Village Improvements and Farm Villages

by George E. Waring

LIFE AND WORK OF THE EASTERN FARMER.

We are all familiar with the lavish praise bestowed—especially when votes are to be secured—upon the "bone and sinew of the country;" but the farmers themselves are very far from accepting as true, even if sincere, the estimate of their qualities which the editor and the public speaker so loudly profess.

The average farmer is precisely what any other average man would be who had grown up under the same conditions. There is no mysterious charm belonging to his occupation which removes him beyond the reach of the influences by which all mankind are controlled. Coming from the same original stock and inheriting the same peculiarities of race, he is essentially the same as men in other vocations. The character of his work, the necessities of his financial condition, and the social surroundings amid which he has been reared, have had the same influence in moulding his character that similar conditions have had in moulding the characters of others.

Farming is in a certain sense the basis of all individual and national prosperity; but the case would be more fairly stated were we to say that farming happens to be the first step in an industrial process, many steps of which are alike essential to civilization. The farmer produces raw material, and without raw material the world must come to a stop; but the butcher, the baker, the spinner, the weaver, and every artisan, render as essential service in the development of this raw material into the forms demanded by modern life, as does the farmer in growing it.

As a member of the farmer class, I hasten to disclaim for it any especial consideration given it because of its contribution to the welfare of mankind. We are as useful as any other hard-working people, no more and no less. We claim no higher appreciation for muscular effort exerted in swinging the flail than for that applied to the wielding of the hammer.

The controlling motive of a farmer in performing his work and carrying on his business is the hope of material gain. He works for the money that he expects to earn, and not with any conscious reference to the service he is rendering to the world. In this capacity as a farmer he is neither a philanthropist nor a patriot, only a man of business. If we wish properly to estimate his character and his value as a factor of modern civilization, we must not be misled by sentimental considerations as to his relation with nature and his "noble" occupation.

The conditions of Eastern farming and of Eastern farm life are the true index, as they are the true cause, of the character of the Eastern farmer. These conditions are constantly varying, and their effect is always modified by individual qualities.

It may be possible to strike such an average as shall afford a tolerably good suggestion of the real character and condition of the farmer, and a hint as to his future; that is to say, certain prevalent influences tend to mark the type, and certain modifications of these influences may lead to its improvement. Any attempt to portray the class as a whole would be met by such a list of exceptions as would seriously affect the result; but the following may be considered true in a large number of cases, and applicable, with minor changes, to many more.

Let us take the case of an outlying farm in New England, of one hundred acres,—a farm that has been in cultivation from the earlier settlement of the country, and which is of the average degree of improvement, with the usual division into arable, mowing, pasture, and wood land. It lies two or three miles away from a considerable town or village, and its chief industry is the selling of milk in the town. With an allowance of two acres per cow for summer pasture, and of one and a half acres of mowing-land for winter feeding, the cows it keeps number about a dozen. For team-work on the farm and for road-work and pleasure-driving, there are kept two horses and two oxen. In addition to these there will be a greater or less amount of young stock and the usual swine and poultry, and perhaps a few sheep. The farmer himself is the chief workman on the place, and he has the regular help of a hired man or a grown son. An extra hand during the working season is usual; but in winter the farmer and his one assistant will do all of the work of feeding, milking, delivering the milk, hauling out manure, etc.

A few years ago the housework was done almost entirely by the mother of the family and her daughters, or by a girl taken to "bring up;" but latterly the more troublesome element of an Irish girl in the kitchen has become general, for the daughter of the farmer has aspirations and tastes which disqualify her for efficient household drudgery. In spite of all modern appliances, much of the work of the farmer's household must be so characterized. The life of American farm women is, however, not now under discussion: the subject is a fruitful one, and has important bearings upon the development of the race; but what we are to consider here is simply the work and condition of the farmer himself. The milk-selling farmer—and this industry is one of the most wide-spread in Eastern farming—is more regularly employed than any other. Winter and summer his cows must be milked twice a day. Evening's milk must be cooled and safely kept until morning; and morning's milk must be ready for early delivery. It is usual for the farmer to rise at three every morning, winter and summer, to milk his cows,—with one assistant,—and to start as early as five o'clock to deliver his milk. Returning about the middle of the forenoon, he is able to attend to the details of barn-work in winter and field-work in summer, until half-past two or three o'clock in the afternoon, less the brief interval needed for the consumption of food. Early in the afternoon the cows must be again milked, and the cans of milk must in summertime be set in spring water for cooling. Then comes the feeding of the stock and the greasing of axles, the mending of harness, the repairing of tools, and the thousand and one odds and ends of the farmer's irregular work. In the winter, save for the early rising and the work of cold mornings, life is by no means hurried; and after a very early supper there is often a stroll to the corner store or to a neighbor's house, for a little wholesome idleness and gossip,—the latter not invariably wholesome. At about the hour when the average reader of "The Atlantic" has finished his after-dinner cigar, all lights are extinguished, and the farm household is wrapped in heavy slumber; for such early rising as the milk-farmer is condemned to must needs trench upon the valuable evening hours for requisite rest and sleep.