A fact or two may serve an American farmer as a tangible measure whereby to estimate the extent of the operations thus conducted by one man. To come up to the standard of scientific and successful agriculture in England, it is deemed requisite that a tenant farmer, on renting an occupation, should have capital sufficient to invest £10, or $50, per acre in stocking it with cattle, sheep, horses, farming implements, fertilisers, etc. Mr. Jonas, beyond a doubt, invests capital after this ratio upon the estate he tills. If so, then the total amount appropriated to the land which he rents cannot be less than £30,000, or nearly $150,000. The inventory of his live stock, taken at last Michaelmas, resulted in these figures:—Sheep, £6,581; horses, £2,487; bullocks, £2,218; pigs, £452; making a grand total of £11,638. Every animal bred on the estate is fatted, but by no means with the grain and roots grown upon it. The outlay for oil-cake and corn purchased for feeding, amounts to about £4,000 per annum. Another heavy expenditure is about £1,700 yearly for artificial fertilisers, consisting of guano and blood-manure. Mr. Jonas is one of the directors of the company formed for the manufacture of the latter.
The whole income of this establishment is realised from two sources—meat and grain. And this is the distinguishing characteristic of English farming generally. Not a pound of hay, straw, or roots is sold off the estate. Indeed, this is usually prohibited by the conditions of the contract with the landlord. So completely has Mr. Jonas adhered to this rule, that he could not give me the market price of hay, straw, or turnips per ton, as he had never sold any, and was not in the habit of noticing the market quotations of those products. I was surprised at one fact which I learned in connection with his economy. He keeps about 170 bullocks; buying in October and selling in May. Now, it would occasion an American farmer some wonderment to be told that this great herd of cattle is fed and fatted almost entirely for the manure they make. It is doubtful if the difference between the cost and selling prices averages £2, or $10, per head. For instance, the bullocks bought in will average £13 or £14. A ton of linseed-cake and some meal are given to each beast before it is sent to market, costing from £10 to £12. When sold, the bullocks average £24 or £25. Thus the cake and the meal equal the whole difference between the buying and selling price, so that all the roots, chaff, and attendance go entirely to the account of manure. These three items, together with the value of pasturage for the months the cattle may lie in the fields, from October to May inclusive, could hardly amount to less than £5 per beast, which, for 170, would be £850. Then £1,700 are paid annually for guano and artificial manures. Now add the value of the wheat, oat and barley straw grown on 1,500 acres, and mostly thrown into the barn-yards, or used as bedding for the stables, and you have one great division of the fertilising department of Chrishall Grange. The amount of these three items cannot be less than £3,000. Then there is another source of fertilisation nearly as productive and valuable. Upwards of 3,000 sheep are kept on the estate, of which 1,200 are breeding ewes. These are folded, acre by acre, on turnips, cole, or trefoil, and those fattened for the market are fed with oil-cake in the field. The locusts of Egypt could not have left the earth barer of verdure than these sheep do the successive patches of roots in which they are penned for twenty-four or forty-eight hours, nor could any other process fertilise the land more thoroughly and cheaply. Then 76 horses and 200 fattening hogs add their contingent to the manurial expenditure and production of the establishment. Thus the fertilising material applied to the estate cannot amount to less than £5,000, or $24,000, per annum.
Sheep are the most facile and fertile source of nett income on the estate. Indeed, nearly all the profit on the production of meat is realised from them. Most of those I saw were Southdowns and Hampshires, pure or crossed, with here and there a Leicester. After being well fattened, they fetch in the market about double the price paid for them as stock sheep. About 2,000, thus fattened, including lambs, are sold yearly. They probably average about £2, or $10, per head; thus amounting to the nice little sum of £4,000 a year, as one of the sources of income.
Perhaps it would be easier to estimate the total expenditure than the gross income of such an establishment as that of Mr. Jonas. We have aggregated the former in a lump; assuming that the whole capital invested in rent, live stock, agricultural machinery, manures, labor of man and horse, fattening material, etc., amounts to £30,000. We may extract from this aggregate several estimated items which will indicate the extent of his operations, putting the largest expenditure at the head of the list.
Corn and oil-cake purchased for feeding £4,000
Guano and manufactured manures 1,700
Labor of 100 men and boys at the average of £20 per annum 2,000
Labor of 76 horses, including their keep, £20 per annum 1,500
Use and wear of steam-engine and agricultural machinery 500
Commutation money to men for beer 400
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£10,100
These are some of the positive annual outlays, without including rent, interest on capital invested, and other items that belong to the debit side of the ledger. The smallest on the list given I would commend to the consideration of every New England farmer who may read these pages. It is stated under the real fact. The capacity of English laborers for drinking strong beer is a wonder to the civilised world. They seem to cling to this habit as to a vital condition of their very life and being. One would be tempted to think that malt liquor was a primary and bread a secondary necessity to them; it must cost them most of the two, at any rate. And generally they are as particular about the quality as the quantity, and complain if it is not of “good body,” as well as full tale. In many cases the farmer furnishes it to them; sometimes brewing it himself, but more frequently buying it already made. Occasionally a farmer “commutes” with his men; allowing a certain sum of money weekly in lieu of beer, leaving them to buy and use it as they please. I understood that Mr. Jonas adopts the latter course, not only to save himself the trouble of furnishing and rationing such a large quantity of beer, but also to induce the habit among his men of appropriating the money he gives them instead of drink to better purposes. The sum paid to them last year was actually £452, or about $2,200! Now, it would be quite safe to say, that there is not a farm in the State of Connecticut that produces pasturage, hay, grain, and roots enough to pay this beer-bill of a single English occupation! This fact may not only serve to show the scale of magnitude which agricultural enterprise has assumed in the hands of such men as Mr. Jonas, but also to indicate to our American farmers some of the charges upon English agriculture from which they are exempt; thanks to the Maine Law, or, to a better one still, that of voluntary disuse of strong drink on our farms. I do not believe that 100 laboring men and boys could be found on one establishment in Great Britain more temperate, intelligent, industrious, and moral than the set employed by Mr. Jonas. Still, notice the tax levied upon his land by this beer-impost. It amounted last year to three English shillings, or seventy-two cents, on every acre of the five consolidated farms, including all the space occupied by hedges, copses, buildings, etc. Suppose a Maine farmer were obliged, by an inexorable law of custom, to pay a beer-tax of seventy-two cents per acre on his estate of 150 acres, or $108, annually, would he not be glad to “commute” with his hired men, by leaving them in possession of his holding and migrating to some distant section of the country where such a custom did not exist?
The gross income of this great holding it would be more difficult to estimate. But no one can doubt the yearly issues of Mr. Jonas’ balance-sheet, when he has been able to expand his operations gradually to their present magnitude from the capital and experience acquired by successful farming. Perhaps the principal sources of revenue would approximate to the following figures:—
2,000 fat sheep and lambs at £2 £4,000
150 fat bullocks at £25 3,750
200 fat pigs = 40,000 lbs., at 4d 666
22,500 bushels of wheat, at 6s 6,750
9,375 bushels of oats, at 2s 937
7,500 bushels of barley, at 3s 1,125
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Total of these estimated items £17,228
This, of course, is a mere estimate of the principal sources of income upon which Mr. Jonas depends for a satisfactory result of his balance-sheet. Each item is probably within the mark. I have put down the crop of wheat of 750 acres at the average of thirty bushels per acre, and at 6s. per bushel, which are quite moderate figures. I have assumed 375 acres each for barley and oats, estimating the former at forty bushels per acre, and the latter at fifty; then reserving half of the two crops for feeding and fatting the live stock; also all the beans, peas, and roots for the same purpose. If the estimate is too high on some items, the products sold, and not enumerated in the foregoing list, such as cole and other seeds, will rectify, perhaps, the differences, and make the general result presented closely approximate to the real fact.
As there is probably no other farm in Great Britain of the same size so well calculated to test the best agricultural science and economy of the day as the great occupation of Mr. Jonas, and as I am anxious to convey to American farmers a well-developed idea of what that science and economy are achieving in this country, I will dwell upon a few other facts connected with this establishment. The whole space of 3,000 acres is literally under cultivation, or in a sense which we in New England do not generally give to that term—that is, there is not, I believe, a single acre of permanent meadow in the whole territory. All the vast amount of hay consumed, and all the pasture grasses have virtually to be grown like grain. There is so much ploughing and sowing involved in the production of these grass crops, that they are called “seeds.” Thus, by this four-course system, every field passes almost annually under a different cropping, and is mowed two or three times in ten years. This fact, in itself, will not only suggest the immense amount of labor applied, but also the quality and condition of 3,000 acres of land that can be surfaced to the scythe in this manner.