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John Williams Streeter - The Fat of the Land

J >> John Williams Streeter >> The Fat of the Land



THE FAT OF THE LAND


[Illustration]




THE FAT OF THE LAND

The Story of an American Farm

BY

JOHN WILLIAMS STREETER



New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.

1904

_All rights reserved_

copyright, 1904.

by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up, electrotyped, and published February, 1904. Reprinted March,
April, May, 1904.

Norwood Press

J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.



To POLLY



CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. MY EXCUSE 3

II. THE HUNTING OF THE LAND 11

III. THE FIRST VISIT TO THE FARM 14

IV. THE HIRED MAN 25

V. BORING FOR WATER 31

VI. WE TAKE POSSESSION 36

VII. THE HORSE-AND-BUGGY MAN 45

VIII. WE PLAT THE FARM 49

IX. HOUSE-CLEANING 54

X. FENCED IN 61

XI. THE BUILDING LINE 67

XII. CARPENTERS QUIT WORK 70

XIII. PLANNING FOR THE TREES 78

XIV. PLANTING OF THE TREES 88

XV. POLLY'S JUDGMENT HALL 94

XVI. WINTER WORK 101

XVII. WHAT SHALL WE ASK OF THE HEN? 103

XVIII. WHITE WYANDOTTES 110

XIX. FRIED PORK 116

XX. A RATION FOR PRODUCT 121

XXI. THE RAZORBACK 126

XXII. THE OLD ORCHARD 135

XXIII. THE FIRST HATCH 138

XXIV. THE HOLSTEIN MILK MACHINE 144

XXV. THE DAIRYMAID 150

XXVI. LITTLE PIGS 155

XXVII. WORK ON THE HOME FORTY 158

XXVIII. DISCOUNTING THE MARKET 164

XXIX. FROM CITY TO COUNTRY 169

XXX. AUTUMN RECKONING 174

XXXI. THE CHILDREN 178

XXXII. THE HOME-COMING 183

XXXIII. CHRISTMAS EVE 189

XXXIV. CHRISTMAS 194

XXXV. WE CLOSE THE BOOKS FOR '96 199

XXXVI. OUR FRIENDS 202

XXXVII. THE HEADMAN'S JOB 210

XXXVIII. SPRING OF '97 217

XXXIX. THE YOUNG ORCHARD 225

XL. THE TIMOTHY HARVEST 230

XLI. STRIKE AT GORDON'S MINE 236

XLII. THE RIOT 250

XLIII. THE RESULT 260

XLIV. DEEP WATERS 268

XLV. DOGS AND HORSES 274

XLVI. THE SKIM-MILK TRUST 282

XLVII. NABOTH'S VINEYARD 285

XLVIII. MAIDS AND MALLARDS 294

XLIX. THE SUNKEN GARDEN 298

L. THE HEADMAN GENERALIZES 303

LI. THE GRAND-GIRLS 308

LII. THE THIRD RECKONING 313

LIII. THE MILK MACHINE 317

LIV. BACON AND EGGS 328

LV. THE OLD TIME FARM-HAND 337

LVI. THE SYNDICATE 342

LVII. THE DEATH OF SIR TOM 346

LVIII. BACTERIA 352

LIX. MATCH-MAKING 355

LX. "I TOLD YOU SO" 362

LXI. THE BELGIAN FARMER 367

LXII. HOME-COMING 375

LXIII. AN HUNDRED FOLD 378

LXIV. COMFORT ME WITH APPLES 383

LXV. THE END OF THE THIRD YEAR 388

LXVI. LOOKING BACKWARD 394

LXVII. LOOKING FORWARD 402


THE FAT OF THE LAND




CHAPTER I

MY EXCUSE


My sixtieth birthday is a thing of yesterday, and I have, therefore,
more than half descended the western slope. I have no quarrel with life
or with time, for both have been polite to me; and I wish to give an
account of the past seven years to prove the politeness of life, and to
show how time has made amends to me for the forced resignation of my
professional ambitions. For twenty-five years, up to 1895, I practised
medicine and surgery in a large city. I loved my profession beyond the
love of most men, and it loved me; at least, it gave me all that a
reasonable man could desire in the way of honors and emoluments. The
thought that I should ever drop out of this attractive, satisfying life,
never seriously occurred to me, though I was conscious of a strong and
persistent force that urged me toward the soil. By choice and by
training I was a physician, and I gloried in my work; but by instinct I
was, am, and always shall be, a farmer. All my life I have had visions
of farms with flocks and herds, but I did not expect to realize my
visions until I came on earth a second time.

I would never have given up my profession voluntarily; but when it gave
me up, I had to accept the dismissal, surrender my ambitions, and fall
back upon my primary instinct for diversion and happiness. The dismissal
came without warning, like the fall of a tree when no wind shakes the
forest, but it was imperative and peremptory. The doctors (and they were
among the best in the land) said, "No more of this kind of work for
years," and I had to accept their verdict, though I knew that "for
years" meant forever.

My disappointment lasted longer than the acute attack; but, thanks to
the cheerful spirit of my wife, by early summer of that year I was able
to face the situation with courage that grew as strength increased.
Fortunately we were well to do, and the loss of professional income was
not a serious matter. We were not rich as wealth is counted nowadays;
but we were more than comfortable for ourselves and our children, though
I should never earn another dollar. This is not the common state of the
physician, who gives more and gets less than most other men; it was
simply a happy combination of circumstances. Polly was a small heiress
when we married; I had some money from my maternal grandfather; our
income was larger than our necessities, and our investments had been
fortunate. Fate had set no wolf to howl at our door.

In June we decided to take to the woods, or rather to the country, to
see what it had in store for us. The more we thought of it, the better I
liked the plan, and Polly was no less happy over it. We talked of it
morning, noon, and night, and my half-smothered instinct grew by what it
fed on. Countless schemes at length resolved themselves into a factory
farm, which should be a source of pleasure as well as of income. It was
of all sizes, shapes, industries, and limits of expenditure, as the
hours passed and enthusiasm waxed or waned. I finally compromised on
from two hundred to three hundred acres of land, with a total
expenditure of not more than $60,000 for the building of my factory. It
was to produce butter, eggs, pork, and apples, all of best quality, and
they were to be sold at best prices. I discoursed at some length on
farms and farmers to Polly, who slept through most of the harangue. She
afterward said that she enjoyed it, but I never knew whether she
referred to my lecture or to her nap.

If farming be the art of elimination, I want it not. If the farmer and
the farmer's family must, by the nature of the occupation, be deprived
of reasonable leisure and luxury, if the conveniences and amenities must
be shorn close, if comfort must be denied and life be reduced to the
elemental necessities of food and shelter, I want it not. But I do not
believe that this is the case. The wealth of the world comes from the
land, which produces all the direct and immediate essentials for the
preservation of life and the protection of the race. When people cease
to look to the land for support, they lose their independence and fall
under the tyranny of circumstances beyond their control. They are no
longer producers, but consumers; and their prosperity is contingent upon
the prosperity and good will of other people who are more or less alien.
Only when a considerable percentage of a nation is living close to the
land can the highest type of independence and prosperity be enjoyed.
This law applies to the mass and also to the individual. The farmer, who
produces all the necessities and many of the luxuries, and whose
products are in constant demand and never out of vogue, should be
independent in mode of life and prosperous in his fortunes. If this is
not the condition of the average farmer (and I am sorry to say it is
not), the fault is to be found, not in the land, but in the man who
tills it.

Ninety-five per cent of those who engage in commercial and professional
occupations fail of large success; more than fifty per cent fail
utterly, and are doomed to miserable, dependent lives in the service of
the more fortunate. That farmers do not fail nearly so often is due to
the bounty of the land, the beneficence of Nature, and the
ever-recurring seed-time and harvest, which even the most thoughtless
cannot interrupt.

The waking dream of my life had been to own and to work land; to own it
free of debt, and to work it with the same intelligence that has made me
successful in my profession. Brains always seemed to me as necessary to
success in farming as in law, or in medicine, or in business. I always
felt that mind should control events in agriculture as in commercial
life; that listlessness, carelessness, lack of thrift and energy, and
waste, were the factors most potent in keeping the farmer poor and
unreasonably harassed by the obligations of life. The men who cultivate
the soil create incalculable wealth; by rights they should be the
nation's healthiest, happiest, most comfortable, and most independent
citizens. Their lives should be long, free from care and distress, and
no more strenuous than is wholesome. That this condition is not general
is due to the fact that the average farmer puts muscle before mind and
brawn before brains, and follows, with unthinking persistence, the crude
and careless traditions of his forefathers.

Conditions on the farm are gradually changing for the better. The
agricultural colleges, the experiment stations, the lecture courses
which are given all over the country, and the general diffusion of
agricultural and horticultural knowledge, are introducing among farming
communities a more intelligent and more liberal treatment of land. But
these changes are so slow, and there is so much to be done before even
a small percentage of our six millions of farmers begin to realize their
opportunities, that even the weakest effort in this direction may be of
use. This is my only excuse for going minutely into the details of my
experiment in the cultivation of land. The plain and circumstantial
narrative of how Four Oaks grew, in seven years, from a poor,
ill-paying, sadly neglected farm, into a beautiful home and a profitable
investment, must simply stand for what it is worth. It may give useful
hints, to be followed on a smaller or a larger scale, or it may arouse
criticisms which will work for good, both to the critic and to the
author. I do not claim experience, excepting the most limited; I do not
claim originality, except that most of this work was new to me; I do not
claim hardships or difficulties, for I had none; but I do claim that I
made good, that I arrived, that my experiment was physically and
financially a success, and, as such, I am proud of it, and wish to give
it to the world.

I was fifty-three years old when I began this experiment, and I was
obliged to do quickly whatever I intended to do. I could devote any part
of $60,000 to the experiment without inconvenience. My desire was to
test the capacity of ordinary farm land, when properly treated, to
support an average family in luxury, paying good wages to more than the
usual number of people, keeping open house for many friends, and at the
same time not depleting my bank account. I wished to experiment in
_intensive farming_, using ordinary farm land as other men might do
under similar or modified circumstances. I believed that if I fed the
land, it would feed me. My plan was to sell nothing from the farm except
finished products, such as butter, fruit, eggs, chickens, and hogs. I
believed that best results would be attained by keeping only the best
stock, and, after feeding it liberally, selling it in the most favorable
market. To live on the fat of the land was what I proposed to do; and I
ask your indulgence while I dip into the details of this seven years'
experiment.

You may say that few persons have the time, inclination, taste, or money
to carry out such an experiment; that the average farmer must make each
year pay, and that the exploiting of this matter is therefore of
interest to a very limited number. Admitting much of this, I still claim
that there is a lesson to every struggling farmer in this narrative. It
should teach the value of brain work on the farm, and the importance of
intelligent cultivation; also the advantages of good seed, good tilth,
good specimens of well-bred stock, good food, and good care. Feed the
land liberally, and it will return you much. Permit no waste in space,
product, time, tools, or strength. Do in a small way, if need be, what I
have done on a large scale, and you will quickly commence to get good
dividends. I have spent much more money than was really necessary on
the place, and in the ornamentation of Four Oaks. This, however, was
part of the experiment. I asked the land not only to supply immediate
necessities, but to minister to my every want, to gratify the eye, and
please the senses by a harmonious fusion of utility and beauty. I wanted
a fine country home and a profitable investment within the same ring
fence.

Will you follow me through the search for the land, the purchase, and
the tremendous house-cleaning of the first year? After that we will take
up the years as they come, finding something of special interest
attaching naturally to each. I shall have to deal much with figures and
statistics, in a small way, and my pages may look like a school book,
but I cannot avoid this, for in these figures and statistics lies the
practical lesson. Theory alone is of no value. Practical application of
the theory is the test. I am not imaginative. I could not write a
romance if I tried. My strength lies in special detail, and I am willing
to spend a lot of time in working out a problem. I do not claim to have
spent this time and money without making serious mistakes; I have made
many, and I am willing to admit them, as you will see in the following
pages. I do claim, however, that, in spite of mistakes, I have solved
the problem, and have proved that an intelligent farmer can live in
luxury on the fat of the land.




CHAPTER II

THE HUNTING OF THE LAND


The location of the farm for this experiment was of the utmost
importance. The land must be within reasonable distance of the city and
near a railroad, consequently within easy touch of the market; and if
possible it must be near a thriving village, to insure good train
service. As to size, I was somewhat uncertain; my minimum limit was 150
acres and 400 the maximum. The land must be fertile, or capable of being
made so.

I advertised for a farm of from two hundred to four hundred acres,
within thirty-five miles of town, and convenient to a good line of
transportation. Fifty-seven replies came, of which forty-six were
impossible, eleven worth a second reading, and five worth investigating.
My third trip carried me thirty miles southwest of the city, to a
village almost wholly made up of wealthy people who did business in
town, and who had their permanent or their summer homes in this village.
There were probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight hundred people in the
village, most of whom owned estates of from one to thirty acres,
varying in value from $10,000 to $100,000. These seemed ideal
surroundings. The farm was a trifle more than two miles from the
station, and 320 acres in extent. It lay to the west of a
north-and-south road, abutting on this road for half a mile, while on
the south it was bordered for a mile by a gravelled road, and the west
line was an ordinary country road. The lay of the land in general was a
gentle slope to the west and south from a rather high knoll, the highest
point of which was in the north half of the southeast forty. The land
stretched away to the west, gradually sloping to its lowest point, which
was about two-thirds of the distance to the western boundary. A
straggling brook at its lowest point was more or less rampant in
springtime, though during July and August it contained but little water.

Westward from the brook the land sloped gradually upward, terminating in
a forest of forty to fifty acres. This forest was in good condition. The
trees were mostly varieties of oak and hickory, with a scattering of
wild cherry, a few maples, both hard and soft, and some lindens. It was
much overgrown with underbrush, weeds, and wild flowers. The land was
generally good, especially the lower parts of it. The soil of the higher
ground was thin, but it lay on top of a friable clay which is fertile
when properly worked and enriched.

The farm belonged to an unsettled estate, and was much run down, as
little had been done to improve its fertility, and much to deplete it.
There were two sets of buildings, including a house of goodly
proportions, a cottage of no particular value, and some dilapidated
barns. The property could be bought at a bargain. It had been held at
$100 an acre; but as the estate was in process of settlement, and there
was an urgent desire to force a sale, I finally secured it for $71 per
acre. The two renters on the farm still had six months of occupancy
before their leases expired. They were willing to resign their leases if
I would pay a reasonable sum for the standing crops and their stock and
equipments.

The crops comprised about forty acres of corn, fifty acres of oats, and
five acres of potatoes. The stock was composed of two herds of cows
(seven in one and nine in the other), eleven spring calves, about forty
hogs, and the usual assortment of domestic fowls. The equipment of the
farm in machinery and tools was meagre to the last degree. I offered the
renters $700 and $600, respectively, for their leasehold and other
property. This was more than their value, but I wanted to take
possession at once.




CHAPTER III

THE FIRST VISIT TO THE FARM


It was the 8th of July, 1895, when I contracted for the farm; possession
was to be given August 1st. On July 9th, Polly and I boarded an early
train for Exeter, intending to make a day of it in every sense. We
wished to go over the property thoroughly, and to decide on a general
outline of treatment. Polly was as enthusiastic over the experiment as
I, and she is energetic, quick to see, and prompt to perform. She was to
have the planning of the home grounds--the house and the gardens; and
not only the planning, but also the full control.

A ride of forty-five minutes brought us to Exeter. The service of this
railroad, by the way, is of the best; there is hardly a half-hour in the
day when one cannot make the trip either way, and the fare is moderate:
$8.75 for twenty-five rides,--thirty-five cents a ride. We hired an open
carriage and started for the farm. The first half-mile was over a
well-kept macadam road through that part of the village which lies west
of the railway. The homes bordering this street are of fine proportions,
and beautifully kept. They are the country places of well-to-do people
who love to get away from the noise and dirt of the city. Some of them
have ten or fifteen acres of ground, but this land is for breathing
space and beauty--not for serious cultivation. Beyond these homes we
followed a well-gravelled road leading directly west. This road is
bordered by small farms, most of them given over to dairying interests.

Presently I called Polly's attention to the fact that the few apple
trees we saw were healthy and well grown, though quite independent of
the farmer's or the pruner's care. This thrifty condition of unkept
apple orchards delighted me. I intended to make apple-growing a
prominent feature in my experiment, and I reasoned that if these trees
did fairly well without cultivation or care, others would do excellently
well with both.

As we approached the second section line and climbed a rather steep
hill, we got the first glimpse of our possession. At the bottom of the
western slope of this hill we could see the crossing of the
north-and-south road, which we knew to be the east boundary of our land;
while, stretching straight away before us until lost in the distant
wood, lay the well-kept road which for a good mile was our southern
boundary. Descending the hill, we stopped at the crossing of the roads
to take in the outline of the farm from this southeast corner. The
north-and-south road ran level for 150 yards, gradually rose for the
next 250, and then continued nearly level for a mile or more. We saw
what Jane Austen calls "a happy fall of land," with a southern exposure,
which included about two-thirds of the southeast forty, and high land
beyond for the balance of this forty and the forty lying north of it.
There was an irregular fringe of forest trees on this southern slope,
especially well defined along the eastern border. I saw that Polly was
pleased with the view.

"We must enter the home lot from this level at the foot of the hill,"
said she, "wind gracefully through the timber, and come out near those
four large trees on the very highest ground. That will be effective and
easily managed, and will give me a chance at landscape gardening, which
I am just aching to try."

"All right," said I, "you shall have a free hand. Let's drive around the
boundaries of our land and behold its magnitude before we make other
plans."

We drove westward, my eyes intent upon the fields, the fences, the
crops, and everything that pertained to the place. I had waited so many
years for the sense of ownership of land that I could hardly realize
that this was not another dream from which I would soon be awakened by
something real. I noticed that the land was fairly smooth except where
it was broken by half-rotted stumps or out-cropping boulders, that the
corn looked well and the oats fair, but the pasture lands were too well
seeded to dock, milkweed, and wild mustard to be attractive, and the
fences were cheap and much broken.

The woodland near the western limit proved to be practically a virgin
forest, in which oak trees predominated. The undergrowth was dense,
except near the road; it was chiefly hazel, white thorn, dogwood, young
cherry, and second growth hickory and oak. We turned the corner and
followed the woods for half a mile to where a barbed wire fence
separated our forest from the woodland adjoining it. Coming back to the
starting-point we turned north and slowly climbed the hill to the east
of our home lot, silently developing plans. We drove the full half-mile
of our eastern boundary before turning back.

I looked with special interest at the orchard, which was on the
northeast forty. I had seen it on my first visit, but had given it
little attention, noting merely that the trees were well grown. I now
counted the rows, and found that there were twelve; the trees in each
row had originally been twenty, and as these trees were about
thirty-five feet apart, it was easy to estimate that six acres had been
given to this orchard. The vicissitudes of seventeen years had not been
without effect, and there were irregular gaps in the rows,--here a sick
tree, there a dead one. A careless estimate placed these casualties at
fifty-five or sixty, which I later found was nearly correct. This left
180 trees in fair health; and in spite of the tight sod which covered
their roots and a lamentable lack of pruning, they were well covered
with young fruit. They had been headed high in the old-fashioned way,
which made them look more like forest trees than a modern orchard. They
had done well without a husbandman; what could not others do with one?

The group of farm buildings on the north forty consisted of a one-story
cottage containing six rooms--sitting room, dining room, kitchen, and a
bedroom opening off each--with a lean-to shed in the rear, and some
woe-begone barns, sheds, and out-buildings that gave the impression of
not caring how they looked. The second group was better. It was south of
the orchard on the home forty, and quite near the road.

Why does the universal farm-house hang its gable over the public road,
without tree or shrub to cover its boldness? It would look much better,
and give greater comfort to its inmates, if it were more remote. A lawn
leading up to a house, even though not beautiful or well kept, adds
dignity and character to a place out of all proportion to its waste or
expense. I know of nothing that would add so much to the beautification
of the country-side as a building line prohibiting houses and barns
within a hundred yards of a public road. A staring, glaring farm-house,
flanked by a red barn and a pigsty, all crowding the public road as
hard as the path-master will permit, is incongruous and unsightly. With
all outdoors to choose from, why ape the crowded city streets? With much
to apologize for in barn and pigsty, why place them in the seat of
honor? Moreover, many things which take place on the farm gain
enchantment from distance. It is best to leave some scope for the
imagination of the passer-by. These and other things will change as
farmers' lives grow more gracious, and more attention is given to
beautifying country houses.

The house, whose gables looked up and down the street, was two stories
in height, twenty-five feet by forty in the main, with a one-story ell
running back. Without doubt there was a parlor, sitting room, and four
chambers in the main, with dining room and kitchen in the ell.

"That will do for the head man's house, if we put it in the right place
and fix it up," said Polly.

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