The Fat of the Land Part 15

It is a pity that all overwrought people cannot have a chance to relax their nerves, and to learn the possibilities of happiness that are within them. Most of the jars and bickerings of domestic life, most of the mental and moral obliquities, depend upon threadbare nerves, either inherited or uncovered by friction incident to getting on in the world.

I never understood the comforts that follow in the wake of a quiet, unambitious life, until such a life was forced upon me. When you discover these comforts for the first time, you marvel that you have foregone them so long, and are fain to recommend them to all the world.

Polly and I had gotten on reasonably well up to this time; but before we became conscious of any change, we found ourselves drawn closer together by a mult.i.tude of small interests common to both. After twenty-five years of married life it will compensate any man to take a little time from business and worry that he may become acquainted with his wife. A few fortunate men do this early in life, and they draw compound interest on the investment; but most of us feel the cares of life so keenly that we take them home with us to show in our faces and to sit at our tables and to blight the growth of that cheerful intercourse which perpetuates love and cements friends.h.i.+p in the home as well as in the world.

There were no serious cares nowadays, and time pa.s.sed so smoothly at Four Oaks that we wondered at the picnic life that had fallen to us. The village of Exeter was alive in all things social. The city families who had farms or country places near the village were so fond of them that they rarely closed them for more than two or three months, and these months were as likely to come in summer as in winter.

Our friends the Gordons made Homestead Farm their permanent residence, though they kept open house in town. Beyond the Gordons' was the modest home of an Irish baronet, Sir Thomas O'Hara. Sir Tom was a bachelor of sixty. He had run through two fortunes (as became an Irish baronet) in the racing field and at Homburg, and as a young man he had lived ten years at Limmer's tavern in London. When not in training to ride his own steeple-chasers, he was putting up his hands against any man in England who would face him for a few friendly rounds. He was not always victorious, either in the field, before the green cloth, or in the ring; but he was always a kind-hearted gentleman who would divide his last crown with friend or foe, and who could accept a beating with grace and unruffled spirit.

He could never ride below the welter weight, and after a few years he outgrew this weight and was forced to give up the least expensive of his diversions. The green cloth now received more of his attention, and, as a matter of course, of his money. Things went badly with him, and he began to see the end of his second fortune before he called a halt. Bad times in Ireland seriously reduced his rents, and he was forced to dispose of his salable estates. Then he came to this country in the hope of recouping himself, and to get away from the fast set that surrounded him.

"I can resist anything but temptation," this warm-hearted Irishman would say; and that was the keynote of his character.

Though Sir Tom was only sixty years old, he looked seventy. He was much broken in health by gout and the fast pace of his early manhood. But his spirit was untouched by misfortune, disease, or hards.h.i.+p. His courage was as good as when he served as a subaltern of the Guards in the trenches before Sebastopol, or presented his body as a mark for the sledge-hammer blows of Tom Sayers, just for diversion. His const.i.tution must have been superb, for even in his decrepitude he was good to look upon: five feet ten, fine body, slightly given to rotundity, legs a little shrunken in the shanks, but giving unmistakable signs of what they had been ("not lost, but gone before," as he would say of them), hands and feet aristocratic in form and well cared for, and a fine head set on broad shoulders. His hair was thin, and he parted it with great exactness in the middle. His eyes were brown, large, and of exceeding softness. His nose was straight in spite of many a contusion, and his whole expression was that of a high-bred gentleman somewhat the worse for wear. Sir Tom was perfectly groomed when he came forth from his chamber, which was usually about ten in the morning.

Those of us who had access to his rooms often wondered how he ever got out of them looking so immaculate, for they were a perfectly impa.s.sable jungle to the stranger. Such a tangle of trunks, hand-bags, rug bundles, clothes, boots, pajamas, newspapers, sc.r.a.p-books, B. & S. bottles, could hardly be found anywhere else in the world. He had a fondness for newspaper clippings, and had trunks of them, sorted into bundles or pasted in sc.r.a.p-books. Old volumes of Bell's _Life_ filled more than one trunk, and on one occasion when he and I were spending a long evening together, in celebration of his recent recovery from an attack of gout, and when he had done more than usual justice to the B. & S. bottles and less than usual justice to his gout, he showed me the record of a long-gone year in which this same Bell's _Life_ called him the "first among the gentlemen riders in the United Kingdom," and proved this a.s.sertion by showing how he had won most of the great steeple-chases in England and Ireland, riding his own horses. This was the nearest approach to boasting that ever came to my knowledge in the years of our close friends.h.i.+p, and I would never have thought of it as such had I not seen that he regarded it as unwarrantable self-praise.

I have never known a more simple, kind-hearted, agreeable, and lovable gentleman than this broken-down sporting man and gambler. I loved him as a brother; and though he has pa.s.sed out of my life, I still love the memory of his genial face, his courtesy, his unselfish friends.h.i.+p, more than words can express. A tender heart and a gentle spirit found strange housing in a body given over to reckless prodigality. The combination, tempered by time and exhaustion, showed nothing that was not lovable; and it is scant praise to say that Sir Thomas was much to me.

He was just as acceptable to Polly. No woman could fail to appreciate the homage which he never failed to show to the wife and mother. Many winter evenings at Four Oaks were made brighter by his presence, and we grew to expect him at least three nights each week. His plate was placed on our round table these nights, and he rarely failed to use it; and the B. & S. bottles were near at hand, and his favorite brand of cigars within easy reach.

"I light a 'baccy' by your permission, Mrs. Williams," and a courtly bow accompanied the words.

At 9.30 William came to bring Sir Tom home. The leave-taking was always formal with Polly, but with me it was, "Ta-ta, Williams--see you later," and our guest would hobble out on his poor crippled feet, waving his hand gallantly, with a voice as cheery as a boy's.

Another family whom I wish the reader to know well is the Kyrles. For more than twenty-five years we have known no joys or sorrows which they did not feel, and no interests that touched them have failed to leave a mark on us. We could not have been more intimate or better friends had the closest blood tie united us. The acquaintance of young married couples had grown into a friends.h.i.+p that was bearing its best fruit at a time when best fruit was most appreciated. We do not consider a pleasure more than half complete until we have told it to Will and Frances Kyrle, for their delight doubles our happiness.

They were among the earliest of my patients, and they are easily first among our friends. I have watched more than a half-dozen of their children from infancy to adult life, and this alone would be a strong bond; but in addition to this is the fact that the whole family, from father to youngest child, possess in a wonderful degree that subtle sense of true camaraderie which is as rare as it is charming.

The Kyrles lived in the city, but they were foot-free, and we could count on having them often. Four Oaks was to be, if we had our way, a country home for them almost as much as for us. Indeed, one of the rooms was called the Kyrles' room, and they came to it at will. Enough about our friends. We must go back to the farm interests, which are, indeed, the only excuse for this history.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE HEADMAN'S JOB

Our life at Four Oaks began in earnest in January, 1897. Even during the winter months there was no lack of employment and interest for the Headman. I breakfasted at seven, and from that time until noon I was as busy as if I were working for $20 a month. The master's eye is worth more than his hand in a factory like mine. My men were, and are, an unusual lot,--intelligent, sober, and willing,--but they, like others, are apt to fall into routine ways, and thereby to miss points which an observing proprietor would not overlook.

The cows, for instance, were all fed the same ration. Fifteen pounds of mixed grains was none too much for the big Holstein milk-makers, who were yielding well and looking in perfect health; but the common cows were taking on too much flesh and falling off in milk. I at once changed the ration for these six cows by leaving out the corn entirely and subst.i.tuting oat straw for alfalfa in the cut feed. The change brought good results in five of the cows; the other one did not pick up in her milk, and after a reasonable trial I sold her.

The herd was doing excellently for mid-winter,--the yield amounted to a daily average of 840 pounds throughout the month, and I was able to make good my contract with the middleman. I could see breakers ahead, however, and it behooved me to make ready for them. I decided to buy ten more thoroughbreds in new milk, if I could find them. I wrote to the people from whom I had purchased the first herd, and after a little delay secured nine cows in fresh milk and about four years old. This addition came in February, and kept my milk supply above the danger point. Since then I have bought no cows. Thirty-four of these thoroughbreds are still at Four Oaks--two of them have died, and three have been sold for not keeping up to the standard--and are doing grand service. Their numbers have been reenforced by twenty of their best daughters, so there are at this writing fifty-four milch cows and five yearling heifers in the herd. Most of the calves have been disposed of as soon as weaned. I have no room for more stock on my place, and it doesn't pay to keep them to sell as cows. Four Oaks is not a breeding farm, but a factory farm, and everything has to be subordinated to the factory idea.

My thoroughbred calves have brought me an average price of $12 each at four to six weeks, sold to dairymen, and I am satisfied to do business in that way. The nine milch cows which I bought to complete the herd cost, delivered at Four Oaks, $1012.

All the grain fed to cows, horses, and hogs, and a portion of that fed to chickens, is ground fine before feeding. The grinding is done in the granary by a mill with a capacity of forty bushels an hour. We make corn meal, corn and cob meal, and oatmeal enough for a week's supply in a few hours. All hay and straw is cut fine, before being fed, by a power cutter in the forage barn, and from thence is taken by teams in box racks to the feeding rooms, where it is wetted with hot water and mixed with the ground feed for the cows and horses, and steamed or cooked with the ground feed for the hogs and hens.

Alfalfa is the only hay used for the hens, and wonderfully good it is for them. Besides feed for the hogs, we have to provide ashes, salt, and charcoal for them. These three things are kept constantly before them in narrow troughs set so near the wall that they cannot get their feet into them.

We carefully save all wood ashes for the hogs and hens, and we burn our own charcoal in a pit in the wood lot. Five cords of sound wood make an abundant supply for a year. I think this side dish constantly before swine goes a long way toward keeping them healthy. Clean pens, well-balanced and well-cooked food, pure water, and this medicine can be counted on to keep a growing and fattening herd healthy during its nine months of life.

It is claimed that it is unnatural and artificial to confine these young things within such narrow limits, and so it is; but the whole scheme is unnatural, if you please. The pig is born to die, and to die quickly, for the profit and maintenance of man. What could be more unnatural?

Would he be better reconciled to his fate after spending his nine months between field and sty? I wot not. The Chester White is an indolent fellow, and I suspect he loves his comfortable house, his cool stone porch, his back yard to dig in, his neighbors across the wire fence to gossip with, and his well-balanced, well-cooked food served under his own nose three times a day. At least he looks content in his piggery, and grows faster and puts on more flesh in his 250 days than does his neighbor of the field. If the hog's profitable life were twice or thrice as long, I would advocate a wider liberty for the early part of it; but as it doesn't pay to keep the animal after he is nine months old, the quickest way to bring him to perfection is the best. One cannot afford to graze animals of any kind when one is trying to do intensive farming.

It is indirect, it is wasteful of s.p.a.ce and energy, and it doesn't force the highest product. Grazing, as compared with soiling, may be economical of labor, but as I understand economics that is the one thing in which we do not wish to economize. The multiplication of well-paid and well-paying labor is a thing to be specially desired. If the soiling farm will keep two or three more men employed at good wages, and at the same time pay better interest than the grazing farm, it should be looked upon as much the better method. The question of furnis.h.i.+ng landscape for hogs is one that borders too closely on the aesthetic or the sentimental to gain the approval of the factory-farm man. What is true of hogs is also true of cows. They are better off under the constant care of intelligent and interested human beings than when they follow the rippling brook or wind slowly o'er the lea at their own sweet pleasure.

The truth is, the rippling brook doesn't always furnish the best water, and the lea furnishes very imperfect forage during nine months of the year. A twenty-acre lot in good gra.s.s, in which to take the air, is all that a well-regulated herd of fifty cows needs. The clean, cool, calm stable is much to their liking, and the regular diet of a first-cla.s.s cow-kitchen insures a uniform flow of milk.

What is true of hogs and cows is true also of hens. The common opinion that the farm-raised hen that has free range is healthier or happier than her sister in a well-ordered hennery is not based on facts. Freedom to forage for one's self and pick up a precarious living does not always mean health, happiness, or comfort. The strenuous life on the farm cannot compare in comfort with the quiet house and the freedom from anxiety of the well-tended hen. The vicissitudes of life are terrible for the uncooped chicken. The occupants of air, earth, and water lie in wait for it. It is fair game for the hawk and the owl; the fox, the weasel, the rat, the wood p.u.s.s.y, the cat, and the dog are its sworn enemies. The horse steps on it, the wheel crushes it; it falls into the cistern or the swill barrel; it is drenched by showers or stiffened by frosts, and, as the English say, it has a "rather indifferent time of it." If it survive the summer, and some chickens do, it will roost and s.h.i.+ver on the limb of an apple tree. Its nest will be accessible only to the mink and the rat; and, like Rachel, it will mourn for its children, which are not.

No, the well-yarded hen has by all odds the best of it. The wonder is that, with three-fourths of the poultry at large and making its own living, hens still furnish a product, in this country alone, $100,000,000 greater in value than the whole world's output of gold. Our annual production of eggs and poultry foots up to $280,000,000,--$4 apiece for every man, woman, and child,--and yet people say that hens do not pay!

Each flock of forty hens at Four Oaks has a house sixteen feet by twenty, and a run twenty feet by one hundred. I hear no complaints of close quarters or lack of freedom, but I do hear continually the song of contentment, and I see results daily that are more satisfactory than those of any oil well or mine in which I have ever been interested.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

SPRING OF '97

Sam began to make up his breeding pens in January. He selected 150 of his favorites, divided them into 10 flocks of 15, added a fine c.o.c.kerel to each pen (we do not allow c.o.c.ks or c.o.c.kerels to run with the laying hens), and then began to set the incubator house in order.

He filled the first incubator on Sat.u.r.day, January 30, and from that day until late in April he was able to start a fresh machine about every six days. Sam reports the total hatch for the year as 1917 chicks, out of which number he had, when he separated them in the early autumn, 678 pullets to put in the runs for laying hens, and 653 c.o.c.kerels to go to the fattening pens. These figures show that Sam was a first-cla.s.s chicken man.

We secured 300 tons of ice at the side of the lake for $98, having to pay a little more that year than the last, on account of the heavy fall of snow.

The wood-house was replenished, although there was still a good deal of last year's cut on hand. We did not fell any trees, for there was still a considerable quant.i.ty of dead wood on the ground which should be used first. I wanted to clear out much of the useless underbrush, but we had only time to make a beginning in this effort at forestry. We went over perhaps ten acres across the north line, removing briers and brush.

Everything that looked like a possible future tree was left. Around oak and hickory stumps we found clumps of bushes springing from living roots. These we cut away, except one or possibly two of the most thrifty. We trimmed off the lower branches of those we saved, and left them to make such trees as they could. I have been amazed to see what a growth an oak-root sprout will make after its neighbors have been cut away. There are some hundreds of these trees in the forest at Four Oaks, from five to six inches in diameter, which did not measure more than one or two inches five years ago.

As the underbrush was cleared from the wood lot, I planned to set young trees to fill vacant s.p.a.ces. The European larch was used in the first experiment. In the spring of 1897 I bought four thousand seedling larches for $80, planted them in nursery rows in the orchard, cultivated them for two years, and then transplanted them to the forest. The larch is hardy and grows rapidly; and as it is a valuable tree for many purposes, it is one of the best for forest planting. I have planted no others thus far at Four Oaks, as the four thousand from my little nursery seem to fill all unoccupied s.p.a.ces.

Fresh mulching was piled near all the young fruit trees, to be applied as soon as the frost was out of the ground. Several hundreds of loads of manure were hauled to the fields, to be spread as soon as the snow disappeared. I always return manure to the land as soon as it can be done conveniently. The manure from the hen-house was saved this year to use on the alfalfa fields, to see how well it would take the place of commercial fertilizer. I may as well give the result of the experiment now.

It was mixed with sand and applied at the rate of eight hundred pounds an acre for the spring dressing over a portion of the alfalfa, against four hundred pounds an acre of the fertilizer 3:8:8. After two years I was convinced that, when used alone, it is not of more than half the value of the fertilizer.

My present practice is to use five hundred pounds of hen manure and two hundred pounds of fertilizer on each acre for the spring dressing, and two hundred pounds an acre of the fertilizer alone after each cutting except the last. We have ten or twelve tons of hen manure each year, and it is nearly all used on the alfalfa or the timothy as spring dressing.

It costs nothing, and it takes off a considerable sum from the fertilizer account. I am not at all sure that the scientists would approve this method of using it; I can only give my experience, and say that it brings me satisfactory crops.

There was much snow in January and February, and in March much rain.

When the spring opened, therefore, the ground was full of water. This was fortunate, for April and May were unusually dry months,--only 1.16 inches of water.

The dry April brought the ploughs out early; but before we put our hands to the plough we should make a note of what the first quarter of 1897 brought into our strong box.

Sold: b.u.t.ter . . . . $842.00 Eggs . . . . 401.00 Cow . . . . 35.00 Two sows . . . 19.00 Total . . . $1297.00

Fifteen of the young sows farrowed in March, and the other 9 in April, as also did 18 old ones. The young sows gave us 147 pigs, and the old ones 161, so that the spring opened with an addition to our stock of 300 head of young swine.