickly  as  possible,  and  Barley  sowing  will  be  over  for  the  season. 
Large  numbers  of  sheep  are  being  put  on  the  market  at  the  present 
period,  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  matters  may  be  overdone ;  but,  so  far, 
prices  have  not  giveu  way  much.  With  a  continuance  of  summer-like 
weather  the  grazier  should  find  encouragement  to  buy  more  freely  than 
he  has  done  hitherto,  and  should  be  able  to  keep  all  half- me  it  ed  animalB 
out  of  the  fat  stock  markets,  where  they  often  help  so  much  to  depress 
values. 
Mares  are  foaling  with  a  fair  average  of  success,  but  we  hear  of 
several  foals  dying.  The  foal  is  a  very  delicate  animal,  and  easily  takes 
cold.  The  sudden  change  of  weather  may  have  tempted  some  owners 
to  turn  theirs  out  too  sood. 
