Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-08-29

ERATE THEIR FARMS.
AS regards farming in England, was
astonished to find how little it has pro-
gressed in the last half century. Over the
whole country men were moving grass
with old-iashioned scythes, sometimes in
string OF dozen together, hired at so
much day land their beer" as thev were
In the olden times. Once in a while an
American moving machine would be seen
III use, and commonly ''hay tedder,"a
machine Tor scattering the hay after hhad
been moved In theswaths. This scatter
ing is all avoids@xby sour mowers, but
saves the hand-scatteAng necessary after
hand-mowing; but We found prejudice
against these tedders, t'for," said a quite
Intelligent farmer. sit shakes out the seed
and we lose that in weight when selling
The hay. The hay crop in England is
rather an Important one, as sheep and cat
Tie are OF more consequence to them than
grain. There is an immense breadth OF
country under grass, and as their sun is
mot SO warm" as ours, it takes several
days and much turning over to dry it
enough to store safely. The average
weight per acre is greater than ours.
but the extra labor they put on it brings
up the cost. The hay is mostly drawn
away from the fields in one-horse carts
the carts of the old heavy pattern, enough
Tor an ordinary horse to draw alone, lust
as we might have seen fifty years ago.
Men and women are seen everywhere at
work in the hay fields, and il did not seem
to me that there were enough of them at
it throughout the kingdom to move the
whole harvest Of our Middle States.
There are some few very large farms, OPP
Grated by very wealthy owners, where /
saw steam-ploughs, steam-threshers and
other labor-saving farm machines, but they
ae not generally diffused among tie
general cultivators. | asked farmer of
250 acres why he had not some of these
machines, and he thought his farm was
too small. He was astonished when l
told him that farmers of much less than
100 acres with US depend mainly on these
machines. Another farmer told me that
he would have long ago had some OF them,
but he was afraid the laborers would burn
down his stacks and barns if he introduced
them. The farmers are very much at the
mercy of the farm laborers; much more
SO than they are here. They hesitated to
Introduce machinery out OF sympathy with
the laborer, and now they have not anv
sympathy for him. / was ON one farm
looking about with the owner, when three
hired laborers came in half an hour after
the time agreed on for work, and the far
mer expostulated, but in quite mild terms,
thought; but as we were at tea he was
called out by the men who wanted their i'm
mediate pay. They were not going to work
for man who talked to them In that way.
Ttny were paid, and my friend declared
that he had said that "as long as he could
get one man in England to NOW he would
never have a Yankee mower about.n He
is cured now, and the mower is In his
hands. Still, the influence of good ex-
ample tells. Sir Robert Peel once told
his tenantry he would give them iron
ploughs if they would discard their old
clumsy wooden ones. He found them q
year or two after rusting in waste places.
They excused themselves: They make
the weeds grow. They went deeper than
the old ploughs, and brought up old seed
that had been waiting tor years for a
chance to grow" But was pleased to
see on a visit to Tamworth that Sir Rob-
ert's efforts had done good-tor certainly
the farming here is above the average of
English tarming-especially in the matter
OF freedom from weeds. In the matter of
leanlness-freedom from weeds-Amer-
lean farming is far ahead OF English.
Thousands OF acres are so filed by but
tercups, which no cattle will touch, that
not tenth part of the ground can be
grazed by the cattle. The yellow char
lock, sort of mustard, is so abundant
that grain fields are of such a golden yell
low with them that the luster can be seen
Tor many miles away. am sure am
not wrong in saying that one-tenth of all
the farm land OF England is given up to
weeds. la many cases where these weeds
had been cleaned from the growing grain
they had been taken out by the hand la
Dor OF women and children.
| cannot go into details in short let
ter like this; but will say decidedly that
in a few cases, not enough to be percepti-
BILE on the whole to the general looker-on,
that English farming Is u long, long, way
behind American farming. With the same
amount of land, and the same amount of
cash capital per acre, the American farm
er will produce double the result. And
say this after going to England with
contrary impression. There are great
many things we might copy from the En-
gllsh to advantage; but English beer
drinking, English railroading, and English
surely are not among them