0 M5&2 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/ourfarmoftwoacreOOmart Tr ffi j? rffte rr^fc; rffiL?. :rjT?s rr^ - rr ^- Corning anb |Tabor. LIBRARY OF THE University of Illinois. CLASS. BOOK. VOLUME. £»^ AViW- 9 3-TTV Accession No. QHE FAEM OF TWO ACRES. HARRIET MARTINEAU. ■# NEW YORK: BENCE AND HUNTINGTON. 1865 . NOTE. The following pages were contributed by the celebrated Miss Martineatj to the London periodical, “ Once a Week.” The local nature of the experiences recorded will not, it is believed, affect their value to American readers. ^ UNIVERSITY OF ILLlNOfS AGRICULTURE LIBRARY OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. TERRAIN AND TILLAGE. Half a century ago there was a good deal of sauciness in the temper and manners of people who had the man- agement of land. The great land-owners were introdu- cing improvements, the small farmers were giving up an unprofitable game, and the large farmers — trusting in the Corn-laws — claimed to have their own way, did not care to study their art, unless they lived near Mr. Coke or the Duke of Bedford, and laughed at everybody who at- tempted tillage on a small scale. This sauciness brought out William Cobbett, with his strong spirit of antagonism, to contradict every insolent saying, and almost every received maxim of the class ; and he broadly and positively declared that a cow and pig could be kept on a quarter of an acre of land. He explained in detail how this might be done ; and a great number of people have followed his instructions, finding, for the most part, that though the thing might be prac- ticable for one year, or occasionally at intervals, it is not true that, one year with another, a cow and pig can be kept on a quarter of an acre of land. Since the repeal 4 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. of the Corn-laws, great changes have taken place in the general mind as to what quantity of land will and will not repay the efforts of the husbandman. The prodi- gious improvements which have been introduced into agriculture have benefited small properties as well as large; and the same science and art which render it good economy to expend thousands of pounds on the tillage of a large farm, enable the intelligent husbandman to obtain from a few roods an amount of value which nobody but Cobbett dreamed of in the last generation. We do not know that the regular “ small-farming” of a former century has as yet revived among us ; the com- petition of the holder of thirty or fifty acres with the tenant of a thousand : but the experiment of making the most of two or three acres is at present one which at- tracts a good deal of attention. There are few signs of the times in economy and social affairs more thoroughly worthy of the interest it has excited. There are two classes of persons, broadly speaking, to whom this experiment is of consequence — the husband- man who lives by his land, and gentry, especially ladies, who happen to have a little ground attached to their dwellings, from which it is just as well to derive comfort and luxury, or pecuniary profit, as hot. Two remarkable and very interesting statements have been published on the part of these two classes ; and I, the present writer, am about to offer a third, in order to render the present- ment of the case of miniature farming complete. John Sillett, the Suffolk shopkeeper, who forsook the shop and took to the spade, recovering his health, and TERRAIN AND TILLAGE. 5 maintaining his family in comfort on two acres of land, has given us his experience in his well-known pamphlet of seven years ago, on “Fork and Spade Husbandry.” The great extension of Freehold Land Societies affords to a multitude of townsmen in England the means of leaving town-industry for rural independence, as John Sillett did, if they choose to work as he did; and it seems probable that a future generation may see a revi- val of the order of peasant proprietors in this country which was supposed to have died out forever. As to the other class, to whom small-farming may and does answer, we have just been presented with an agreeable description of their case in the little volume called — “ Our Farm of Four Acres, and the Money we made by it.” In my opinion the book is somewhat too tempting. The statements, each one no doubt perfectly true in itself, will require some modification when taken to represent the first six years, instead of the first six months of the experiment ; but the narrative is so fresh and animated — the example of enterprise and energy is so wholesome, and the scheme of life is so wise, that the book must be a real boon to a class of society which sorely needs such aid; — the class of gentlewomen who have not enough to do. We hear a great deal of the penalties of an unnatural mode of life endured by single and widowed women in confined circumstances, who pine away their lives in towns ; and we see many who do not suffer from poverty, losing health and energy for want of interesting occupation. If this book should induce only one in a hundred of these languid women to try a country life, 6 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. with the amusement of a little farming in a safe way, it will have been a blessing to our generation. John Sillett’s experiment was one of fork and spade husbandry exclusively. That of the ladies on their Four Acres was an experiment of grazing, almost exclusively. Mine is one of an intermediate order. I do not derive the subsistence of a household from my two acres ; nor do I keep cows and pigs on the easy conditions of a plentiful allowance of grass and arable land, with the resource of a Right of Common, to serve at every pinch. I am obliged to keep a considerable portion of my little plot in grass ; but my main dependence for the subsist- ence of my cows is on fork and spade husbandry. Thus, like the ladies, I keep cows for comfort and luxury, to which I may add the serious consideration of creating a subsistence for a laborer and his wife ; while, with John Sillett, I obtain the value of the ground and animals chiefly by tillage, instead of merely gathering in the expensive commodity of grass. The case is this : — I bought a field, in order to build myself a house, in a beautiful valley in the north of England. The quan- tity of land was somewhat less than two acres and a quarter, of which more than half an acre was rock. On the rocky portion stands the house, with its terrace and the drive up to it, and little oak and sycamore and ash copses behind and flanking it. An acre and a quarter was left in grass, which I at first let for grazing for £4 105. a year. Enough ground was left for a few vege- table and flower beds, which the women of the household took such care of as they could. At the end of a year TERRAIN AND TILLAGE. 7 from our entrance upon our pretty house in the field, the state of things was this. The meadow was a constant eyesore ; for the tenant took no sort of care of it. His cow was there, rain or shine, without shelter or shade, and usually ill, one way or another. The grass was lumpy and weedy. Sheep burst in through the hedge on the south boundary, that hedge being no business of mine, but belonging to the tenant on the other side. It was a broad, straggling, weedy hedge, which harbored ver- min, and sent showers of seeds of pestilent weeds into my garden ground; and as sure as my cabbages began to grow, the hungry sheep — sharp-set as they are in March — made their way in, and ate off a whole crop in the night. It cost me from £6 to £10 a year to hire an occasional gardener, by whom the aspect of the place was barely kept decent. At the same time, my household were badly off for some essential comforts. The supply of milk in our neighborhood could never be depended on ; and it failed when it was most wanted — in the travelling season when the district was thronged with strangers. During that season, even the supply of meat was precarious. Fowls, hams, eggs, butter, every thing was precarious or unat- tainable ; so that housekeeping was, in the guest season, a real anxiety. Becoming nearly desperate under difficulties which townsfolk scarcely dreamt of, I ventured upon the experi- ment — more bold eleven years ago than now — of using my own patch of land for the production of comforts for my own household. I have made this explanation 8 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. because I wish it to be clearly understood that I did not propose to make money by my miniature farming, and should never have undertaken it with any such view. I could not afford to lose money. The experiment must pay itself or stop. But here was the land, with its attendant expenses; here were our needs and discom- forts ; the experiment was to make the one compensate the other. At the end of eleven years, I find that the plan has been unquestionably successful, though some of the estimates of the first two or three seasons have been modified, and an average of agricultural mishaps has occurred, as if to render the enterprise a fair specimen. It has, on the whole, been sufficiently successful to attract a great deal of notice, and influence some proceedings in the neighborhood ; and, therefore, as I conceive, to justify my adding one more illustration to those which already exist of the benefit of making the most of a small area of land. The first essential was a laborer. I obtained one from an agricultural county, as spade husbandry was a thing unheard of in my own neighborhood. He brought his wife; and his wages were at first 125. a week, out of which he paid the low rent of Is. 6d. per week for his cottage; a model cottage which I built, with the cow- house adjoining, for £130. These stone dwellings last forever, and need few or no repairs, so that money is well invested in them; and I regard as a good invest- ment the money afterwards laid out in a hay-house, a little boiling-house, a root-house, two fowl-yards, and a commodious stone dwelling for the pig. My man’s TERRAIN AND TILLAGE. 9 wages were raised by degrees ; and they are now 14s. a week all the year round, with the cottage rent free. The wife has the use of my wash-house and its apparatus, and opportunities of earning a good deal by means of them. In ^ase of my scheme not answering, there was a certainty that the cottage and other buildings would let at any moment, with the land ; while their quality would not deteriorate with time, like that of brick or wooden buildings. The other requisite preparations were tanks for manure, implements, and some additional fencing. Two tanks, well cemented within, and covered by heavy stone lids, receive the sewage and slops of every kind from the house, cottage, and cow-stable ; and a larger tank, among a clump of trees in a far corner of the field, receives the sweepings of stable and sty, and the bulk of the manure. The implements are spades, an elastic steel fork, hoes, rakes, a scythe, shears, and clippers, a heavy roller for the meadow, a chaff-cutter, a curry-comb and brushes for the cows’ coats ; troughs, milk-pails, and the apparatus of the boiling-house and dairy ; to which were afterwards added a barrel on wheels to receive soap-suds and other slops at back-doors for the liquid manure pit ; a garden-engine of large powers, and a frame and hand- glasses for the kitchen-garden. About a third part of these implements were necessary for the mere gardening which we attempted so unprofitably before we had a laborer on the premises. I am not going to speak of our dairy affairs now ; I will do so hereafter ; but my present subject is the tillage 1 * io OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. of the soil : and I will therefore say no more here about cows than that we began with one, and finding that we could keep two for almost as little trouble as one— the stable and the man being provided — I rented another half-acre adjoining my field, at £1 155. a yea*, and kept two cows, thus securing- a supply of milk for the whole year. We produce food enough for about a cow and a half, besides vegetables and fruit for the household, and find it answer to buy the requisite addition to the winter food, as I will explain at another time. Here, then, we were at the outset, with simply our cow-stable, pig-house, and tanks, and an acre and a quar- ter of ground on which to work, to produce food for a cow and pig, besides household vegetables.;. fettered also with the necessity, that, on account of the view from the windows, at least three-quarters of an acre must remain in grass, the most expensive of all conditions. We pared off the corners and laid them into the arable part, in the first instance, so* as to leave the grassy area just three- quarters of an acre. To finish with the pasture first, the treatment it requires is this : Before the winter rains we give the grass a good dressing of guano every alternate year, or of bones broken, but not to powder, every third year. Early in winter the whole is strewn with manure from the tank, and a compost heap we have in a hidden corner of the new half-acre. At the end of Feb- ruary this is raked away, and the meadow is bush-har- rowed. A month later it is well rolled and weeded, if any noxious weeds, such as oxeye daisies, or bishop’s weed, are found rooted in it. If any moss appears TERRAIN AN I) TILLAGE. 11 after long rains it is treated with lime. This care is well repaid by the beauty of the surface and the value of the grass. The little spot is conspicuous for its greenness when all the rest of the valley is of a uniform hay color ; and there is no hay in the neighborhood to compare with ours. The cows eat off the first growth in April. It is then shut up for six weeks or so for hay, and is mown towards the end of June, when it yields nearly three tons to the acre. We do not exhaust the ground by mowing it twice, but allow the cows to feed it pretty close till November. After two winters we found that the anxiety of keeping such hay stacked in a rainy climate was more than the thing was worth ; and I therefore built a hay- house, and was only sorry that I had put it off so long. Knowing what the plague of rats is in such buildings, I adopted the only perfect security — that of using such materials as no vermin can penetrate. The floor was flagged as carefully as a kitchen-floor, and slate stones went deep, into the ground below the flags. A fllw years later, when a winter inundation penetrated every place in the levels of the valley, and wetted our hay, I granted a raised wooden floor to the entreaties of our farm-man : and there our hay and straw keep perfectly well in all kinds of winters. Hay, however, is an extravagant kind of food for cows ; and ours have it only for variety, and as a re- source when other things fail, and when they calve, or happen to be ill. Our main dependence is on roots and vegetables. As this was nearly a new idea in the neighborhood, we were prodigiously ridiculed, till our 12 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. success induced first respect and then imitation. It was a current maxim, that it takes three acres of land to feed a cow ; and this may be very true jg the hill* pastures, which are mossy and untended. Our milk would cost us sixpence a quart, it was said — we were starving our poor cow — we were petting our cow, so that she was like a spoiled child — such were the remarks till events silenced them, and people came to see how we arranged our ground, so as to get such crops out of it. We con- stantly gave in explanation the current rule : a the more manure, the more green crops; the more green crops, the more stock ; the more stock, the more manure.” And by degrees the true principle of stall-feeding and spade- tillage, became clear to all inquirers. Our soil is light— not very deep (lying above slaty- stone) sufficiently fertile, and easily treated, but so stony in parts as to dismay a laborer from a clay or sand dis- trict. The neighbors advised my man to cover up the stones, 4nd think no more of them : but we concluded that it would be better to make use of some of them. We dug deep where the garden paths were to be, and filled in the stones, so as to make drains of all the garden walks. Others went to mend the occupation-road which runs along the field, and through the half-acre. On the south side, and in the half-acre, there is scarcely a stone, and the tillage is perfectly easy. Our way is to dig two spits deep, straight down, manure richly, and leave abundant space between both the plants and the rows. Hence our fine roots, and our weight of produce. I need say nothing of our garden tillage, except that, TERRAIN AND TILLAGE \ *3 with the exception of winter potatoes, we obtain an abundant supply of vegetables for a household of four persons, and their occasional guests. All common fruits become more plentiful every year. This being under- stood, we are here concerned only with the food for the cows and pig. In summer, we sow cabbage-seed — being careful about the kind, as the common cow-cabbage spoils the milk and butter. A kind between the Ham and Victoria cabbage is by the Norfolk people considered the best. The young plants are pricked out in early autumn, some hundreds per week for six weeks, to secure a suc- cession next year. They should be eighteen inches apart, in rows a yard apart : and if they can be allowed to keep their places till they weigh ten or twelve pounds apiece, they of course afford a great bulk of food for the animals. Anywhere above four pounds is, however, worth the ground. The rows being placed so wide apart is to allow of the sowing of roots between them. In April and May we sow turnips (Swedes especially), carrots (particularly Belgian), and mangold in the centre of the spaces left ; and by the time the root crops have been thinned, and are past the danger of the fly, the cabbages are fit to be cut. The alternate ones are taken first, and light and air are thus let in freely. The cabbages begin to be very substantial abbut mowing time, and fill up all intervals till November ; that is, while the grass is growing after hay-making, and between the first, second, and third gathering of the mangold leaves. It is the fashion now to discourage the thinning of the man- gold : but we find the roots rather the better than the H OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. worse for the process. If they were not, we could still hardly spare the resource of those three leaf-crops ; but the fact is, no such mangold as ours is grown anywhere near ; and strangers come to look at it, both in the ground and in the root-house. We now devote the arable part of our rented half-acre to this root, except when it is necessary to grow grain for a change, which happens every third or fourth year ; and this last year we obtained about six tons from a quarter of an acre. It keeps admirably; and our cows were still enjoying it a month h^bre midsummer. There is an occupation-road through the half-acre which produces only grass ; and the same is true of a strip running its whole length, under a row of noble ash-trees, which of course prevent all tillage under their shade, and within the circuit of their roots. The arable portion amounts, in fact, to hardly one-third of an acre. We early obtained a small addition to our territory in a rather odd way. After we had suffered from two or three invasions of sheep through the great ugly hedge, I received an occasional hint that the neighboring tenant wished I would take that hedge into my own hands. Seeing no reason why I should trouble myself with such a vexatious and unprofitable piece of property, I paid no attention to the hints: but my farm-man at length inti- mated that he could make a good thing of it, if I would let him demolish the hedge, which he would undertake, except felling the pollard-ashes, with his own hands. He was sure the contents of the hedge, and the ground we should get by it, would pay for a good new fence. It TERRAIN AND TILLAGE . l S did indeed pay. We had firewood enough for more than one winter, and a good deal of soil ; and we gained a strip of ground about three feet wide, the whole length of the field. Moreover, my neighbor obtained the same quantity,, to the great augmentation of his friendship for us. The new fence cost £9. It is a crosspole fence — the only kind which is found effectual here against the incur- sions of sheep. They leap upon a wall ; they burst through a hedge ; they thrust themselves through a post- and-rail fence ; but they can get no footing on a cross- pole fence ; and only the youngest lambs can creep through the interstices. The material used is split larch- poles ; and those who object that such a fence is not durable must have omitted the precaution of tarring the ends which enter the ground. With that precaution it may last a lifetime; and it is easily mended if a pole here and there should go before the rest. It occupies the smallest portion of ground — is no hindrance to air and sunshine, and is remarkably pretty. When covered with roses, as mine is for the greater part, it is a luxury to look upon, reminding travellers of the rose-covered trellises of hot countries, — as in Louisiana, Damascus, # and Egypt. We were so delighted with it that I carried it along the bottom of the field, where also I was not chargeable with the care of the fence. I see strangers come in and examine it, and try to shake it, as if they thought it a flimsy affair for a farm, even on a miniature scale ; but I believe it will outlast the present genera- tion of inhabitants, human and quadruped. It will be necessary to give some account of our live- i6 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES . stock and its produce before we can form an estimate of profit or loss on the whole scheme of my little farm. Meantime, we may say thus much : Twelve years ago we saw about our dwelling an acre and a quarter of grass, in unsightly condition, grazed by a sickly cow ; a few beds of flowers and a few more of vegetables — the former not well kept, and the latter far from productive — and, for the rest, a drive and little plantations, and slopes rarely neat, and always craving more care than we could give. For the grass I obtained, as I said, <£4 10s. a year ; and, to an occasional gardener, I paid from £6 to £10 a year. In connection with these particulars, we must remember the housekeeping troubles — bad butter, blue milk, and thin cream ; costly vegeta- bles which had travelled in the sun ; hams costing £1 at least; eggs at 1 d. each, and fowls scarce and skinny; and all this in a place where the supply of meat is precarious at the most important time of the year. The state of things now is wonderfully different. The whole place is in the neatest order conceivable; the slopes are mown, and the shrubs trimmed, and the paths clean ; and the parterres gay, almost all the year round. With only three-quarters of an acre of grass, we have about £12 worth of hay ; and part grazing for two cows for six months of the year. We have roots to the value of about £8 a year, exclusive of the benefit of their green part, which affords several cwts. of food. Then, there are the cabbages for the cows, which in favorable seasons have afforded the staple of their food for three or four months. In southern and eastern counties they TERRAIN AND TILLAGE . *7 would be a more ample and certain dependence than in the north. Then for the house, we have always had an over-supply of vegetables (except the winter store of potatoes), the surplus going, rather wastefully, to the pig. Beginning with cress, and radishes, lettuce, and early potatoes, and going through the whole series of peas and beans, turnips and carrots, spinach, onions and herbs, vegetable marrow and cucumbers, cabbages, cauliflowers, and broccoli, up to winter greens, we have abounded in that luxury of fresh-cut vegetables which townspeople can appreciate. All the common fruits fol- low of course. The comfort of having an active man on the premises, ready for every turn, is no small considera- tion in a household of women. All these things have been created, we must observe — called out of the ground where they lay hid, as it were. This creation of subsistence and comfort is a good thing in itself ; it remains to be seen whether it is justified by paying its own cost. This we shall learn when we have reviewed the history of our Dairy and Poultry-yard. i8 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. DAIRY AND BACON. W I should, have said you would he more humane,” observed a London friend to me, u than to shut up your cows. I could not have believed you would be so cruel.” A few minutes’ conversation made a wonderful differ- ence in this benevolent lady’s impressions. She was a thorough Londoner, and knew nothing of cow tastes and habits. With the ordinary human tendency to fetishism, she regarded cow-life from her own point of view, and pitied my Meggie and Ailsie for not seeing the lovely landscape as they lay ruminating. The argument may be shortly given. Granting that the so-called “ natural condition” of animals is the happiest, which may not be true in the quadruped any more than the human case, it is impossible at this time of day to put our domestic cattle under the conditions of the primitive life of their race. When they roamed our island wild they could shelter themselves from the noonday heat in the forest, and escape the flies by getting into the water ; whereas, when once cows are domesticated, there is an end of forest shade, and of recourse to lakes and rivers ; and the question is, whether something better is not given. Taking the winter into the question, there can be no doubt about the matter. Lean cows were slaughtered in autumn, and salted down for winter food, in old times, because there were no means of feeding them during the interval between the late and early grass ; and, as for those which were spared the slaughter, we know what DAIRY AND BACON l 9 their wildness from hunger was by the end of winter. The cows on a small farm (or on a large one either) cannot have open woods and waters to resort to ; and, if sent out to feed, have a half-and-half sort of life, the superiority of which to stall-feeding may be questionable. They have neither the natural nor the artificial protection from heat and flies, and their condition is less equable than that of the stall-fed cow. In high summer they may be very fat and sleek, — too fat to be perfect milkers ; but in early spring they are meagre, ragged, and half dry, when the stall-fed animals are nearly as sleek and pros- perous as a # t any other season. Every observer remarks on the good plight of my cows when those of the neighboring farmers are turned out upon the fells in spring: and, during the summer, if Meggie and Ailsie happen to be out towards noon, they turn into their stable of their own accord to escape the flies and enjoy the coolness. The test is the health of the animals ; and, by all I have been able to learn, stall- fed cows, properly managed, live longer, give more milk in the long run, have fewer illnesses, and are better tempered than those which are treated in the ordinary method of our old-fashioned farming. When Cow Life Insurance Societies become as numerous as they ought to be, their tables will soon show whether stall-feeding is favorable to life and health, or the contrary. Meantime, the world is grievously in want of agricultural statistics in that department, as in every other. I may remark here, that the ladies who tell us of their Four-Acre Farm, and all other farmers, large and small, 20 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES . will be wise to insure their cows’ lives, if any well-estab- lished society for the purpose exists within reach. At this season last year, when I lost a cow for the first time, I should have been very glad of such a resource. The few shillings per year for each cow are worth paying, if never wanted back again : for the peace of mind is a main feature in the bargain, as in the case of life and fire insurance. One of the finest and healthiest young cows I ever saw, which had calved prosperously a year before, calved last June in the midst of the thundery weather which then prevailed. The storm burst just after ; my poor cow sank down, and never got up again. This was a case of sheer accident: no management could have prevented it ; and the appropriate consolation would have been receiving her value from an Insurance Society if I had had the opportunity. Country residents who know how often the familiar petition comes round on behalf of the cottager or small farmer who has lost a cow or two, can bear witness to the policy of establishing such a society in every rural neighborhood, and taking care of its being founded on a safe basis. The subscriptions now given on petition would be better bestowed on such a foundation. Good would be done, and ease of mind afforded, all round ; and after ten years or so, the collective records would yield some very valuable knowledge as to the life and health of farm-stock. The combined experience of a neighborhood or district must surely lead to an improved medical treatment of animals. The greatest drawback on small farming is the DAIRY AND BACON 21 helplessness of the proprietor when a cow or pig is ill. It requires to be on the spot to believe the nonsense that is talked on such occasions in retired villages, and what passions are called into play. A few months after I began, I was told that my cow was ill. The local doctor was sent for, and he gave his verdict and instituted the treat- ment. But I could make nothing of the matter at all — neither what ailed the cow, nor whether it was serious, nor even whether she might die. By the bustle and solemnity, and my man being seen to brush away tears when my back was turned, I augured the worst; but I do not at this moment know how far she was in danger. The report was : u ’Tis the worm in the tail, that go all along her back and up into her head, so that her teeth are loose, and she can’t properly eat.” She was bled in the tail, dosed with physic, fed with meal, and rubbed, and in a day or two she was quite well. Other alarms of the same kind have occurred since ; and the sense of blank ignorance in one’s self, and of the quackery of those who pretend to know more, while the suffering animal is sinking before one’s eyes, is decidedly the most disagreeable experience of rural life in my case. And then, if one asks a question, or demurs to bleeding (from which a cow rarely recovers completely), or proposes any simple method, or fails to send for the local oracle, or, worst of all, sends for a real veterinary surgeon too, th§re is an astonishing outburst of passions. Doctor and farm-man quarrel : “ The lady rnay cure her own cows.” — “ Nobody will set a foot on the premises if new notions are to be tried” — and so forth. Happy they who live 22 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. within immediate reach of a qualified veterinary surgeon ! In the absence of such a resource there is, I believe, no doubt whatever that the simple rules and facts of homoeopathic practice are the greatest possible boon. The operation of that method of practice in the case of cattle and horses is too remarkable to leave room for question, I understand, among those most opposed to it in the human case. I have said all the harm I have to say of my first cow. She was a rather large but very pretty short-horn, of the local kind. It does not do for small farmers to try many experiments with different kinds of cows: and it is generally safest to be content with the local sort. I live too far north for Alderneys, which ladies often incline to, to their cost in the long run ; but I hoped much from a cheap, hardy little Kerry cow, such as I have known to be very profitable in the midland counties ; but she did not answer. Meggie, however, my first experiment, served and pleased me well for six years. I gave £15 for her at six years old, and she was valued at £1 when I exchanged her at the end of six years. Thus, spreading her prime cost — viz., £8 — over the six years, together with 4 per cent, interest on the £15, she eost me, as a purchase, £1 18$. a year'. The cost of her maintenance cannot be given with equal precision, because her food was as various as we could make it, and it is impossible to estimate the value of every article we grew. But we can ascertain within a narrow margin how much Meggie cost, and how well it answered to keep her. The proper amount of food for DAIRY AND BACON.. 2 3 a milch, cow is not less than VO lb. per day — a fatting bullock requiring about 90 lb. For stall-feeding we must reckon the winter as lasting five months, in our northern counties. Each cow, therefore, must have four tons of roots and one ton of h?y, with a few extras, such as I will presently mention. Allowing for calving-times, exigencies, and indulgences, throughout the year, we purchase about a ton of hay for each cow, in addition to our own crop. I pay a few shillings here and there in the neighborhood for grass and brewers’ grains, and buy Thorley’s cattle-food, an occasional load of straw, and a little meal at calving-times. In ordinary seasons, the bought food may be set down at about £10 for each cow. Her share of the man’s wages may be reckoned at one- third, or £11, and of the cost of tillage at £1 105. The extra manure, beyond her own yield, is about £1 55., and her share of the cost of* utensils and their repairs, £1 55., and of the interest of the capital invested in her stable and all the accessories by which she benefits, £1 105. I think this is all that Meggie can have cost me. As for her produce, there was the annual calf, which brought, if a bull-calf, only 55., and if a wye (cow-calf), a guinea at the end of a week. She gave us, on the average of the year, ten quarts of milk per day. After calving, she gave sixteen quarts or more for a time ; to set against which there was the decline and dryness before calving; so that we reckon the average at ten quarts. Her manure is already set off against her foQd. We have not here the London prices, which so brighten the ac- counts of the Four- Acre Farm. We must reckon the new 24 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. milk at 2 cl. the quart, and butter as averaging 11c?. per pound. Our lowest price is 8c?., and the highest Is. 3c?. Reckoning the produce as milk, it brings £30 8s. 4c?. per cow, for the year. I might magnify it by reckoning a part as butter ; but I wish to be on the safe side, and will, therefore, put our sales and gains at the lowest. COST OF EACH COW. £ s. d. Food bought . 10 0 0 Attendance * . 11 0 0 Tillage . . . • . . 1 10 0 Manure 1 5 0 Utensils and repairs . 1 5 0 Interest on capital . 1 10 0 Prime cost and interest . 1 18 0 £28 8 0 PRODUCE OF EACH COW. £ s. cl Milk . 30 8 4 Calf (average) . 0 13 0 £31 1 4 Cost . 28 8 0 £2 13 4 This small surplus may be set apart to meet accidents ; and thus Meggie just paid her own expenses, leaving to me &nd my household the satisfaction of seeing man, wife, and animals maintained, the place rendered fertile, and ourselves supplied with rural luxuries which were not to be had for money. Afraid of the responsibility of inducing any rash experi- ment, I have rather over-estimated than underrated the DAIRY AND BACON 2 5 exposes, and made the very least of our gains ; and it must be remembered that in the neighborhood of London, or any other large town, the expense of food and wages would be the same, while the sale of produce would bring in about one-third more. The mode of life of a stall-fed cow is very simple. By 6 a. m., at latest, in summer, and 7 a. m., in winter, her stable should be cleaned out, — all liquids swept into the drain and tank, all solids harrowed to the large tank down the held, and powdered charcoal deposited where most needed. A plentiful supply of air has been provided during the night by the opening of some of the windows, of which there are three. A small window in the roof, opened by a cord, secures the escape of foul air. The stable being close to the cottage, is well warmed in winter. We find the cows do better without litter than with any kind we have been able to try. Cocoa-nut fibre mats were presented to me for trial, when it appeared that fern, haulm, and straw, tempted the cows to eat their litter ; but the mats were too warm ; and the animals’ hoofs grew long and became brittle A smooth surface of cement or asphalte appears to answer best, provided it is kept in thorough repair, and made sloping in the slightest possible degree, so as to allow liquid to run off, without fatiguing the cow by depriving her of a level standing-place. The cleaning of the place being done, the next thing is the milking ; and then the breakfast ; and then the rub- bing down of the animal. Her coat should be first cur- ried, and then brushed every day, and her legs — particu- larly the hind legs — well rubbed. Her coat ought to be 2 26 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. as glossy as that of a horse ; and if she is not thoroughly freed from dirt, she will he restless in her eagerness to rub herself against wall or post on every side. Duly dressed, she lies down to ruminate in calm content. In summer, when the hay is growing, she has cut'grass, more or less every day. We get it from sundry patches on our own ground — from strips under the trees, from the slopes, the borders, and three-cornered bits in angles of the garden, and from the ditch, hedge, and road in the half-acre ; and also from any neighbor who will let us have it for the cutting, or a trifle over. There is some every day, till the cows can turn out after the hay-making. Meantime, there are the last of the mangold roots, and there is chopped straw dressed with Thorley’s cattle-food, which is a great comfort as a resource, when food is scanty or precarious. The tradition of our district, of the eager- ness of the cattle of the monks of Furness after the ash and holly sprays on the mountains, guides us to another resource. A cow will brave many obstacles to get at the young sprays of the ash ; so we crop ours from the pol- lards. The same with nettles in their season. We must not suppose these things bad food, because we should not like them. Brewers’ grains are another resource. Cows are very fond of them. When the roots are done, the cabbages are coming on ; and then many helps arise ; the thinnings of the growing turnips and mangold, and after- wards their crops cf leaves. These things, with the ever- growing grass, carry us on to November, when the last cabbage is eaten, and the pasture must be manured. Then begins the winter routine. The cinders from the house, DAIRY AND BACON 2 7 and a penny sack of shavings from the bobbin-mill light the boiler fire which keeps the food warm for the day. The turnips are eaten first, because they do not keep so well as the mangold. A cwt. of turnips per day is rather more than two cows want, if there are carrots for them, or cut straw, with Thorley’s food. The roots are sliced and boiled with the straw. The secret of giving turnips without fatal damage to the cream and butter is to pour off all the water, and give the roots dry, with fresh water to drink, of course. The hay is the dessert — given dry if the cows prefer it so. To keep their teeth in use, they may have a mangold root or two in the course of the day— a to amuse themselves with,” as the man says. They have three regular meals in the day, and something more during the longest days. In winter they settle well for the night after six o’clock. Our dairy is in rather an odd place — under the library. It is the place of most equable temperature on the prem- ises ; the coolest in summer, and the warmest in winter ; being a part of the cellar blasted out of the rock, and its windows nearly level with the garden ground outside. It is fitted up with slate-stone shelves, and leaded cisterns for the milk. We have tried various new devices — glass, earthenware, and wood ; but we find that the cream rises better in the old cisterns, lined with lead or zinc, than under any other circumstances. Our butter rarely gives any trouble in the making ; and, siuce we fairly learned the art, it has had an excellent reputation. We do not often obtain so much as one pound from one quart of cream ; and we are satisfied that this quantity cannot be 28 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. got on an average of seasons and of cows ; but on occa- sion we obtain it. The pig has the buttermilk and what skim-milk we do not use for our bread and cakes, nor sell. The consumption of cream in the household is not small. We relish it with our fruit and otherwise. We like custards and trifle and fruit-creams and white soups ; and, now it is understood to have the properties which make cod-liver oil so much the fashion for weakly people, we agree how far preferable the domestic article is to the imported, and indulge largely in the medicine, ill or well. It should not be omitted that our keeping cows is a social benefit. The troop of children coming for milk, morning and evening, is a pretty sight. I have added to the advantage of the supply that of requiring ready money for it. In old-fashioned places, where money mat- ters are irregular, and long credits cause perpetual mis- chief and frequent ruin, and where some of the gentry give away milk to people perfectly able to pay for it, it is a social service to insist on both paying and receiving ready money. My cook is therefore charged with the dairy concerns, and upheld by her employers in giving no credit. Before we learned the ways of the place, customers who could afford strong drink and fine clothes went into debt to us for milk up to nearly £1, and then went to another dairy. It was no better kindness to them than to ourselves to allow this : and, now that our rule is inflexible, as to paying and being paid, we have no difficulty, except when, at times, our cows are to calve at too short an interval, and the supply runs short, and the DAIRY AND BACON. 29 customers “ are fit to tear us to pieces,” as cook says, for what we have to sell. There is not much to tell of the pig. We bespeak one of a good breed each spring and autumn, bringing him home at from six to ten weeks old — old enough to keep himself warm and comfortable. His cost is then from 15^. to 255., according to the state of the world in regard to pig-keeping. Before the potato-rot, one might get for IO 5 . such a pig as afterwards cost 205. Our pig’s house is a substantial stone edifice, cool in summer and warm in winter, with a paved yard for eating, exercise, and bask- ing in the sun. The pavement should come up every few years, and the soil below should be removed for manure, and new laid. A liberal use of powdered charcoal will be repaid by the health of the pig and the content of the neighbors ; and there is no more valuable manure than the charcoal which has done its work of purification. The house and yard must be kept swept and clean, and the straw frequently renewed, and then the animal itself will have good habits* Pigs are not dirty when they have any encouragement to be clean. Ours is washed every week, in warm soap and water, and well scrubbed behind the ears and everywhere, to its great ease and comfort. A highly economical remark of my man about this part of his work was, that he scrubbed the pig on washing-days, because the soapsuds did just as well for manure after the pig had done with them, “ and that,” said he, u makes the soap serve three times over.” Buttermilk, skim-milk, refuse vegetables, kitchen- stuff bought for sixpence per week, grains now and then, and 3 ° OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES . any coarse food rendered nutritious and delectable by Thorley’s food or malt-dust being sprinkled over it, keep our pig in health and happiness till he has accomplished the first six or seven months of his life. Then he must be fattened for three weeks. The more he is induced to eat during that time, the more profitable will he be ; and his food must be of the best kind. Opinions differ as to whether oatmeal orbarleymeal answers best. Our belief is that a mixture is the true thing. The barley is cheaper, and requires a month to produce its effect : the oat is dearer, but requires less than three weeks. It is the better, however, for being qualified with the barley ; and we use them half-and-half, till the pig has had sixteen stone, costing £1 45. His weight when killed is, on the average, twelve stone, which has fetched, within my experience, from 5s. to 7s. per stone. Our money gain, after all expenses are deducted, may thus vary from £1 to nothing on the pig ; but the privilege of well-educated bacon, and hams of high quality, is no contemptible one, as will be owned by doubting and scrupulous purchasers of pork in towns. We and our friends can enjoy our sausages, pork-pies, hams, and bacon without drawback ; and the value of the two latter in the commissariat in a region where the very legs of mutton in the butcher’s shop have to be divided between urgent petitioners in the season, cannot be described. No party is better pleased than the man in charge — unless it be his wife. He buys half the pig at wholesale price; has his bacon cheap; and can, if he chooses, sell the ham at a great profit in the season. We kill our DAIRY AND BACON. 3 1 pork in tlie first days of November and the last of March. There remains the produce of the poultry-yard to make out our bill of fare. That story is too long for this place, and must be told in the next chapter. 32 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. THE POULTRY- YARD. In order to make money by poultry, in any proportion to the attention given to them, the speculator should be either a capitalist who provides an extensive appa- ratus for the supply of fowls and eggs to a neighboring community, or a cottager or small farmer who can rear fowls in a chance-medley way, on what they can pick up for themselves. As I am neither a professional breeder of poultry, nor a cottager, nor yet a small farmer in the ordinary use of the term, I cannot and do not expect to make money to any notable extent by our fowls and ducks. As I have already intimated, the object is security against famine, where a whole neighborhood depends on the justice and mercy of one butcher. When I relate that at an inn not three miles off, forty-five couples of fowls have been killed in one day, from the beef and lamb falling short of the demand, it will be easily con- ceited that it is no small comfort to be supplied, at all events, with eggs and bacon, fowls and ham, within our own gates. The country people would like very much to see the Queen among our mountains. They would give her a dinner of eggs and ham, and set her on a pony, and show her every thing. It is certain before- hand what her diet would be if she came incog . At the little country inns — each the sole house of entertainmen THE POULTRY-YARD. 33 In its dale or water-head — you always know what you will have. “ Can we have dinner ?” “Oh, yes.” “What can you give us?” “What you like.” After inquiring in vain for beef or mutton, we are told — “ But there’s ham, and there’s eggs.” “ Very well : and what else ?” “ Why there’s eggs ; and there’s ham, and bacon.” If the Queen came unawares to some dwellings which are not inns, there might, in the height of the season, be the same bill of fare, and no other. The value of the resource must be the measure of our gain, under such circumstances, and not the money we make. It becomes an increasing wonder every year why the rural cottagers of the United Kingdom do not rear fowls almost universally, seeing how little the cost would be, and how great is the demand. We import many mil- lions of eggs annually. Why should we import any? It seems as strange as that Ireland should import all its cheese, while exporting butter largely. After spending the morning among dairy-farms in Kerry, you have at dinner cheese from London: and in the same way, after passing dozens of cottages on commons or in lanes in England, where the children have nothing to do, and would be glad of pets, you meet a man with gold rings in his ears, who asks you in broken English to buy eggs from the continent. Wherever there is a cottage 2 * 34 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. family, whether living on potatoes or better fare, and grass growing anywhere near, there it would be worth while to nail up a little pent-house, and make nests of clean straw, and go in for a speculation in eggs and chickens. Seeds, worms, and insects go a great way in feeding poultry in such places ; and then there are the small and refuse potatoes from the heap, and the outside cabbage-leaves, and the scraps of all sorts. Very small purchases of broken rice (which is extremely cheap), inferior grain, and mixed meal, would do all else that is necessary. There would probably be larger losses from “ vermin” than in better guarded places ; but these could be well afforded, as a mere deduction from considerable gains. It is understood that the keeping of poultry is largely on the increase in the country generally, and even among cottagers; but the prevailing idea is of competition as to races and specimens for the poultry-yard, rather than of meeting the demand for eggs and fowls for the table. The pursuit is an excellent one, and everybody rejoices at the growth of such an interest : but the laborer and his family are not benefited by it, as a steady resource, as they might be by a constant succession of common- place eggs and chickens, to be sold in the next town. As for any farmer who grows grain and has a home-field and a barn, he must be badly off for wife or daughter if he cannot depend on his poultry for a respectable amount of annual profit. We remember the exultation of a German settler in a Western State of America, in speak- ing of his rise in life, shown by his u fifty head of hen.” Perhaps it is not necessary to go so far as the prairies to THE POULTR F - YARD . 35 acquire a stock in trade — not so large, indeed, but profit- able in equal proportion. The least advantageous way of rearing fowls is just that which is now under our notice — that of a lady’s poultry- yard on a small bit of land in a populous neighborhood. The fowls cannot have full liberty ; they must not tres- pass on the neighbors ; and they are grievously trespassed on by the neighbors’ cats and dogs. Yet the experiment answers in our case soundly and thoroughly, through the care and interest invested in the enterprise by my com- panion. She has worked through many difficulties, and raised the project to paying point, and beyond it, to the comfort of the household, her own great amusement and that of her guests, and the edification and benefit of the servants. Our average stock is twenty hens, two cocks, five ducks, and one drake. Our accommodation will not allow any large increase of our average. The ducks are uncommonly fine specimens of the Aylesbury breed. One cock is Cochin-China: the other of some common sort which makes less impression on strangers. A visitor lately met the Cochin-China sultan in the drive, and was so prodigiously impressed as to take off his hat to his majesty, who is indeed too heavy to be often met out walking. The ducks were a present, some years ago, and the silk stocking has become worsted, and perhaps silk again, in the interval, from the changes necessary to keep up the vigor of the stock. Besides substituting a new drake every three years or so, we exchange some brood- 36 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. eggs every season with some neighbor who has the same breed. We have not conveniences for rearing any great number of young ducks, and prefer selling the eggs, of which we have above six hundred per annum. We kill a few ducks for our own table, reckoning their value, not at the London rate, but at 25. 6d. each. In London, 75. a couple would be asked for ducks which would not have two-thirds of their substantial merit when brought to table. Our duck eggs are in great request for poaching, and puddings and custards ; and well they may be, for their cubic contents must be nearly double those of ordi- nary hens’ eggs. It might be difficult to say which is cause and which effect in regard to our having two cocks and two poultry- yards. The double arrangement is desirable in every way. There should always be opportunities for separa- tion and seclusion, in that community as in every other. For instance, the favorite aversion of the drake is his own ducklings. He would destroy them every one if we did not separate them from their passionate parent. The whole feathered colony is at times so like the Irish quarter in a port-town, with its brawls and faction fights, that imprisonment or banishment is occasionally necessary, on the one hand, and an accident-ward for the victims, on the other. We have one roostiog-chamber in the upper part of the coal-shed, and the other in the upper part of the pig-house, each opening into its own yard, and having its ladder without and its perches within. In the small enclosures, made of trellised wood and wire netting, are pent-houses for the nests, which should always be on the THE POULTRY-YARD . 37 ground, fop the sake not only of the convenience of the sitting hen, but of the vigor of the brood. The shallow troughs for food and pans for water make up the rest of the apparatus. The places should be swept out several times a week, and strewn with charcoal in hot weather ; and there should always be soft soil enough for the hens to make dust-baths in, and gravel enough to afford them pebble diet, according to their needs. There must always be a little heap of lime in some dry corner, if the egg- shells are to be worthy of their contents. So much for what may be called the retreats or refuges of the fowls : but their Jives cannot be passed there. So we found. They must have a further range. The best plan, where space can be afforded (which is not our case), is to lay out for the fowls a long strip of grass fenced with wire — a regular Rotten Row for their daily trot, race, or stately walk. As the nearest approach we could make to this, we fenced in with galvanized wire netting the belt of plantation which adjoins the lower fowl-house. There they have room to run and make dust-baths, and strut in the sun or repose in the shade at pleasure. A deep trough is sunk there, and filled with water for the ducks when they must be kept at home, and for the ducklings, which are not allowed to range the meadows, because such liberty is almost invariably fatal to them. Whether it is any particular food, animal or vegetable (we suspect a particular slug), or other dangers — as entanglement in the grass and weeds, cramp, enemies, or what not — it is very rarely that ducklings sur- vive an attempt at a roving life. After witnessing every 38 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES . accident now stated, we believe the deleterious food to be sufficient reason for keeping the broods at home till they are well grown. The drake and his hareem spend the day abroad for several months of the year, going forth into the meadows — where they make a seiwiceabie clearance of slugs — in the morning, after laying, and coming home in the evening for their supper. While the grass is growing for hay, we are obliged to keep them at home ; and it is necessary to watch them when young vegetables are coming up and fruit is ripening. Nobody would believe without seeing it how high they can reach with their bills when currants and gooseberries hang temptingly; and in their love of strawberries they vie with humanity. After being kept at home, the ducks relax in their laying, and their feeding is expensive ; but they really seem to go on laying longer every year : so perhaps we may train them, in course of time, to be “ equal to either fortune.” For the sake of the young chicks, we have yet one other enclosure at the service of the fowls. There is a pretty little quarry below the terrace and orchard, from whence the stone for the terrace-wall was taken. A little wire fence is now drawn across the entrance, and the young broods and their mothers have it to them- selves. Such is their mode of life. As for what they live on, we make their food as various as possible, as in the case of the cows and the pig. The most expensive of all food we find to be barley cm naturel. Not only is a consid- erable proportion thrown about and wasted, but much that is swallowed is never digested. We, therefore, TEE POULTRY-YARD . 39 give it as a change and indulgence ; and by no means $s the staple of their food. Indian meal is the best staple, according to our experience. It is well scalded, that the swelling may be done before it is swallowed, instead of after — thus avoiding various maladies and perils from over-eating. Broken rice well boiled is good to a certain extent. Malt-dust is a valuable resource. The demand is becoming so great that it will probably soon cease to be a cheap food ; but while it remains so, it is a real boon, both to the fowls and their owner. They will eat almost any thing that is sprinkled with malt-dust, and a 65. sack of it goes a long way. A certain pro- portion of green food, and also of animal food, is indis- pensable. Lettuce-leaves, turnip-tops, cabbage-leaves, celery, should be thrown to them. They should have access to grass, to pick seeds and insects ; and it is well to put a fresh sod into the poultry-yard whenever such a valuable thing can be spared. All the worms and insects that come in the gardener’s way should be pre- sented to them ; and, when insects are scarce, scraps of raw meat, minced as fine as pins’ heads, should be given. Add finely chopped egg for infant chicks, and I think the bill of fare is complete. As for the peppercorn, which old wives recommend as the first thing to be swallowed, we reprobate the notion, as we should in the case of any other new-born creature. In fact, it irritates the crop very mischievously, if it gives out its savor : and if it does not dissolve, it is nothing. We do not find it necessary to make distinctions of seasons in hatching broods, as some people do. We like 40 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. beginning early, but we know what we may expect from frosts and storms in March, and are content with what we get. If we have. not a pretty full school by June, we shake our heads: but some July broods have been as fine and complete as any others on our list. An autumn brood or two — even a late one — is valuable; for the chickens are short-legged, and make excellent sitters. By careful management, my companion has succeeded in distributing the moulting over a considerable space of time, and therefore in obtaining eggs in early winter. We have them now throughout the year. We lay by a hundred or more in lime-water in the most plentiful sea- son, for puddings in the time of scarcity ; and then our small supply of November and December eggs is dis- posable for invalids, or other neighbors anxious to secure the delicacy. Under this mode of management, our fowl account has stood thus for the last two years : — In 1857, we paid for food £17 Is. 8 c?. ; and for improve- ments in the hen-house, £1 15$.; that is, our expenses were £18 16$. 8c?. ; eggs and fowls used and sold were worth £18 4$. 2c?.; ten chickens and one young cock in stock, £1 5$.; making £19 9$. 2c?.; which shows our profit to have been 12$. 6c?.; in 1858, the cost of food was £16 8$. 2c?.; and of improvement of stock, 11$. 9c?. ; together making £16 19$. 11c?.; while our sales and use yielded £17 10$. 6c?.; our profit, therefore, being 10$. 7 cl. London prices would have enriched us mightily ; for we had 3,039 eggs, and killed sixty-three fowls (including a few ducks). Within a dozen miles of the General Post- THE POULTRY-YARD. 4 1 Office, our produce would have been worth above £30 ; but it must be remembered that, in regard to our domes- tic consumption, we have the benefit of the country prices. As it is, we have a balance on the right side, instead of the wrong, after all accidents and misfortunes are allowed for. Those accidents are not only vexatious but grievous. The finest young cock we had ever reared was found dead and stiff one morning. His crop, alas ! was full of ivy-leaves, which he had reached and snatched from the wall of the house, by some vigorous climbing out of bounds. Chicks, and even hens, now and then are cramped by change of weather, or other mysterious causes. If observed in time, they may be recovered by warmth, friction, and apparently by the unaccountable influence of the human hand; but if they hide their trouble they will be found dead. A stray duckling may lose itself in tall grass as in a jungle. A chick may be found drowned in an inch or two of water in a pan. At one time a hawk haunted us, and we either missed a chicken occasionally, or found it dropped, with a hole in its breast. Rats are to be expected wherever a lake or river is near ; but they are easily disposed of by taking up a flag, and, when their runs are traced, putting down strychnine on bread and butter. Nowhere but under pavement should that poison be placed, because it may be swallowed by some other creature than a rat : but in a subterranean way it is very useful. We have never made war in that way, as some people do, against the sparrows and chaffinches, which really are a nuisance. Where a 4 2 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. house is covered with ivy and climbing plants, and shel- tered by copses, and where fowls are fed in the open air, freebooting tribes of birds will be encroaching and audacious. We fear that a large portion of our good meal and grain goes to glut our enemies in the ivy and the trees. But what can we do ? We make nets to cover our sprouting vegetables and ripening fruit, and that is ail we can do. But about the accidents. The worst are from prowling cats. The ladies of the Four Acres lost eight chickens by cats in one night, and we have lost eight chickens by cats in one day. Such a thing as the destruc- tion of poultry by the neighbors’ cats ought never to happen when it is once known how easy prevention is. We educate our own cat, and that at the cottage; and if the neighbors would do the same, there would be an end everywhere to the loss and discontent and ill-will which arise from this cause. When a cat is seen to catch a chicken, tie it round her neck, and make her wear it for two or three days. Fasten it securely ; for she will make incredible efforts to get rid of it. Be firm for that time, and the cat is cured. She will never again desire to touch a bird. This is what we do with our own cats, and what we recommend to our neighbors ; and when they try the experiment, they and their pets are secure from reproach and danger henceforth. Wild, homeless, hungry, ragged, savage cats are more difficult to catch; but they are out- laws, and may be shot with the certainty that all neighbors will be thankful. My entire poultry-yard, except a few of the old hens on the perches, was in danger of destruction by an accident THE POULTRY-YARD . 43 one summer night, and was saved by what I cannot but consider a remarkable exercise of energy on the part of my companion, M . Few persons in the north of England will ever forget the thunder-storm on the night of the 24th of July, 1857. At 11 p. m., the rain came down in one sheet, instantly flooding the level ground to the depth of more than a foot, and the continuous thunder seemed to crack on one’s very skull, w T hile the blue lightning never intermitted for two seconds for above an hour. The heat was almost intolerable. Our maids, however, who keep very early hours, were sleeping through it all, when M escorted me (very feeble from illness) up stairs, settled me with my book in my easy chair, and bade me Good-night. Presently I drew up a window-blind, to see the light- ning better from my seat. In the midst of its blue blazes there was, more than once, a yellow flicker on the win- dow-frame which I could not understand. I went to look out, and saw a yellow light whisking about far below, sometimes in the quarry, and then mounting or descending the terrace steps. It was M , saving the fowls. She would not allow the maids, who were stir- ring enough now, to go out straight from their beds into the storm ; and she knew it was useless to call the man from the cottage, who was a mere encumbrance on critical occasions. In fact, he and his wife were at that moment entirely persuaded that the end of the world was come. It was no form of speech, but their real convic- tion ; and it could not have been asked of them to care about ducks and chickens. The maids were lighting a 44 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES. fire in the back kitchen, and strewing the floor with straw, while M was out in dress which could not be spoiled, lantern, basket, and apron. Some of the hens and chickens were too cramped to move, sitting in the water. Some were taking refuge in the shrubs. Two ducklings were dead, and two more died afterwards. M went again and again, and to both the poultry-yards, and brought up forty fowls, — all that were in danger, every one of which would have been dead before morning. Of course she had not a dry thread about her, nor a dry hair on her head; but the wetting was a trifle in com- parison with the bewildering, effect of the thunder and lightning in such a midnight. She did not suffer for it more or less, and our poultry-yard was saved. The poor fowls were dried and rubbed, and made comfortable on their straw. A few were delicate for a little while, but only five died in all. It was not the pecuniary loss which M dreaded, but the destruction of her whole school of dependents, and the total discouragement which must have followed such a catastrophe. If the deluge had destroyed the colony that night, we should have had no more to tell of our poultry-yard. As it is, we have con- templated the proceedings of our hens and broods ever since with a stronger interest than ever before. When a neighbor here and there said, U I would have let all the fowls of the air perish before I would have gone out on such a night,” we think these friends of ours have yet to learn the pleasure and true interest of a rural charge, like that of a poultry-yard. This is an impression often renewed in regard, not THE POULTRY-YARD. 45 only to the poultry-yard, but to all the interests involved in a genuine country life. The ladies of the Four-Acre Farm tell us of a visitor of theirs who could not conceive that women who can make butter could care for books. She wondered at their subscribing to Mudie’s. This is, to be sure, the very w^orst piece of ignorance of country life and its influences that I ever read of; but it is only an exaggeration of a sentiment very common in both town and country. Some country as well as town gentry may say to us miniature farmers, “What is the use of so much doing for so little profit? A few shillings, or a few pounds, or a certain degree of domestic comfort and luxury, — this is all ; and is it worth while ?” “No, this is not all,” we reply. When we say what more there is, it will be for others to decide for them- selves whether it is worth while to use small portions of land, or to leave them undeveloped. It is a grave and yet a cheerful consideration that the maintenance of our man and his wife is absolutely created by our plan of living ; and it is worth something that the same may be said of several animals which are called into existence by it. As for ourselves and our servants, our domestic luxu- ries are the smallest benefit we derive from our out-door engagements. We should under no circumstances be an idle household. We have abundance of social duties and literary pleasures, in parlor and kitchen ; but these are promoted, and not hindered, by our out-door interests. The amount of knowledge gained by actual handling of the earth and its productions, and by personal interest in the economy of agriculture, even on the smallest scale, 46 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES . is greater than any inconsiderate person would suppose; and the exercise of a whole range of faculties on practical objects, which have no sordidness in them, is a valuable and most agreeable method of adult education. Whoever grows any thing feels a new interest in every thing that grows , and, as to the mood of mind in which the occupation is pursued, it is, to town-bred women, singularly elevating and refining. To have been reared in a farm-house, remote from society and books, and ignorant of every thing beyond the bounds of the parish, is one thing ; and to pass from an indolent or a literary life in town to rural pursuits, adopted with a purpose, is another. In the first case, the state of mind may be narrow, dull, and coarse ; in the latter, it should naturally be expansive, cheery, and elevated. The genuine poetry of man and nature invests an intellectual and active life in the open universe of rural scenery. If list- less young ladies from any town in England could witness the way in which hours slip by in tending the garden, and consulting about the crops, and gathering fruit and flowers, they would think there must be something in it more than they understand. If they would but try their hand at making a batch of butter, or condescend to gather eggs, and court acquaintance with hens and their broods, or assume the charge of a single nest from the hen taking her seat to the maturity of the brood, they would find that life has pleasures for them that they knew not of, — pleasures that have as much “ romance” and u poetry” about them as any book in Mudie’s library. “ But the time !” say some. “ How can you spare the THE POULTRY-YARD. 47 time?” Well! what is it? People must have bodily exercise, in town or country, or they cannot live in health, if they can live at all. Why should country-folk have nothing better than the constitutional walk which is the duty and pleasure of townsfolk? Sometimes there is not half an hour’s occupation in the field or garden in the day ; and then is the occasion for an extended^ ramble over the hills. On other days, two, three, four hours slip away, and the morning is gone unawares : and why not ? The things done are useful ; the exercise is healthful and exhilarating — in every way at least as good as a walk for health’s sake; and there is the rest of the day for books, pen, and needle. The fact is, the out-door amusements leave abundance of time, and ever-renewed energy for the life of books, the pen, and domestic and social offices of duty and love. Let those ladies whose lot it is to live in the country consider whether they shall lead a town or a country life there. A town life in the country is perhaps the lowest of all. It is having eyes which see not — ears which hear not — -and minds which do not understand. A lady who had lived from early childhood in a country house politely looked into my poultry-yard when it was new, and ran after me with a warm compliment. “ What a beautiful hen you have there ; — what beau- ful long feathers in its tail !” “ Why, S ,” said I, “that is the cock !” “ O — oh — oh !” said she, “ I did not know.” Mr. Howitt tells us somewhere of a guest of his who, seeing a goose and her fourteen goslings on a common, 48 OUR FARM OF TWO ACRES . thought it must be very exhausting to the bird to suckle so many young ones. To women who do not know a cock from a hen, or green crops from white, or fruit-trees from forest-trees, or how to produce herb, flower, root, or fruit from the soil, it would be new life to turn up the ground which lies about them. Miniature farming would, in that very common case, not only create the material subsistence of the servants employed, but develop the mind and heart of the employer. This, and not the money made, is the true consideration when the ques- tion arises, — What shall a woman do with two or four acres ? THE END. ♦ BUNCE & HUNTINGTON, PUBLISHERS, NO. 540, BROADWAY, NEW YORK, j j Messrs. Bunce & Huntington have in preparation new editions of those elegant books (recently issued by Mr. James G. Gregory), known as the u Golden Leaves Series.” I. GOLDEN LEAVES FROM THE AMERICAN POETS. Collected by John W. S. Hows. II. GOLDEN LEAVES FROM THE BRITISH POETS. In elegant uniform volumes, printed on toned paper, and bound in green vellum cloth, bevelled boards, gilt top. i6mo, 560 pp. Price, $2.50 each. These two volumes combined, afford, it is believed, the most complete and desira- ble selection of British and American poetry that has yet been made. The extreme elegance of the volumes, in paper, printing, and binding, commend them to persons of taste and culture. The Publishers have in preparation a third volume of the series, to be en- titled GOLDEN LEAVES FROM THE DRAMATIC POETS. The selections will include the most notable passages and scenes in the poetical dramas of the principal English and American dramatists. It will be issued uniformly in style and size with the preceding volumes. Messrs. B. & H. have also in press : I. THE MECHANIC’S, MACHINIST’S, AND ENGINEER’S PRAC-“ TICAL BOOK OF REFERENCE. By Charles Haslett, Civil En- gineer. Edited by Charles W. Hackley, late Professor of Mathematics in Columbia College, N. Y. A new edition. II. PARSON AND PEOPLE ; or, Incidents in the Every-Day Life of a Clergyman. By the Rev. Edward Spooner, M. A., Vicar of Heston, Middlesex. From the Second London Edition, with a Preface by an American Clergyman. A book of rare beauty, pathos, and humor, and of uncommon interest for both clergymen and laymen. It leads the reader, alternately in smiles and in tears, through the diverse scenes of a London suburban parish, and leaves him with a mul- titude of fresh and ingenious suggestions, and a quickened zeal, for Christian labor. Contents:— A Suburban Parish— Our Institutions— Our Bagged Schools— School Chapels — The Begging Parson— Pictures— Pastoral Visits. {Ready April 1st.) i