Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-03-06

nedfQ were the lowing OF kline and The
beating of sheep. Since then all my
life has been more or less connected
with the SOIL
And not with the sell of England
alone. be it noted. Rider Haggard has
been a lifelong student OF the farm
ing methods Of the civilized world
Holland. France, Norway and Italy, in
Europe: Cyprus and Syria on the
Mediterranean; Egypt and the South
ern States and Territories in Africa,
and Iceland in the Northern seas-all
these have come in tor his careful con-
s'dera ton. and he has studied at first
Rand their soils. their climates and the
ways of their husbai.dmen.
Nor is his knowledge purely the
knowledge of the theorist. Says he:
l nave owned and own land: have in
Natal worked with my own hands on
the land; have hired and hire land. and
FOR the last thirteen years or so. have
been myself q practical farmer of a
considerable acreage in England. as
was once abroad
peep into "A Farmers Year" in
troduced us most agreeably to Henry
Rider Haggard, country squire: for
that charming rural diary embodies
both the poetry and the prose of the
farmers life. Between dissertations on
hush-drainins. rick building. and the
docking of lambs tails. lamentS over
the low price of butter aud the de-
PRAYED nature of the burdock. and dis
cuSsion of rents and rates, the novelist
sandwiches i'm charming sketches of
I'll
hits of nature lore, and numerous stu
dies of teh animal lite of the farm. His
sympathetic portrayal of Martha and
Jane. Il brace of lumpish toads which
policed his greenhouse, deserves to be
ranked high among pen pictures of an
imalS.
But ii is not because Mr.. Haggard is
Il nature student. IL bit of a philosopher.
and IA practical agriculturist, that he
enliSts our interest today. 1t is be-
cause-to pervert a Bible phrase-he is
u farmer of men. Poor Hodge, his
prospects. his problems. his woes, lie
very near the romancer'S heart and
just now he is giving him his best
thought Naturally enough. it is the
British farmers he cares for most. To
further the interests of these. his rural
countrymen. Mr.. Haggard undertook in
1901 the heavy task of exploring Eng
land county by county, collecting
knowledge of agricultural conditions by
actual sight of the fields and by the
farmers own stories. Out of this jour-
ney came the two-volume work called
Rural England" which Mr.. Haggard
20 r1C a no CT in, he 10
Dor of his life
And a mighty labor it was. What
sound stuff the man is made of was
fairly demonstrated by that undertake
ing. Consider what it meant. 1t
meant eight months of constant travel,
i'll sickness and in health, in all wealth
ers. by rail, by horse, by motor-ca and
bicycle. or on foot. 1t meant the in
terviewing of hundreds of landowners.
Il nant farmers, agents. clergymen,
doctors small holders and laborers of
every dialect, opinion and shade of in
telligence. 1t meant dragging infOr-
nation from the unwilling lips of slow
witted, suspicious farmer-folk who
neither comprehended Mr. Haggard's
GRAND. nor believed in his disinterest-
ed motives-wtness the demand of an
old farmer to be told whether after all
the novelist's real pursuit was not ru-
raj information. but free drinks, 1t
meant the patient listening to a thou
sand tales of agricultural woe. to end
less repetition of detail out Of which at
any moment there might emerge fact
of prime importance. 1t meant the
xk-.at nj x.fx ~
sitting out of the true from the false
the weishty from the trivial.
1t is Rural England" together with
certain letters to London papers, which
establishes Mr.. Haggard's right to the
title. sociolo2ist. He found English
farming in lamentable plight. Every
where the same complaints the killing
competition of foreign food -stuffs; the
discrimination of the railroads against
the small farmer; the rush of all but
the aged and the riff-raff from the
lack of labor which makes good farm
ing impossible; the gradual going of
the land under grass and the utter de-
struction of British agriculture.
Now all this worries Mr.. Haggard.
not for the farmers sake alone, but for
Fnglands sake. He breads TO see
England abandon the growing of her
own foOd-stuffs altogether. for fear of
what might befall the island i'm case of
war. But he fears more than that a
deterioration in British stock, "Take
the people away from their natural
breeding and growing grounds there
by sapping their health and strength
i'll cities such as nature never intend
ed to become the permanent abodes of
men, and the decay of this country be-
comes only a matter of time
Because of this anxiety of his Mr..
Haggard is racking his brain for
schemes to keep on the land the chill
dren born OH it. and to take back to
the land a goodly proportion of those
strong men who have deserted it to get
bigger shilling in the dingy towns
Only too well he knows that the task
is no light one. In a country where
the young men say. 1--WE would rather
go into penal servitude than work on
the farms some mighty motive must
he supplied to tempt men back to the
fields. No smaller motive than the
"big shilling will ever do it. Mr..
Haggard is therefore agitating for con-