Village Improvements and Farm Villages

by George E. Waring

In summer the conditions of life are immeasurably hardened. The farmer himself is necessarily absent several hours every morning with his milk-wagon; but, although he cannot lend a hand at the early field work, this work must go on with promptness, and he must arrange in advance for its proper performance. From the moment when he has finished his late breakfast until the last glimmer of twilight, he is doomed to harrowing and often anxious toil. There is no wide margin of profit that will admit of a slackening of the pace. Land must be prepared for planting; planting must be done when the condition of the ground and the state of the weather permit. Weeds grow without regard to our convenience, and they must be kept down from the first; and well on into the intervals of the hay-harvest the corn-field needs all of the cultivation that there is time for. Regularly as clock-work, in the late hours of the night and the early hours of the afternoon, the milking must be attended to; and the daily trip to town knows no exception because of heat, rain, or snow. At rigidly fixed hours this part of the work must be done; and all other hours of the growing and of the harvest seasons are almost more than filled with work of imperative need. These alone seem to make a sufficient demand on the patience and endurance of the most industrious farmer; but, aside from these, he is loaded with the endless details of an intricate business, and with the responsibility of the successful management of a capital of from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, upon the safety and the economical management of which his success entirely depends; he must avoid leakage and waste, and make every dollar paid for labor, or seed, or manure, or live stock, bring its adequate return.

Probably no occupation in the world can compare with farming in the opportunity that it offers for the losing of money. Nothing is so enticing as slate-and-pencil farming. Ten acres of land can be ploughed, manured, and planted with corn, and the crop can be well cultivated and harvested for so many dollars. Such land with such manuring and cultivation may be trusted to yield so many bushels of corn to the acre; and, after making due allowance for chance, the balance of the calculation shows a snug profit. In like manner we may figure out a corresponding return from the hay-fields, from the root-crops, from two or three acres of potatoes, and from a patch of garden-truck for which the neighboring village will furnish a good market. Then the poultry will return a profitable income in eggs and in "broilers;" and altogether it is easy for an enthusiastic person to show how interest on invested capital and good compensation for labor are to be secured in agriculture.

But when the test of practice is applied to our well-studied and proven scheme; when we see how far our allowance for "chances" has fallen below what is needed to cover the contingencies of late springs, dry summers, early frosts, grasshoppers, wire-worms, Colorado beetles, midge, weevil, pip, murrain, garget, milk-fever, potato-rot, oats-rust, winter-killing, and all the rest; when we learn the degree of vigilance needed to keep every minute of hired labor and team-work effectively employed; and when we come finally to the items of low markets and bad debts,—we shall see how far these and similar drawbacks have undone our arithmetic, and how often our well-contrived balance must be taken into the footings of the other column of figures.

The regular work of the farmer, as indicated in the foregoing sketch of his occupations, and as perceptible to the summer boarder who watches his work from the piazza, although arduous and exacting, may be quite compatible with a happy life; and, when we estimate the promise of the occupation as offering a pleasant livelihood, no able-bodied man need be deterred by it. But when we add this long list of contingencies, and consider the ceaseless anxiety that they bring, we may well hesitate before adopting such a life for ourselves or desiring it for our children. No true estimate of the developed character of the farmer can be formed without giving due value to this uncertain factor in the calculation.

Instances are hardly exceptional where a clear natural intelligence, an indomitable courage, and great industry, have turned themselves into a real source of mental and moral strength. Success achieved in spite of such drawbacks is all the sweeter and all the more inspiriting because of them. But if we take the case of the average farmer with average human weaknesses, we cannot fail to see, that, however well he may have borne up against the more obvious requirements of his work, he has been warped and cramped, and often made in many ways unlovely, by the hard and anxious toil through which his halting success has been attained.

In nearly every other occupation than farming, the hardest worker finds a daily relief from his toil, and from the suggestion of toil, in a home that is entirely apart from his industry. However arduous and anxious and long-continued the work, there comes a time when it is laid aside, and when the workman goes into a new sphere, where the atmosphere is entirely changed. His home is a place of rest and pleasure, or at least a place of change. The pen and the hammer are left in the counting-room and in the shop; and, however far the home may fall below his desires and ambition, it is at least free from the cares of the day's occupation.

The American farmer has no such relief. His house is a part of his farm; his fireside is shared by an uncongenial hired man, his family circle includes too often a vulgar and uninteresting servant; and from one year to another, his living-room being the kitchen and work-room of the busy farmhouse, he rarely knows what it is to divest himself of the surroundings of his labor and business, and to give himself over to the needed domestic enjoyment and recreation. It is this feature of his life, more than any other, which seems objectionable. If it is objectionable for him, it is infinitely more so for his wife and daughters, who, lacking the frequent visit to the town or occasional chat with strangers, and the invigorating effect of open-air work, yield all the more completely to depressing cares. They become more and more deficient in the lightness and cheerfulness and mental gayety to which in any other occupation the chief toiler of the family would look for recreation at his own fireside.

So far as interest in his business is concerned, the farmer's condition is in every way elevated when he devotes himself to some improved form of agriculture, or to some special industry which gives him better compensation for his work. This benefit by no means generally results from an attempt at "scientific" agriculture, nor is the adoption of a special industry by any means generally successful. Failure in either of these directions is disheartening and discouraging to those who are watching his example. There are many well-tried improvements upon the old methods of our fathers which are universally adopted, especially in the direction of the use of better implements and more judicious care in the application of manure. But the average agricultural newspaper, while doing great good, has naturally led enthusiastic men to see a chance for ameliorating their condition by the adoption of processes which are not suited to their circumstances, or which they themselves are not qualified to carry out. It is this that has led to the outcry—much more prevalent a generation ago than now—against "book-farming." On the whole, whatever may have been the influences of agricultural writers upon the fortunes of their early converts, they have vastly modified and improved all modern farm-work, and have greatly benefited the more recent farmer.

The conditions of the industry are hard, chiefly because the business of farming is a laborious one, and one in which an enormous population is working, with dogged industry, for a moderate reward. However enterprising and intelligent a farmer may be, when he goes to market to sell his crops he finds himself in active competition with men who are working for their bare subsistence.

Much is said about the competition of the farmers of the rich West as a serious obstacle to success at the East. This is the case only in so far as the Eastern farmer attempts to compete with the Western in the production of crops which will bear storage and long transportation. As a business proposition, it seems clear that this drawback is to be overcome only by the cultivation at the East of such products as it is not within the power of Western competition to supply, or only such as our situation and the good quality of our land will enable us to produce at low cost. Milk, fresh butter, and hay are the three most promising staples, for which so large a demand exists as to furnish employment for the whole farming population. Hay from its bulk does not bear a very long transportation. Milk will always bring a higher price when produced near to the point where it is to be consumed. Butter-making is not an especially profitable industry if we depend upon the average grocery-store demand; but it is possible for any farmer at the East, who will take the trouble to make and to retain a good reputation for his dairy, to secure a price enough higher than that of the regular market to constitute a good margin of profit.