Our blacksmith came twice a week to the village when work was still plentiful in the early days of my farming, and I was not yet the only practical farmer in the place. I need not describe the forge: it has been sung by Longfellow, made music of by Handel, and painted by Morland; everybody knows its gleaming red-hot iron, its cascades of sparks, and the melodious clank of the heavy hammer as it falls upon the impressionable metal. In all pursuits which entail the use of an open fire at night, its fascination attracts both busy and idle villagers, and more especially in winter it becomes a centre for local gossip. At that season the time-honoured gossip corner, close to the Manor gate, was deserted for the warmth and action of the forge. Blacksmiths, like other specialists, vary, and the difference may be expressed as that between the man who fits the shoe to the hoof, and the man who fits the hoof to the shoe--in other words, the workman and the sloven. Doubtless many a slum-housed artisan in the big town, driven from his country home by the flood of unfair foreign competition, looks back with longing to the bright old cottage garden of his youth and in his dreams hears the music of the forge, sees the blazing fire, and sniffs the pungency of scorching hoof. CHAPTER XIII. THE DAIRY--CATTLE--SHEEP--LAMBS--PIGS--POULTRY. "And brushing ankle-deep in flowers, We heard behind the woodbine veil The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings of the honied hours." --_In Memoriam_. My farm had the reputation of being a good cheese farm, but a bad butter farm; in spite, however, of this tradition I determined to establish a pedigree Jersey herd for butter-making. For early in my occupation I had abandoned the cheese manufacture of my predecessor and later the production of unprofitable beef. My wife attended various lectures and demonstrations and was soon able to prove that the bad character of the farm for this purpose was not justified. Within a few years she covered one wall of the dairy with prize cards won at all the leading shows, and found a ready market for the produce, chiefly by parcel post to friends. The butter, although it commanded rather a better price than ordinary quality, was considered not only by them but by the villagers more economical, as owing to its solidity and freedom from butter milk, it would keep good indefinitely, and "went much further."