Cottage Economy Part 3

But they usually take down the _lid_, and _look_ at the bread, in order to see how it is going on.

106. And what is there worthy of the name of _plague_, or _trouble_, in all this? Here is no dirt, no filth, no rubbish, no _litter_, no _slop_.

And, pray, what can be pleasanter to _behold_? Talk, indeed, of your pantomimes and gaudy shows; your processions and installations and coronations! Give me, for a beautiful sight, a neat and smart woman, heating her oven and setting in her bread! And, if the bustle does make the sign of labour glisten on her brow, where is the man that would not kiss that off, rather than lick the plaster from the cheek of a d.u.c.h.ess.

107. And what is the _result_? Why, good, wholesome food, sufficient for a considerable family for a week, prepared in three or four hours. To get this quant.i.ty of food, fit to be _eaten_, in the shape of potatoes, _how many fires_! what a was.h.i.+ng, what a boiling, what a peeling, what a slopping, and what a messing! The cottage everlastingly in a litter; the woman's hands everlastingly wet and dirty; the children grimed up to the eyes with dust fixed on by potato-starch; and ragged as colts, the poor mother's time all being devoted to the everlasting boilings of the pot!

Can any man, who knows any thing of the labourer's life, deny this? And will, then, any body, except the old shuffle-breeches band of the Quarterly Review, who have all their lives been moving from garret to garret, who have seldom seen the sun, and never the dew except in print; will any body except these men say, that the people ought to be taught to use potatoes as a _subst.i.tute for bread_?

BREWING BEER.

108. This matter has been fully treated of in the two last numbers. But several correspondents wis.h.i.+ng to fall upon some means of rendering the practice beneficial to those who are _unable to purchase_ brewing utensils, have recommended the _lending_ of them, or letting out, round a neighbourhood. Another correspondent has, therefore, pointed out to me _an Act of Parliament_ which touches upon this subject; and, indeed, what of Excise Laws and Custom Laws and Combination Laws and Libel Laws, a human being in this country scarcely knows what he dares do or what he dares say. What father, for instance, would have imagined, that, having brewing utensils, which two men carry from house to house as easily as they can a basket, _he dared not lend them to his son, living in the next street, or at the next door_? Yet such really is the law; for, according to the Act 5th of the 22 and 23 of that honest and sincere gentleman Charles II., there is a penalty of 50_l._ for lending or letting brewing utensils.

However, it has this limit; that the penalty is confined to _Cities_, _Corporate Towns_, and _Market Towns_, WHERE THERE IS A PUBLIC BREWHOUSE.

So that, in the first place, you may let, or lend, in _any_ place where there is _no public brewhouse_; and in all towns not _corporate or market_, and in all villages, hamlets, and scattered places.

109. Another thing is, can a man who has brewed beer at his own house in the country, bring that beer into town to his own house, and for the use of his family there? This has been asked of me. I cannot give a positive answer without reading about _seven large volumes in quarto of taxing laws_. The best way would be to _try it_; and, if any penalty, pay it by _subscription_, if that would not come under the law of _conspiracy_!

However, I _think_, there can be no danger here. So monstrous a thing as this can, surely, not exist. If there be such a law, it is daily violated; for nothing is more common than for country gentlemen, who have a dislike to die by poison, bringing their home-brewed beer to London.

110. Another correspondent recommends _parishes to make their own malt_.

But, surely, the landlords mean to get rid of the _malt and salt tax_!

Many dairies, I dare say, pay 50_l._ a year each in salt tax. How, then, are they to contend against Irish b.u.t.ter and Dutch b.u.t.ter and cheese? And as to the malt tax, it is a dreadful drain from the land. I have heard of labourers, living "in _unkent places_," making their _own malt_, even now!

Nothing is so easy as to make your own malt, if you were permitted. You soak the barley about three days (according to the state of the weather.) and then you put it upon stones or bricks _and keep it turned_, till the root _shoots out_; and then to know when to _stop_, and to put it to dry, take up a corn (which you will find nearly transparent) and look through the skin of it. You will see the _spear_, that is to say, the shoot that would come out of the ground, pus.h.i.+ng on towards the _point_ of the barley-corn. It starts from the bottom, where the root comes out; and it goes on towards the other end; and would, if _kept moist_, come out at that other end when the root was about an inch long. So that, when you have got the _root to start_, by soaking and turning in heap, the spear is _on its way_. If you look in through the skin, you will see it; and now observe; when the _point of the spear_ has got along as far as the _middle of the barley-corn_, you should take your barley and _dry it_. How easy would every family, and especially every farmer, do this, if it were not for the punishment attached to it! The persons in the "unkent places"

before mentioned, dry the malt in their _oven_! But let us hope that the labourer will soon be able to get malt without exposing himself to punishment as a _violater of the law_.

KEEPING COWS.

111. As to the _use_ of _milk_ and of that which proceeds from milk, in a family, very little need be said. At a certain age bread and milk are _all_ that a child wants. At a later age they furnish one meal a day for children. Milk is, at all seasons, good to _drink_. In the making of puddings, and in the making of _bread_ too, how useful is it! Let any one who has eaten none but baker's bread for a good while, taste bread home-baked, mixed with milk instead of with water; and he will find what the difference is. There is this only to be observed, that in _hot weather_, bread mixed with milk will not _keep so long_ as that mixed with water. It will of course turn _sour_ sooner.

112. Whether the milk of a cow be to be consumed by a cottage family in the shape of milk, or whether it be to be made to yield b.u.t.ter, skim-milk, and b.u.t.termilk, must depend on circ.u.mstances. A woman that has no child, or only one, would, perhaps, find it best to make _some b.u.t.ter_ at any rate. Besides, skim-milk and bread (the milk being boiled) is quite strong food enough for any children's breakfast, even when they begin to go to work; a fact which I state upon the most ample and satisfactory experience, very seldom having ever had any other sort of breakfast myself till I was more than ten years old, and I was in the fields at work full four years before that. I will here mention that it gave me singular pleasure to see a boy, just turned of _six_, helping his father to _reap_, in Suss.e.x, this last summer. He did little, to be sure; but it was _something_. His father set him into the ridge at a great distance before him; and when he came up to the place, he found a _sheaf_ cut; and, those who know what it is to reap, know how pleasant it is to find now and then a sheaf cut ready to their hand. It was no small thing to see a boy fit to be trusted with so dangerous a thing as a reap-hook in his hands, at an age when "young masters" have nursery-maids to cut their victuals for them, and to see that they do not fall out of the window, tumble down stairs, or run under carriage-wheels or horses' bellies. Was not this father discharging his duty by this boy much better than he would have been by sending him to a place called a _school_? The boy is in a school here; and an excellent school too: the school of useful labour. I must hear a great deal more than I ever have heard, to convince me, that teaching children to _read_ tends so much to their happiness, their independence of spirit, their manliness of character, as teaching them to _reap_. The creature that is in _want_ must be a _slave_; and to be habituated _to labour cheerfully_ is the only means of preventing nineteen-twentieths of mankind from being in want. I have digressed here; but observations of this sort can, in my opinion, never be too often repeated; especially at a time when all sorts of mad projects are on foot, for what is falsely called _educating_ the people, and when some would do this by a _tax_ that would compel the single man to give part of his earnings to teach the married man's children to read and write.

113. Before I quit the _uses_ to which milk may be put, let me mention, that, as mere _drink_, it is, unless perhaps in case of heavy labour, better, in my opinion, than any beer, however good. I have drinked little else for the last five years, at any time of the day. Skim-milk I mean. If you have not milk enough to wet up your bread with (for a bushel of flour requires about 16 to 18 pints,) you make up the quant.i.ty with water, of course; or, which is a very good way, with water that has been put, boiling hot, upon _bran_, and then drained off. This takes the goodness out of the bran to be sure; but _really good bread_ is a thing of so much importance, that it always ought to be the very first object in domestic economy.

114. The cases vary so much, that it is impossible to lay down rules for the application of the produce of a cow, which rules shall fit all cases.

I content myself, therefore, with what has already been said on this subject; and shall only make an observation on the _act of milking_, before I come to the chief matter; namely, the _getting of the food for the cow_. A cow should be milked _clean_. Not a drop, if it can be avoided, should be left in the udder. It has been proved that the half pint that comes out _last_ has _twelve times_, I think it is, as much b.u.t.ter in it, as the half pint that comes out _first_. I tried the milk of ten Alderney cows, and, as nearly as I, without being very nice about the matter, could ascertain, I found the difference to be about what I have stated. The udder would seem to be a sort of milk-pan in which the cream is uppermost, and, of course, comes out last, seeing that the outlet is at the bottom. But, besides this, if you do not milk clean, the cow will give less and less milk, and will become dry much sooner than she ought. The _cause_ of this I do not know, but experience has long established the fact.

115. In providing food for a cow we must look, first, at the _sort of cow_; seeing that a cow of one sort will certainly require more than twice as much food as a cow of another sort. For a cottage, a cow of the smallest sort common in England is, on every account, the best; and such a cow will not require above 70 or 80 pounds of good moist food in the twenty-four hours.

116. Now, how to raise this food on 40 rods of ground is what we want to know. It frequently happens that a labourer has _more_ than 40 rods of ground. It more frequently happens, that he has some _common_, some _lane_, some little out-let or other, for a part of the year, at least. In such cases he may make a different disposition of his ground; or may do with less than the 40 rods. I am here, for simplicity's sake, to suppose, that he have 40 rods of clear, unshaded land, besides what his house and sheds stand upon; and that he have nothing further in the way of means to keep his cow.

117. I suppose the 40 rods to be _clean_ and _unshaded_; for I am to suppose, that when a man thinks of 5 quarts _of milk a day_, on an average, all the year round, he will not suffer his ground to be enc.u.mbered by apple-trees that give him only the means of treating his children to fits of the belly-ache, or with currant and gooseberry bushes, which, though their fruit do very well to _amuse_, really give nothing worthy of the name of _food_, except to the blackbirds and thrushes. The ground is to be _clear_ of trees; and, in the spring, we will suppose it to be _clean_. Then, dig it up _deeply_, or, which is better, _trench_ it, keeping, however, the top _spit_ of the soil _at the top_. Lay it in _ridges_ in April or May about two feet apart, and made high and sharp.

When the weeds appear about three inches high, turn the ridges into the furrows (_never moving the ground but in dry weather_,) and bury all the weeds. Do this as often as the weeds get three inches high; and by the fall, you will have really clean ground, and not poor ground.

118. There is the ground then, ready. About the 26th of August, but _not earlier_, prepare a rod of your ground; and put some _manure_ in it (for _some_ you must have,) and sow one half of it with Early York Cabbage Seed, and the other half with Sugar-loaf Cabbage Seed, both of the _true_ sort, in little drills at 8 inches apart, and the seeds thin in the drill.

If the plants come up at two inches apart (and they should be thinned if thicker,) you will have a plenty. As soon as fairly out of ground, hoe the ground nicely, and pretty deeply, and again in a few days. When the plants have six leaves, which will be very soon, dig up, make fine, and manure another rod or two, and p.r.i.c.k out the plants, 4000 of each in rows at eight inches apart and three inches in the row. Hoe the ground between them often, and they will grow fast and be _straight_ and strong. I suppose that these beds for plants take 4 rods of your ground. Early in November, or, as the weather may serve, a little earlier or later, lay some manure (of which I shall say more hereafter) between the ridges, in the other 36 rods, and turn the ridges over on this manure, and then transplant your plants on the ridges at 15 inches apart. Here they will stand the winter; and you must see that the slugs do not eat them. If any plants fail, you have plenty in the bed where you p.r.i.c.k them out; for your 36 rods will not require more than 4000 plants. If the winter be very hard, and bad for plants, you cannot _cover_ 36 rods; but you may the _bed_ where the rest of your plants are. A little litter, or straw, or dead gra.s.s, or fern, laid along between the rows and the plants, not to cover the leaves, will preserve them completely. When people complain of _all_ their plants being "_cut off_," they have, in fact nothing to _complain_ of but their own extreme carelessness. If I had a gardener who complained of _all_ his plants being cut off, I should cut him off pretty quickly. If those in the 36 rods fail, or fail in part, fill up their places, later in the winter, by plants from the bed.

119. If you find the ground dry at the top during the winter, hoe it, and particularly near the plants, and rout out all slugs and insects. And when March comes, and the ground _is dry_, hoe deep and well, and earth the plants up close to the lower leaves. As soon as the plants begin to _grow_, dig the ground with a spade clean and well, and let the spade go as near to the plants as you can without actually _displacing the plants_.

Give them another digging in a month; and, if weeds come in the mean-while, _hoe_, and let not one live a week. Oh! "what a deal of _work_!" Well! but it is for _yourself_, and, besides, it is not all to be done in a day; and we shall by-and-by see what it is altogether.

120. By the first of June; I speak of the South of England, and there is also some difference in seasons and soils; but, generally speaking, by the first of June you will have _turned-in cabbages_, and soon you will have the Early Yorks _solid_. And by the first of June you may get your cow, one that is about to calve, or that has just calved, and at this time such a cow as you will want will not, thank G.o.d, cost above five pounds.

121. I shall speak of the place to keep her in, and of the manure and litter, by-and-by. At present I confine myself to her mere food. The 36 rods, if the cabbages all stood till they got _solid_, would give her food for 200 days, at 80 pounds weight per day, which is more than she would eat. But you must use some, at first, that are not solid; and, then, some of them will split before you can use them. But you will have pigs to help off with them, and to gnaw the heads of the stumps. Some of the sugar-loaves may have been planted out in the spring; and thus these 36 rods will get you along to some time in September.

122. Now mind, in March, and again in April, sow more _Early Yorks_, and get them to be fine stout plants, as you did those in the fall. Dig up the ground and manure it, and, as fast as you cut cabbages, plant cabbages; and in the same manner and with the same cultivation as before. Your last planting will be about the middle of August, with _stout plants_, and these will serve you into the month of November.

123. Now we have to provide from _December to May inclusive_; and that, too, out of this same piece of ground. In November there must be, arrived at perfection, 3000 turnip plants. These, _without the greens_, must weigh, on an average, 5 pounds, and this, at 80 pounds a day, will keep the cow 187 days; and there are but 182 days in these six months. The greens will have helped put the latest cabbages to carry you through November, and perhaps into December. But for these six months, you must _depend_ on nothing but the Swedish turnips.

124. And now, how are these to be had _upon the same ground that bears_ the cabbages? That we are now going to see. When you plant out your cabbages at the out-set, put first a row of Early Yorks, then a row of Sugar-loaves, and so on throughout the piece. Of course, as you are to use the Early Yorks first, you will cut every other row; and the Early Yorks that you are to plant in summer will go into the intervals. By-and-by the Sugar-loaves are cut away, and in their place will come Swedish turnips, you digging and manuring the ground as in the case of the cabbages: and, at last, you will find about 16 rods where you will have found it too late, and _unnecessary_ besides, to plant any second crop of cabbages.

Here the Swedish turnips will stand in rows at two feet apart, (and always a foot apart in the row,) and thus you will have three thousand turnips; and if these do not weigh five pounds each on an average, the fault must be in the _seed_ or in the management.

125. The Swedish turnips are raised in this manner. You will bear in mind the _four rods_ of ground in which you have sowed and p.r.i.c.ked out your cabbage plants. The plants that will be left there will, in April, serve you for _greens_, if you ever eat any, though bread and bacon are very good without greens, and rather better than with. At any rate, the pig, which has strong powers of digestion, will consume this herbage. In a part of these four rods you will, in March and April, as before directed, have sown and raised your Early Yorks for the summer planting. Now, in the _last week of May_, prepare a quarter of a rod of this ground, and sow it, precisely as directed for the Cabbage-seed, with Swedish turnip-seed; and sow a quarter of a rod _every three days_, till you have sowed _two rods_.

If the _fly appear_, cover the rows over in the _day-time_ with cabbage leaves, and take the leaves off at night; hoe well between the plants; and when they are safe from the fly, _thin_ them to four inches apart in the row. The two rods will give you nearly _five thousand plants_, which is 2000 more than you will want. From this bed you draw your plants to transplant in the ground where the cabbages have stood, as before directed. You should transplant none much _before_ the middle of July, and not much _later_ than the middle of August. In the two rods, whence you take your turnip plants, you may leave plants to come to perfection, at two feet distances each way; and this will give you _over and above_, 840 pounds weight of turnips. For the other two rods will be ground enough for you to sow your cabbage plants in at the end of August, as directed for last year.

126. I should now proceed to speak of the manner of harvesting, preserving, and using the crops; of the manner of feeding the cow; of the shed for her; of the managing of the manure, and several other less important things; but these, for want of room here, must be reserved for the beginning of my next Number. After, therefore, observing that the Turnip plants must be transplanted in the same way that Cabbage plants are; and that both ought to be transplanted in _dry_ weather and in ground just _fresh digged_, I shall close this Number with the notice of two points which I am most anxious to impress upon the mind of every reader.

127. The first is, whether these crops give an _ill taste_ to milk and b.u.t.ter. It is very certain, that the taste and smell of certain sorts of cattle-food will do this; for, in some parts of America, where the wild _garlick_, of which the cows are very fond, and which, like other bulbous-rooted plants, springs before the gra.s.s, not only the milk and b.u.t.ter have a strong taste of garlick, but even the _veal_, when the calves suck milk from such sources. None can be more common expressions, than, in Philadelphia market, are those of _Garlicky b.u.t.ter_ and _Garlicky Veal_, I have distinctly tasted the _Whiskey_ in milk of cows fed on distiller's wash. It is also certain, that, if the cow eat _putrid_ leaves of cabbages and turnips, the b.u.t.ter will be offensive. And the white-turnip, which is at best but a poor thing, and often half putrid, makes miserable b.u.t.ter. The large _cattle-cabbage_, which, when loaved hard, has a strong and even an offensive smell, will give a bad taste and smell to milk and b.u.t.ter, whether there be putrid leaves or not. If you boil one of these rank cabbages, the water is extremely offensive to the smell. But I state upon positive and recent experience, that Early York and Sugar-loaf Cabbages will yield as sweet milk and b.u.t.ter _as any food that can be given to a cow_. During this last summer, I have, with the exception about to be noticed, kept, from the 1st of May to the 22d of October, _five cows_ upon the gra.s.s _of two acres and a quarter of ground, the gra.s.s_ being generally _cut up for them_ and given to them in the stall. I had in the spring 5000 cabbage plants, intended for my pigs, eleven in number. But the pigs could not eat _half_ their allowance, though they were not very small when they began upon it. We were compelled to resort to the aid of the cows; and, in order to see _the effect on the milk and b.u.t.ter_, we did not _mix_ the food; but gave the cows two _distinct spells_ at the cabbages, each spell about 10 _days in duration_.

The cabbages were cut off the stump with little or no care about _dead leaves_. And sweeter, finer b.u.t.ter, b.u.t.ter of a finer colour, than these cabbages made, never was made in this world. I never had better from cows feeding in the sweetest pasture. Now, as to _Swedish turnips_, they do give a little taste, especially if boiling of the milk pans be neglected, and if the greatest care be not taken about _all_ the dairy tackle. Yet we have, for months together, had the b.u.t.ter so fine from Swedish turnips, that n.o.body could well distinguish it from gra.s.s-b.u.t.ter. But to secure this, there must be no _s.l.u.ttishness_. Churn, pans, pail, shelves, wall, floor, and all about the dairy, must be clean; and, above all things, the pans must be _boiled_. However, after all, it is not here a case of delicacy of smell so refined as to faint at any thing that meets it except the stink of perfumes. If the b.u.t.ter do taste a little of the Swedish turnip, it will do very well where there is plenty of that sweet sauce which early rising and bodily labour are ever sure to bring.

128. The _other point_ (about which I am still more anxious) is the _seed_; for if the seed be not _sound_, and especially if it be not _true to its kind_, all your labour _is in vain_. It is best, if you can do it, to get your seed from some friend, or some one that you know and can trust. If you save seed, observe all the precautions mentioned in my book on _Gardening_. This very year I have some Swedish turnips, _so called_, about 7000 in number, and should, if my seed had been _true_, have had about _twenty tons_ weight; instead of which I have about _three_! Indeed, they are not _Swedish turnips_, but a sort of mixture between that plant and _rape_. I am sure the seedsman did not wilfully deceive me. He was deceived himself. The truth is, that seedsmen are compelled to _buy_ their seeds of this plant. _Farmers_ save it; and they but too often pay very little attention to the manner of doing it. The best way is to get a dozen of fine turnip plants, perfect in all respects, and plant them in a situation where the smell of the blossoms of nothing of the cabbage or rape or turnip or even _charlock_ kind, can reach them. The seed will keep perfectly good for _four years_.

No. V

KEEPING COWS--(_continued._)

129. I have now, in the conclusion of this article, to speak of the manner of _harvesting_ and _preserving_ the _Swedes_; of the place _to keep the cow in_; of the _manure_ for the land; and of the _quant.i.ty of labour_ that the cultivation of the land and the harvesting of the crop will require.

130. _Harvesting and preserving the Swedes._ When they are ready to take up, the tops must be cut off, if not cut off before, and also the _roots_; but neither tops nor roots should be cut off _very close_. You will have room for ten bushels of the _bulbs_ in the house, or shed. Put the rest into ten-bushel heaps. Make the heap _upon_ the ground in a _round form_, and let it rise up to a point. Lay over it a little litter, straw, or dead gra.s.s, about three inches thick, and then earth upon that about six inches thick. Then cut a thin round _green turf_, about eighteen inches over, and put it upon the crown of the heap to prevent the earth from being washed off. Thus these heaps will remain till wanted for use. When given to the cow, it will be best to _wash_ the Swedes and cut each into two or three pieces with a spade or some other tool. You can take in ten bushels at a time. If you find them _sprouting_ in the spring, open the remaining heaps, and expose them to the sun and wind; and cover them again slightly with straw or litter of some sort.[6]

131. _As to the place to keep the cow in_, much will depend upon _situation_ and circ.u.mstances. I am always supposing that the cottage is a real _cottage_, and not a house in a town or village street; though, wherever there is the quarter of an acre of ground, the cow _may_ be kept.

Let me, however, suppose that which will generally happen; namely, that the cottage stands by the side of a road, or lane, and amongst fields and woods, if not on the side of a common. To pretend to tell a country labourer how to build a shed for a cow, how to stick it up against the end of his house, or to make it an independent erection; or to dwell on the materials, where poles, rods, wattles, rushes, furze, heath, and cooper-chips, are all to be gotten by him for nothing or next to nothing, would be useless; because a man who, thus situated, can be at any loss for a shed for his cow, is not only unfit to keep a cow, but unfit to keep a cat. The warmer the shed is the better it is. The floor should _slope_, but not too much. There are _stones_, of some sort or other, every-where, and about six wheel-barrow-fulls will _pave_ the shed, a thing to be by no means neglected. A broad trough, or box, fixed up at the head of the cow, is the thing to give her food in; and she should be fed three times a day, at least; always at _day-light_ and at _sun-set_. It is not _absolutely necessary_ that a cow ever quit her shed, except just at calving time, or when taken to the bull. In the former case the time is, nine times out of ten, known to within forty-eight hours. Any enclosed field or place will do for her during a day or two; and for such purpose, if there be not room at home, no man will refuse place for her in a fallow field. It will, however, be good, where there is no _common_ to turn her out upon, to have her led by a string, two or three times a week, which may be done by a child only five years old, to graze, or pick, along the sides of roads and lanes. Where there is a _common_, she will, of course, be turned out in the day time, except in very wet or severe weather; and in a case like this, a smaller quant.i.ty of ground will suffice for the keeping of her.

According to the present practice, a miserable "_tallet_" of bad hay is, in such cases, the winter provision for the cow. It can scarcely be called food; and the consequence is, the cow is both _dry_ and _lousy_ nearly half the year; instead of being dry only about fifteen days before calving, and being sleek and l.u.s.ty at the end of the winter, to which a _warm lodging_ greatly contributes. For, observe, if you keep a cow, any time between September and June, out in a field or yard, to endure the chances of the weather, she will not, though she have food precisely the same in quant.i.ty and quality, yield above _two-thirds_ as much as if she were lodged in house; and in _wet_ weather she will not yield _half_ so much. It is not so much the _cold_ as the _wet_ that is injurious to all our stock in England.

132. _The Manure._ At the _beginning_ this must be provided by collections made on the road; by the results of the residence in a cottage. Let any man clean out _every place_ about his dwelling; rake and sc.r.a.pe and sweep all into a heap; and he will find that he has a _great deal_. Earth of almost any sort that has long lain on the surface, and has been trodden on, is a species of manure. Every act that tends to neatness round a dwelling, tends to the creating of a ma.s.s of manure. And I have very seldom seen a cottage, with a plat of ground of a quarter of an acre belonging to it, round about which I could not have collected a very large heap of manure. Every thing of animal or vegetable substance that comes into a house, must _go out of it again_, in one shape or another. The very emptying of vessels of various kinds, on a heap of common earth, makes it a heap of the best of manure. Thus goes on the work of _reproduction_; and thus is verified the words of the Scripture, "_Flesh is gra.s.s_, and there is _nothing new under the sun_." Thus far as to the _outset_. When you have _got the cow_, there is no more care about manure; for, and especially if you have a _pig_ also, you must have enough annually for _an acre_ of ground. And let it be observed, that, after a time, it will be unnecessary, and would be injurious, to manure _for every crop_; for that would produce more stalk and green than substantial part; as it is well known, that wheat plants, standing in ground too full of manure, will yield very thick and long _straws_, but grains of little or no substance.

You ought to depend more on the spade and the hoe than on the dung-heap.

Nevertheless, the greatest care should be taken to preserve the manure; because you will want _straw_, unless you be by the side of a common which gives you rushes, gra.s.sy furze, or fern; and to get straw you must give a part of your dung from the cow-stall and pig-sty. The best way to preserve manure, is to have a pit of sufficient dimensions close behind the cow-shed and pig-sty, for the run from these to go into, and from which all runs of _rain water_ should be kept. Into this pit would go the emptying of the shed and of the sty, and the produce of all sweepings and cleanings round the house; and thus a large ma.s.s of manure would soon grow together. Much too large a quant.i.ty for a quarter of an acre of ground.

One good load of wheat or rye straw is all that you would want for the winter, and half of one for the summer; and you would have more than enough dung to exchange against this straw.

133. Now, as to _the quant.i.ty of labour_ that the cultivation of the land will demand in _a year_. We will suppose the whole to have _five complete diggings_, and say nothing about the little matters of sowing and planting and hoeing and harvesting, all which are a mere trifle. We are supposing the owner to be _an able labouring man_; and such a man will dig 12 rods of ground in a day. Here are 200 rods to be digged, and here are little less than 17 days of work at 12 hours in the day; or 200 _hours'_ work, to be done in the course of the long days of spring and summer, while it is light long before _six_ in the morning, and long after six at night. What _is it_, then? Is it not better than time spent in the ale-house, or in creeping about after a miserable hare? Frequently, and most frequently, there will be a _boy_, if not two, big enough to help. And (I only give this as a _hint_) I saw, on the 7th of November last (1822,) _a very pretty woman_, in the village of _Hannington, in Wilts.h.i.+re, digging_ a piece of ground and planting it with Early Cabbages, which she did as handily and as neatly as any gardener that ever I saw. The ground was _wet_, and therefore, _to avoid treading the digged ground in that state_, she had her line extended, and put in the rows as she advanced in her digging, standing _in the trench_ while she performed the act of planting, which she did with great nimbleness and precision. Nothing could be more skilfully or beautifully done. Her clothes were neat, clean, and tight about her. She had turned her handkerchief down from her neck, which, with the glow that the work had brought into her cheeks, formed an object which I do not say would have made me _actually stop my chaise_, had it not been for the occupation in which she was engaged; but, all taken together, the temptation was too strong to be resisted. But there is the _Sunday_; and I know of no law, human or divine, that forbids a labouring man to dig or plant his garden on Sunday, if the good of his family demand it; and if he cannot, without injury to that family, find other time to do it in.

Shepherds, carters, pigfeeders, drovers, coachmen, cooks, footmen, printers, and numerous others, work on the Sundays. Theirs are deemed by the law _works of necessity_. Harvesting and haymaking are allowed to be carried on on the Sunday, in certain cases; when they are always carried on by _provident farmers_. And I should be glad to know the case which is more a _case of necessity_ than that now under our view. In fact, the labouring people _do work on the Sunday_ morning in particular, all over the country, at something or other, or they are engaged in pursuits a good deal less religious than that of digging and planting. So that, as to _the 200 hours_, they are easily found, without the loss of any of the time required for constant daily labour.

134. And what a _produce_ is that of a cow! I suppose only an average of 5 _quarts of milk a day_. If made into b.u.t.ter, it will be _equal every week to two days of the man's wages_, besides the value of the skim milk: and this can hardly be of less value than another day's wages. What a thing, then, is this cow, if she earn half as much as the man! I am greatly under-rating her produce; but I wish to put all the advantages at the lowest. To be sure, there is work for the wife, or daughter, to milk and make b.u.t.ter. But the former is done at the two ends of the day, and the latter only about once in the week. And, whatever these may subtract from the _labours of the field_, which all country women ought to be engaged in whenever they conveniently can; whatever the cares created by the cow may subtract from these, is amply compensated for by the _education_ that these cares will give to the children. They will _all_ learn to milk,[7] and the girls to make b.u.t.ter. And which is a thing of the very first importance, they will all learn, from their infancy, to _set a just value upon dumb animals_, and will grow up in the _habit_ of treating them with gentleness and feeding them with care. To those who have not been brought up in the midst of rural affairs, it is hardly possible to give an adequate idea of the importance of this part of _education_. I should be very loth to intrust the care of my horses, cattle, sheep, or pigs, to any one whose father never had cow or pig of his _own_. It is a general complaint, that servants, and especially farm-servants, are not _so good as they used to be_. How should they? They were formerly the sons and daughters of _small farmers_; they are now the progeny of miserable property-less labourers. They have never seen an animal in which they had any interest. They are careless by habit. This monstrous evil has arisen from causes which I have a thousand times described; and which causes must now be speedily removed; or, they will produce a dissolution of society, and give us a _beginning afresh_.

135. The circ.u.mstances vary so much, that it is impossible to lay down precise rules suited to all cases. The cottage may be on the side of a forest or common; it may be on the side of a lane or of a great road, distant from town or village; it may be on the skirts of one of these latter: and then, again, the family may be few or great in number, the children small or big, according to all which circ.u.mstances, the extent and application of the cow-food, and also the application of the produce, will naturally be regulated. Under some circ.u.mstances, half the above crop may be enough; especially where good commons are at hand. Sometimes it may be the best way to sell the calf as soon as calved; at others, to fat it; and, at others, if you cannot sell it, which sometimes happens, to knock it on the head as soon as calved; for, where there is a family of small children, the price of a calf of two months old cannot be equal to the half of the value of the two months' milk. It is pure weakness to call it "_a pity_." It is a much greater pity to see hungry children crying for the milk that a calf is sucking to no useful purpose; and as to the cow and the calf, the one must lose her young, and the other its life, after all; and the respite only makes an addition to the sufferings of both.

136. As to the pretended _unwholesomeness_ of milk in certain cases; as to its not being adapted to _some const.i.tutions_, I do not believe one word of the matter. When we talk of the _fruits_, indeed, which were formerly the chief food of a great part of mankind, we should recollect, that those fruits grew in countries that had a _sun to ripen_ the fruits, and to put nutritious matter into them. But as to _milk_, England yields to no country upon the face of the earth. Neat cattle will touch nothing that is not wholesome in its nature; nothing that is not wholly innoxious. Out of a pail that has ever had grease in it, they will not drink a drop, though they be raging with thirst. Their very breath is fragrance. And how, then, is it possible, that unwholesomeness should distil from the udder of a cow? The milk varies, indeed, in its quality and taste according to the variations in the nature of the food; but no food will a cow touch that is any way hostile to health. Feed young puppies upon _milk from the cow_, and they will never die with that ravaging disease called "_the distemper_." In short, to suppose that milk contains any thing essentially unwholesome is monstrous. When, indeed, the appet.i.te becomes vitiated: when the organs have been long accustomed to food of a more stimulating nature; when it has been resolved to eat ragouts at dinner, and drink wine, and to swallow "a devil," and a gla.s.s of strong grog at night; then milk for breakfast may be "_heavy_" and disgusting, and the feeder may stand in need of tea or laudanum, which differ only as to degrees of strength. But, and I speak from the most ample experience, milk is not "_heavy_," and much less is it _unwholesome_, when he who uses it rises early, never swallows strong drink, and never _stuffs_ himself with flesh of any kind. Many and many a day I scarcely taste of meat, and then chiefly at _breakfast_, and that, too, at an early hour. Milk is the natural food of _young people_; if it be too rich, _skim_ it again and again till it be not too rich. This is an evil easily cured. If you have now to _begin_ with a family of children, they may not like it at first.

But _persevere_; and the parent who does not do this, having the means in his hands, shamefully neglects his duty. A son who prefers a "devil" and a gla.s.s of grog to a hunch of bread and a bowl of cold milk, I regard as a pest; and for this pest the father has to thank himself.