Country life -- England; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
of eggs; how the milk is going on in the dairy, the cream churning, and
moulding of butter for sale. In some counties, especially in the west of
England, numerous are those homely and most useful dames that you see
mounted on their horses with nothing but a flat pad, or a stuffed sack
under them, jogging to market to dispose of the products of their dairy
and poultry yard, as fresh, hale, and independent, as their grandmothers
were. As to the farmer himself, he can hold the plough as his father did
before him. He hates your newfangled notions; he despises your
fine-fingered chaps, that are brought up at boarding-schools till they
are fit for nothing but to ride on smart whisk-tailed nags to market,
and carry a bit of a sample-bag in their pockets; and had rather, ten
times, be off to the hunt or the race-course than to market at all; or
to be running after a dog and gun, breaking down fences and trampling
over turnip and potato crops, when they ought to be watching that other
idlers did not commit such depredations. He sits with his men, and works
with his men; and, while he does as much as the best of them--follows
the plough, the harrow, or the drill, empties the manure-cart on his
fallows, loads the hay or the corn-wagon,--he many a time says to
himself that the “master’s eye does still more than his hand.” The
celebrated Mr. Robinson of Cambridge, who was fond of farming, gives in
a letter to a friend, a most striking view of the perpetual recurrence
of the little occupations which present themselves to the practical
farmer, and however apparently trivial, are really important, and full
of pleasure to those whose hearts are in such pursuit.--“Rose at three
o’clock; crawled into the library, and met one who said,--‘work while ye
have the light; the night cometh, when no man can work: my father
worketh hitherto, and I work.’ Rang the great bell, and roused the girls
to milking, went up to the farm, roused the horsekeeper, fed the horses
while he was getting up; called the boy to suckle the calves and clean
out the cow-house; lighted the pipe, walked round the garden to see what
was wanted there; went up to the paddock to see if the weaning calves
were well; went down to the ferry to see if the boy had scooped and
cleaned the boat; returned to the farm, examined the shoulders, heels,
traces, chaff and corn of eight horses going to plough, mended the
acre-staff, cut some thongs, whip-corded the plough-boys’ whips, pumped
the troughs full, saw the hogs fed, examined the swill-tubs, and then
the cellar; ordered a quarter of malt, for the hogs want grains, and the
men want beer; filled the pipe again, returned to the river, and bought
a lighter of turf for dairy fires, and another of sedge for ovens;
hunted out the wheelbarrows, and set them a trundling; returned to the
farm, called the men to breakfast, and cut the boys’ bread and cheese,
and saw the wooden bottles filled; sent one plough to the three roods,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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