The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-12-16
An English Farmer OF the Olden Times.

An article from Round About a
Great Estate" by Richard Jeffries, says:
The house was small, for in those
DAYS farmers did not look to live in vii
las, and till within the last few years
even the parlor floor was of stone flags.
BUSHES used to be strewn in the halls
of palaces in ancient times, and seventy
years ago old Jonathan grew his own
carpets. The softest and best of the
bean straw grown on the farm was Sc
lected and scattered on the floor of the
sitting-room as warm and dry to the
feet, and that was all the carpet in the
house. Just before strengthening time,
too, Jonathan used to have the nettles
cut that fiourished round the back of
the sheds, and strewn on the floor of the
barn. The nettles shriveled up dry
and the wool did not stick to them, but
could be gathered easily. With his own
hands he would carry out quart of
beans to the pigs-just a quart at a
time and no more, that they might eat
every one, and that none might be
wasted. So, too, he would carry them
a few acorns in his coat pocket and
watch the relish with which the swine
devoured their favorite food. He saved
every bit of crooked wood that was about
the place; for at that date iron was eX-
pensive, and wood that had grown
crooked and was therefore strong as
well as curved, was useful for hundred
purposes. Fastened to a wall, for in
stance, it did for hook upon which to
hang things. If an apple tree died in
To- cd 80 60. zn,-N
of pillow and saved till wanted.
Jonathan's hard head withstood even
the whirl of the days when corn was at
famine prices. But these careful econ
Omies, this continual saving, put more
money in his purse than all that sudden
flush of prosperity. Every groat thus
saved was as a nail driven into an oak,
fixed and stable, becoming firmer as
time went on. How strangely different
the farmers of to-day with a score of
machines and appliances, with extensive
feeding stuffs, with well furnished villas!
Each one of Jonathan's beans in his
quart mug, each one of the acorns in
his pocket, became guinea.
Jonathan's hat was made to measure
on his own special block by the halter
in Overboro' town, and it was so hard
and stout that he could sit upon it with
out injury. His top-boots always hung
near the fireplace, that they might not
get mouldy; and he rode into market
upon his ''short-tail horse" as he called
his crop-tail nag. A farmer was nothing
thought of unless he wore top-boots,
which seemed a distinguishing mark,
as it were, of the equestrian order of
agriculture. But his shoes were made
straight; not as now, one to each foot
a right and a left-but each exactly
alike; and he changed his shoes every
morning, wearing one on one foot one
day and on the other the next, that they
might not get wore to either foot in
particular. Shoes lasted great length
of time in those days, the leather being
all tanned with oak bark only, and
thoroughly seasoned before it was cut
up. There is even a story of farmer
who wore his best shoes every Sunday
for seven years in Sundays fifty years
and when he died had them buried
with him, still far from worn out.
At that date folks had no banking &C
counts, but kept their coin in strong
chest under the bed, sometimes hiding
it in strange places. Jonathan was once
visiting friend and after they had hob
nobbed while the old fellow took him,
with many precautions that they should
not be observed. into the pigsty, and
showed him fifty guineas hid in the
thatch. This was by no means all his
property, but the old fellow said, with
a wink, that he liked to have little
hoard of his own that his wife knew
nothing about.