and dairy; to which were afterwards added a
barrel on wheels to receive soap-suds and other
slops at back doors for the liquid manure pit; a
garden-engine of large powers, and a frame and
hand-glasses for the kitchen-garden. About a
third part of these implements were necessary for
the mere gardening which we attempted so unprofitably before we had a labourer on the premises.
I am not going to speak of our dairy affairs now; I will do so hereafter; but my present subject is the tillage of the soil: and I will therefore say no more here about cows than that we began with one, and finding that we could keep two for almost as little trouble as one-—the stable and the man being provided—I rented another half acre adjoining my field, at £1 15s. a-year, and kept two cows, thus securing a supply of milk for the whole year. We produce food enough for about a cow and a half, besides vegetables and fruit for the household, and find it answer to buy the requisite addition to the winter food, as I will explain at another time.
Here, then, we were at the outset, with simply our cow-stable, pig-house, and tanks, and an acre and a quarter of ground on which to work, to produce food for a cow and pig, besides household vegetables; fettered also with the necessity, that, on account of the view from the windows, at least three quarters of an acre must remain in grass, the most expensive of all conditions. We pared off the corners, and laid them into the arable part, in the first instance, so as to leave the grassy area just three quarters of an acre. To finish with the pasture first, the treatment it requires is this: Before the winter rains we give the grass a good dressing of guano every alternate year, or of bones broken, but not to powder, every third year. Early in winter the whole is strewn with manure from the tank, and a compost heap we have in a hidden corner of the new half acre. At the end of February this is raked away, and the meadow is bush-harrowed. A month later it is well rolled and weeded, if any noxious weeds, such as oxeye daisies, or bishop’s weed, are found rooted in it. If any moss appears after long rains it is treated with lime. This care is well repaid by the beauty of the surface and the value of the grass. The little spot is conspicuous for its greenness when all the rest of the valley is of a uniform hay colour; and there is no hay in the neighbourhood to compare with ours. The cows eat off the first growth in April. It is then shut up for six weeks or so for hay, and is mown towards the end of June, when it yields nearly three tons to the acre. We do not exhaust the ground by mowing it twice, but allow the cows to feed it pretty close till November. After two winters we found that the anxiety of keeping such hay stacked in a rainy climate was more than the thing was worth; and I therefore built a hay-house, and was only sorry that I had put it off so long. Knowing what the plague of rats is in such buildings, I adopted the only perfect security — that of using such materials as no vermin can penetrate. The floor was flagged as carefully as a kitchen-floor, and slate stones went deep into the ground below the flags. A few years later, when a winter inundation penetrated every place in the levels of the valley, and wetted our hay, I granted a raised wooden floor to the entreaties of our farm-man: and there our hay and straw keep perfectly well in all kinds of winters.
Hay, however, is an extravagant kind of food for cows; and ours have it only for variety, and as a resource when other things fail, and when they calve, or happen to be ill. Our main dependence is on roots and vegetables. As this was nearly a new idea in the neighbourhood, we were prodigiously ridiculed, till our success induced first respect and then imitation. It was a current maxim, that it takes three acres of land to feed a cow; and this may be very true in the hill pastures, which are mossy and untended. Our milk would cost us sixpence a quart, it was said-—we were starving our poor cow—we were petting our cow, so that she was like a spoiled child—such were the remarks till events silenced them, and people came to see how we arranged our ground, so as to get such crops out of it. We constantly gave in explanation the current rule: “the more manure, the more green crops; the more green crops, the more stock; the more stock, the more manure.” And by degrees the true principle of stall-feeding and spade-tillage became clear to all inquirers.
Our soil is light, — not very deep (lying above slaty-stone) sufficiently fertile, and easily treated, but so stony in parts as to dismay a labourer from a day or sand district. The neighbours advised my man to cover up the stones, and think no more of them: but we concluded that it would be better to make use of some of them. We dug deep where the garden paths were to be, and filled in the stones, so as to make drains of all the garden walks. Others went to mend the occupation-road which runs along the field, and through the half-acre. On the south side, and in the half-acre, there is scarcely a stone, and the tillage is perfectly easy. Our way is to dig two spits deep, straight down, manure richly, and leave abundant space between both the plants and the rows. Hence our fine roots, and our weight of produce.
I need say nothing of our garden tillage, except that, with the exception of winter potatoes, we obtain an abundant supply of vegetables for a household of four persons, and their occasional guests. All common fruits become more plentiful every year. This being understood, we are here concerned only with the food for the cows and pig. In summer, we sow cabbage-seed, — being careful about the kind, as the common cow-cabbage spoils the milk and butter. A kind between the Ham and Victoria cabbage is by the Norfolk people considered the best. The young plants are pricked out in early autumn, some hundreds per week for six weeks, to secure a succession next year. They should be eighteen inches apart, in rows a yard apart: and if they can be allowed to keep their places till they weigh ten or twelve pounds apiece, they of course afford a great bulk of food for the animals. Anywhere above four pounds is, however, worth the ground. The rows being placed so wide apart is to allow of the sowing of roots between them.
In April and May we sow turnips (Swedes especially), carrots (particularly Belgian), and mangold