Grain and Chaff from an English Manor

by Arthur Herbert Savory

A branch of the Roman road, Ryknield Street, commonly called Buckle Street, leaving the former near Bidford-on-Avon and running over the Cotswolds via Weston Subedge, was known in former times as Buggilde or Buggeld Street, derived possibly from the Latin buculus, a young bullock. No doubt vast herds of cattle traversed the road from the vale to the hills, or vice versa, according to the abundance of keep and the time of year. Similar roads in Dorset and Wiltshire are still known as "ox droves," and in the former county, at least, both young heifers and bullocks are known as "bullicks."

Cattle are subject to all manner of disorders which, though puzzling to the owner to diagnose, are not as a rule beyond the skill of a good veterinary surgeon to alleviate; but there are also accidents which are much more annoying, being impossible to foresee. I had occasional losses from the latter causes: once in the night when a cow was thrown on her back into a deep brick manger; and once when a small piece of sacking, part of a decorticated cotton-cake bag, was somehow mixed in with the food, and induced internal inflammation.

It is a difficult matter for a farmer when selling fat cattle direct to the butcher, to compete with him in a correct estimate of the weight, and it is therefore advisable to sell at a price per pound of the dead weight when dressed; this, however, is not always feasible, and a very close estimate can be arrived at by measurement of the girth and length of the live animal, following rules laid down in the handbooks on the subject of fat stock. It is a mistake to suppose that the fattening of stock is a profitable undertaking per se. On all arable farms there is a certain amount of food, hay, straw, chaff, roots, etc., which must be consumed on the premises for the sake of keeping up the fertility of the land, but I believe that only under very exceptional circumstances can a shilling's-worth of food and attendance be converted into a shilling's-worth of meat, so that if in the future the price of corn is to fall back into anything approaching pre-war values, the corn crops, as well as the intermediate green crops, which are only a means for producing corn, must be discontinued, and the land will again become inferior pasture. Old-fashioned farmers recognized the absence of direct profit in the winter of fattening cattle especially on the produce of arable land, and the saying is well known that, "the man who fattens many bullocks never wants much paper on which to make his will."

There are few pleasanter sights about farm premises than to see, as the short winter day is drawing to an end, and the twilight is stealing around the ricks and buildings, a nicely sheltered yard full of contented cattle deeply bedded down in clean bright wheat straw, and settling themselves comfortably for the night; and, when one pulls the bed-clothes up to one's ears, one can go to sleep thinking happily that they too are enjoying a refreshing sleep. Cattle and sheep can stand severe cold, if they are sheltered from bitter winds and have dry quarters in which to lie; even lambs are none the worse for coming into the world in a snow-covered pasture; and an opened stable window without a draught will often cure a horse of a long-standing chronic cough. It was pitiful in the early days of the war to see the Indian troops with their mountain batteries at Ashurst, near Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, the mules up to their knees and hocks in black mud, owing to the unfortunate selection of an unsound site for the camp.

A "deadly man for ship"—one of those expressions not uncommon in Worcestershire, on the lucus a non lucendo principle—signifies a celebrated sheep breeder; the word "deadly," in this sense, is akin to the Hampshire and Dorset "terrible," or, "turrble," as a term of admiration or the appreciation of excellence; but there are occasions even in the most carefully tended flocks where accidents cannot be anticipated. Such an event occurred to a Cotswold ram, which after washing was placed in an orchard near my house to dry before shearing. The ram had an immense fleece on him, nineteen pounds as it afterwards proved, and the wool round the neck was somewhat ragged. As he lay asleep with his head turned round and muzzle pointing backwards, some little movement caused his head to become entangled in the loose wool, and he was found hanged in his own fleece.

I was watching, with my bailiff, a splendid lot of lambs fat and ready for the butcher; two of them were having a game—walking backwards from each other, and suddenly rushing together like two knights in a medieval tournament, their heads meeting with a concussion and a resounding smack—when one instantly fell to the ground with a broken neck. Had no one been present the meat would have been worthless, but my man was equal to the occasion, and, borrowing my pocket knife, produced the flow of blood necessary to render the meat fit for human food. My villagers had a feast that week, and my own table was graced by an excellent joint of real English lamb. Of course we never attempted to consume any of the meat from animals which had been killed when suffering from a doubtful complaint, though some people are by no means particular in this matter.

A doctor told me that when attending a case at a farmhouse he was invited to join the family at their midday meal, and was surprised to see a nice fore-quarter of lamb on the table. His host gave him an ample helping, and he had just made a beginning with it and the mint sauce, green peas, and new potatoes, when the founder of the feast announced by way of excusing the indulgence in such a luxury: "This un, you know was a bit casualty, so we thought it better to make sure of un." My informant told me that then and there his appetite completely failed, and, to the dismay of his host he had to relinquish his knife and fork.

It is always policy to kill a sheep to save its life, as the saying is, and the way to make the most of it is to send any fat animal, which is off its feed and looking somewhat thoughtful, to the butcher at once. He knows quite well whether the sheep is fit for food, and if he decides against it, all one expects is the value of the skin. But people are very shy of buying meat about which they have any misgiving, and my butcher once told me not to send him an "emergency sheep" in one of my own carts, but to ask him to fetch it himself: "It's like this," he explained, "when a customer comes in for a nice joint of mutton, if he is a near neighbour, he will perhaps add, 'I would rather not have a bit of the sheep that came in a day or two ago in one of Mr. S.'s carts'!"

It was always cheering in February, "fill dyke, be it black or be it white," on a dark morning, to hear the young lambs and their mothers calling to each other in the orchards, where there is some grass all the year round under the shelter of the apple trees; or when a springlike morning appears, about the time of St. Valentine's Day, and the thrushes are singing love-songs to their mates, and the first brimstone butterfly has dared to leave his winter seclusion for the fickle sunshine, to realize that Spring is coming, and the active work of the farm is about to recommence. There is a superstition that when the master sees the firstling of the flock, if its head is turned towards him, good luck for the year will follow, but it is most unlucky if its head is turned away.

After the disastrous wet season of 1879 immense losses ensued from the prevalence of the fatal liver rot; many thousands of sheep were sold at the auctions for 3s. or 4s. apiece, and sound mutton was exceedingly scarce and dear. It was represented to a very August personage, that if the people could be induced to forgo the consumption of lamb, these in due course would grow into sheep, and the price of mutton would be reduced. Accordingly an order was issued forbidding the appearance of lamb on the Court tables. It had not occurred to the proposer of this scheme that a scarcity of food for the developing lambs would result, nor was it understood that the producers of fat lambs make special cropping arrangements for their keep, with the object of clearing out their stock about Easter, in time to plough the ground, and follow the roots where the ewes and lambs have been feeding, with barley. The "classes" copied the example of the Court, as in duty bound, and the demand fell to zero. But the lambs had to be sold for the reasons mentioned, and, in the absence of the usual demand, the unfortunate producers offered them at almost any price. The miners and the pottery workers in Staffordshire were not so loyal as the "classes"; they welcomed the unusual opportunity of buying early lamb at 9d. a pound, and trains composed entirely of trucks full of lambs from the south of England to the Midlands supplied them abundantly.