Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it Part 7

Without such a convenience a carriage must be hired every time any member of the family has occasion to go to the railway station; and besides that, it is useful for bringing home a variety of articles which in the country are frequently purchased at places five or six miles from home. Then it is a great pleasure to be able to meet your friends at the station, whenever they are kind enough to leave London for the purpose of pa.s.sing a few days with you in the country.

My sister and myself contrived to extract profit as well as pleasure from our little equipage. During the summer months we frequently drove up to London; the short journey was very pleasant, and this mode of making it possessed the great advantage of costing nothing but 63 cents for the pony, and 12 cents for turnpikes. Not that we had the temerity to drive through London. We always left the pony two miles before we reached town, with strict orders to the civil ostler to whose care we confided him to great care of him, and be sure and give him a "good feed." We then proceeded on our way in a cab, which cost us no more than we should have paid for one from the station.

Where there is a gentleman in the family, a dogcart is the most convenient vehicle which can be kept; but as that would not be suitable for a lady, we contrived to make the back seat of the carriage do duty for the well of the dog-cart, and it was astonis.h.i.+ng how many light packages we managed to "stow away" in it. I will not dilate on the pleasant drives through quiet lanes, of the delight afforded to the children when allowed to have a ride on "Bobby," nor of the great facility it gave us of being out of doors in winter, when, as was very frequently the case, the state of the roads was such as to render walking an impossibility; still, I hope I have stated sufficient to give my readers a good idea of the great pleasure they will derive from keeping a pony; and I will now, with the bills of the miller and farrier before me, proceed to show the sum for which it may be kept. Our pony cost for food, from the 4th of January to the 24th of December in the same year, $46.66. He consumed during that period five quarters of oats, at $8 the quarter, and five bushels of beans, which cost $6.66. The farrier's bill for the same time amounted to $5.91. Perhaps it will be as well to copy this account, as it will clearly show how often it is requisite to change the shoes of a horse.

Of course a great deal must depend on the quant.i.ty of work he does; ours was certainly not spared, though we do not deserve the character so usually given to ladies, of being unmerciful to horses: "running them off their legs," "thinking they can never get enough out of the poor beasts," "driving them as if they thought they could go for ever," are accusations brought against the ladies of a family where horses are kept.

The following is a copy of the bill for our pony's shoes for twelve months:--

Feb. 24. Four removes $0.33 March 22. Four shoes .75 April 20. Four removes .33 May 5. Two shoes .37 1/2 June 9. Four shoes .75 July 8. Four shoes .75 Aug. 9 Four shoes .75 Sept. 1. Four shoes .75 Oct. 11. Two shoes .37 1/2 Oct. 25. Two shoes .37 1/2 Dec. 24. Two shoes .37 1/2 $5.91

Add to this the miller's bill $46.66 $52.57

and we have the whole expense of keeping a pony for one year. "Oh!

but," some one may exclaim, "you have put down nothing for straw and hay, and horses require a great deal of both." Quite true; but then in the country, if you do not keep a horse, you must buy manure for your garden, and that will cost you quite as much as if you purchased straw; and as for the hay, did it not come off the "four-acre farm?"

It is one of the great advantages of the country that nothing is lost, and thus the straw which figures so largely in the bill of a London corn-chandler, and which, when converted into manure, is the perquisite of your groom, becomes in the country the means of rendering your garden productive.

Before I resided in the country the pony cost me more than four times the sum I have mentioned; the stable was apart from the house, and I knew nothing for months of the bills run up on his account. I had once a bill sent in for sugar! "Why, George, what can the pony want with sugar?"

"Why, ma'am, you said some time ago that the pony looked thin, so lately I have always mixed sugar with his corn; nothing fattens a horse like sugar."

Now what could I complain of? This man had been recommended to me as a "treasure," and one who would do his duty by the pony, which, I may mention, was a very beautiful one, and a great pet; so if George considered sugar good for him, what could I do but pay the bill, and say, "Let him have sugar, by all means?" Not that "Bobby" was a bit the fatter or better for having his corn sweetened. An intimate friend of mine, who always kept three or four horses, laughed outright when I told him that the pony had consumed such a quant.i.ty of sugar, and expressed his opinion that very little of that article had ever been in his manger. Under the same superintendence "Bobby" wore out four times the number of shoes; and as at that time I had to purchase hay and straw as well as corn, all on the same scale of magnitude, the expense of keeping the little carriage really did cost more than the convenience attending it was worth; and had not the pony been the gift of a beloved friend, we should have parted with it when we quitted London, as at that time we were ignorant how cheaply it could be maintained in the country. There we had a servant who was content with his wages, and did not seek to make them greater by combining with tradesmen to defraud his employers. If any of my readers commence keeping a pony in the country, they may rely that it need not cost them a penny more than I have put down. Of course they must have the hay from their own grounds, and neither reckon the cost of the straw nor the labor of the man who attends to the pony. Ours did all the "jobs" about the place--cleaned the knives and shoes, milked the cows, fed the pigs and poultry, helped in the gardens, and, in short, made himself "generally useful." Now, a servant who is able and willing to do all this, besides properly attending to a pony and carriage, is very difficult to be met with, but he is absolutely necessary for a place in the country where economy has to be studied.

Something must be allowed yearly for the wear and tear of carriage, harness, etc., but it need not be much. Any gentleman can easily calculate the sum which may fairly be allowed for these items; I only think it my part to show the expense attending a pony in the country; and though those who have been in the habit of keeping horses in London, either in a livery or private stable, may think it impossible to maintain one for $52.57 yearly, let them leave town for a four-acre farm, and they will find that I have spoken the truth on this point, as well as on all the other subjects of which I have given my experience in this little volume.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION.

It is with considerable diffidence the writer ventures to give the public this slight sketch of her experience in farming four acres of land.

When she finally resolved to fix her residence in the country, she was wholly ignorant how she ought to manage, so that the small quant.i.ty of land she rented might, if not a source of profit, be at least no loss.

She was told by a friend, who for a short time had tried "a little place" at Chiselhurst, that it was very possible to lose a considerable sum yearly by under taking to farm a very small quant.i.ty of land. "Be quite sure," said the friendly adviser--"and remember, I speak from experience--that whatever animals you may keep, the expense attending them will be treble the value of the produce you receive.

Your cows will die, or, for want of being properly looked after, will soon cease to give any milk; your pigs will cost you more for food than will buy the pork four times over; your chickens and ducks will stray away, or be stolen; your garden-produce will, if worth anything, find its way to Covent Garden; and each quarter your bills from the seedsman and miller will amount to as much as would supply you with meat, bread, milk, b.u.t.ter, eggs, and poultry, in London."

Certainly this was rather a black state of things to look forward to; but the conviction was formed, after mature reflection, that a residence some miles from town was the one best suited to the writer's family. She was compelled to acknowledge to those friends who advised her to the contrary, her ignorance on most things appertaining to the mode of life she proposed to commence, but trusted to that often-talked-of commodity, common sense, to prevent her being ruined by farming four acres of land.

She thought, if she could not herself discover how to manage, she might acquire the requisite knowledge from some of the little books she had purchased on subjects connected with "rural economy." They proved, however, quite useless. They appeared to the writer to be merely compilations from larger works; and, like the actors in the barn, who played the tragedy of "Hamlet," and omitted the character of the hero, so did these books leave out the very things which, from the t.i.tle-pages, the purchaser expected to find in them.

Some time after experience had shown how b.u.t.ter could be made successfully, a lady, who had been for years resident in the country, said, during a morning call, "My dairy-maid is gone away ill, and the cook makes the b.u.t.ter; but it is so bad we cannot eat it: and besides that nuisance, she has this morning given me notice to leave. She says she did not 'engage' to 'mess' about in the dairy."

"Well," said the writer, "why not make the b.u.t.ter yourself, till you can suit yourself with a new servant?"

"I have tried," said the visitor, "but cannot do it. My husband is very particular about the b.u.t.ter being good, so I was determined to see if I could not have some that he could eat; therefore I _pored_ over Mrs. Rundle, and other books, for a whole day, but could not find how to begin. None of them told me how to _make_ the b.u.t.ter, though several gave directions for potting it down when it was made. I made the boy churn for more than three hours yesterday morning, but got no b.u.t.ter after all. _It would not come!_ The weather was very cold, and it occurred to the listener to ask the lady _where_ the boy churned, and where the cream had been kept during the previous night.

"Why, in the dairy, to be sure," was the answer; "and my feet became so chilled by standing there, that I can hardly put them to the ground since. Cook could not succeed more than I did, and said, the last time she made it, it was between four and five hours before the b.u.t.ter came; and then, as I have told you, it was not eatable."

The writer explained to her friend that the reason why she could not get the b.u.t.ter, as well as why cook's was so bad, was on account of the low temperature of the cream when it was put into the churn. She then gave her plain directions how to proceed for the future, and was gratified by receiving a note from her friend, in a couple of days, containing her thanks for the "very plain directions;" and adding, "I could not have thought it was so little trouble to procure _good_ b.u.t.ter, and shall for the future be independent of a saucy dairymaid."

I believe that a really clever servant will never give any one particulars respecting her work. She wraps them up in an impenetrable mystery. Like the farmers' wives, who, to our queries, gave no other answer than, "Why, that depends," they take care that no one shall be any the wiser for the questions asked.

The reader may safely follow the directions given in these pages; not one has been inserted that has not been tested by the writer. To those who are already conversant with bread-making, churning, etc., they may appear needlessly minute; but we hope the novice may, with very little trouble, become mistress of the subjects to which they refer.

Even if a lady does keep a sufficient number of servants to perform every domestic duty efficiently, still it may prove useful to be able to give instructions to one who may, from some accidental circ.u.mstance, be called on to undertake a work to which she has been unaccustomed.

A friend of the writer's, a lady of large fortune, and mistress of a very handsome establishment, said, when speaking of her dairy, "My neighborhood has the character of making very bad b.u.t.ter; mine is invariably good, and I always get a penny a pound more for it at the 'shop' than my neighbors. If I have occasion to change the dairymaid, and the new one sends me up bad b.u.t.ter, I tell her of it. If it occurs the second time, I make no more complaints; I go down the next b.u.t.ter-day, and make it entirely myself, having her at my side the whole time. I find I never have to complain again. She sees how it is made, and she is compelled to own it is good. I believe that a servant who is worth keeping will follow any directions, and take any amount of trouble, rather than see 'missus' a second time enter the kitchen or dairy to do her work."

Perhaps the allusion this lady made to the "shop" may puzzle the London reader, but in country places, where more b.u.t.ter is made in a gentleman's family than is required for the consumption of the household, it is sent to--what is frequently--_the_ "shop" of the place, and sold for a penny per pound less than the price for which it is retailed by the shopkeeper. The value of the b.u.t.ter is set off against tea, sugar, cheese, and various other articles required in the family in which the b.u.t.ter is made.

When the writer purchased a third cow, it was in antic.i.p.ation of sending any surplus b.u.t.ter to "shop," and receiving groceries in exchange, nor has she been disappointed.

Every month's additional experience strengthens her conviction of the advantages to be derived from living in the country; and she takes farewell of her readers, in the hope that she has succeeded in conving them that a "farm of four acres" may be made a source of health, profit, and amus.e.m.e.nt, though many of their "town" friends may threaten them with ruin, should they be rash enough to disregard their advice to take a house in a "nice quiet street," leading into one of the squares.