Our host of the Four-Hundred-Acre Farm took us over his productive occupation, which was in a very high state of cultivation. The wheat was yellowing to harvest, and promised a yield of forty-two bushels to the acre. The oats were very heavy, and the root crops looked well, especially a field of mangel-wurzel. He apportions his land to different crops after this ratio:— Wheat, 120 acres; oats, 80; rye-grass and clover, 50; roots, 60. His live stock consisted of 300 sheep, 50 to 60 head of cattle, and 70 to 80 hogs. His working force was from 10 to 12 men, 14 farm horses, and 4 nags. It may interest some of my American readers to know the number, character, and cost of the implements employed by this substantial English farmer in cultivating an estate of 400 acres. I noted down the following list, when he was showing us his tool-house:—
£ $ £ $
6 Ploughs at 4 each = 20 24 = 120
6 Horse-carts, at 14 each = 70 84 = 420
1 Large Iron Roller and Gearing, 13 = 65
1 Cambridge Roller 14 = 70
1 Twelve-Coulter Drill 46 = 230
3 Harrows at 3 each = 15 9 = 45
2 Great Harrows at 3 each = 15 6 = 30
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Total cost of these Implements £196 $980
These figures will represent the working forces and implemental machinery of a well-tilled farm of 400 acres in England. They will also indicate the amount of capital required to cultivate an estate of this extent here. Let us compare it with the amount generally invested in New England for a farm of equal size. Thousands that have been under cultivation for a hundred years, may be bought for £5, or $25, per acre, including house, barn, and other buildings and appurtenances. It is a very rare thing for a man with us to buy 400 acres at once; but if he did, it would probably be on these conditions:— He would pay £400, or $2,000, down at the time of purchase, giving his notes for the remaining £1,600, or $8,000, at 6 per cent. interest payable annually, together with the yearly instalment of principal specified in each note. He would perhaps have £200, or $1,000, left of his capital for working power and agricultural implements. He would probably divide it after the following manner:—
£ £ $
2 Yokes of Oxen, at 25 = 50 = 250
1 Horse 20 = 100
2 Ox-carts, at 15 = 30 = 150
1 Waggon 20 = 100
2 Ox-sleds, at 1 = 2 = 10
2 Ox-ploughs, at 2 = 4 = 20
1 Single Horse-plough 1 = 5
2 Harrows 2 = 4 = 20
Cradles, scythes, hoes, rakes, flails, etc. 4 = 20
Fanning-mill, hay-cutter, and corn-sheller. 4 = 20
15 Cows, steers, and heifers 45 = 225
6 Shoats, or pigs, six months old 10 = 50
These figures would indicate a large operation for a practical New England farmer, who should undertake to purchase and cultivate an estate of 400 acres. Indeed, not one in a hundred buying such a large tract of land would think of purchasing all the implements on this list at once, or entirely new. One of his carts, sleds, and harrows would very probably be “second-handed,” and bought at half the price of a new one. Thus, a substantial farmer with us would think he was beginning on a very satisfactory and liberal footing, if he had £200, or $1,000, in ready money for stocking a holding of 400 acres with working cattle and implemental machinery, cows, pigs, etc. Now, compare this outlay with that of our host of the Four-Hundred-Acre Farm in Lincolnshire. We will begin with his—
£ £ $
14 Farm horses, at the low figure of 20 each = 280 = 1,400
4 Nags, or saddle and carriage horses 2O each = 8O = 400
300 Stock sheep 1 each = 300 = 1,500
7O Pigs, of different ages 2 each = 140 = 900
5O Head of cattle (cows, bullocks, etc.) 12 each = 600 = 3,000
Carts, drills, rollers, ploughs and other implements 1,000 = 5,000
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£2,400 $12,200
The average rent of such land in England must be at least £1 10s. per acre, and the tenant farmer must pay half of this out of the capital he begins with; which, on 400 acres, would amount to £300. Then, if he buys a quantity of artificial manures equal to the value of 10s. per acre, he will need to expend in this department £200. Next, if he purchases corn and oil-cake at the same ratio for his cattle and sheep as that adopted by Mr. Jonas, of Chrishall Grange, he will want £1,000 for his 60 head of cattle and 300 sheep. In addition to these items of expenditure, he must pay his men weekly; and the wages of ten, at 10s. per week, for six months, amount to £130. Add an economical allowance for family expenses for the same length of time, and for incidental outgoes, and you make up the aggregate of £4,000, which is £10 to the acre, which an English farmer needs to have and invest on entering upon the cultivation of a farm, great or small. This amount, as has been stated elsewhere, is the rule for successful agriculture in this country.
These facts will measure the difference between the amounts of capital invested in equal spaces of land in England and America. It is as ten to one, assuming a moderate average. Here, a man would need £1,500, or more than $7,000, to begin with on renting a farm of 150 acres, in order to cultivate it successfully. In New England, a man would think he began under favorable auspices if he were able to enter upon the occupancy of equal extent with £100, or about $500.
On returning from the Fens, I passed the night and most of the following day at Woodhurst, a village a few miles north of St. Ives, on the upland rising gently from the valley of the Ouse. My host here was a farmer, owning the land he tilled, cultivating it and the moral character and happiness of the little community, in which he moved as a father, with an equally generous heart and hand, and reaping a liberal reward from both departments of his labor. He took me over his fields, and showed me his crops and live stock, which were in excellent condition. Harvesting had already commenced, and the reapers were at work, men and women, cutting wheat and barley. Few of them used sickles, but a curved knife, wider than the sickle, of nearly the same shape, minus the teeth. A man generally uses two of them. With the one in his left hand he gathers in a good sweep of grain, bends it downward, and with the other strikes it close to the ground, as we cut Indian corn. With the left-hand hook and arm, he carries on the grain from the inside to the outside of the swath or “work,” making three or four strokes with the cutting knife; then, at the end, gathers it all up and lays it down in a heap for binding. This operation is called “bagging.” It does not do the work so neatly as the sickle, and is apt to pull up many stalks by the roots with the earth attaching to them, especially at the last, outside stroke.
I was struck with the economy adopted by my host in loading, carting and stacking or ricking his grain. The operation was really performed like clock-work. Two or three men were stationed at the rick to unload the carts, two in the fields to load them, and several boys to lead them back and forth to the two parties. They were all one-horse carts, and so timed that a loaded one was always at the rick and an empty one always in the field; thus keeping the men at both ends fully employed from morning until night, pitching on and pitching off; while boys, at 6d. or 8d. a day, led the horses.