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A Country Year - Farming Life.

19th January to 5th February

In former times Sparrow Clubs used to exist in these parts, under the provisions of which the farmers of a district banded themselves together to destroy the common enemy in any way possible, but with the decline of agriculture the clubs have vanished.

I observed also, in the course of my walk, that moles seem to be very numerous this year, possibly on account of the mildness of the season, for some of the meadows, and especially the lands at the foot of the Vineyards Hills, are dotted all over with brown heaps of soil thrown up by them. Farmers dislike moles, and allege much evil against them; but I believe that they do more good than harm, at least on pastures, by bringing up so many tons of quite fresh earth from the subsoil, which, when harrowed and brushed, gives the grasses a dressing of new mould that must benefit them much. Indeed, I doubt whether some pastures which are frequently mown and never manured would keep their fertility half was well as they were it not for the action of moles and worms. In his remarkable book upon earth-worms Darwin has shown how great is the work they do upon the surface of the world, and I believe that one part of it is to promote fertility.

From A Farmer's Year by Henry Rider Haggard, his commonplace book for 1898.

January 19. - A day of woe and desolation! My best ox is dead.

Finding that the beast was dying, Hood, having nothing at hand to despatch him, drove as hard as he could to Bungay and brought back the butcher.

January 20. - To-day is extraordinarily mild for the time of year, and all the birds are singing with full voice as though spring were already come. The garden, too, show many signs of life, and one crocus has just opened its gold cup upon the north slope of the lawn bank. Three ploughs are going upon the eight-acre on Baker's Farm, turning back the soil which was ploughed for barley a few weeks ago.

January 23. - To-day, Sunday, is one of the most beautiful imaginable, very mild, with a fresh west wind and bright sunshine. I walked over Baker's Farm and found the wheat looking wonderfully well, while the grass seems to be growing visibly. The sunset to-night was especially lovely - a large glowing ball of fire without a cloud to dim it.

On Friday, the day after my last entry, we had more bad luck, for another of the bullocks at Baker's was taken sick.

January 25. - The lambs are beginning to come faster; yesterday I had two doubles. As I returned from looking at them I saw the first pair of partridges which I have noticed this year; also I observe that the sparrows are beginning to build in the banksia rose on the south side of the house. These sparrows, which breed in millions in the towns, whence they migrate to the country, are a perfect pest to us, and I know not how to keep them under. In some parts of the farm they move about in flocks a hundred strong, and while the damage they do is very great, I have been unable to discover in them a single redeeming virtue. They take coombs of corn out of some of the fields of wheat, spoiling even more than they devour, as they seem to like to pick the ears to pieces for mere mischief's sake. Also they are very destructive to young beet, especially if the crop has been planted in a small close, as they issue from the hedges on every side and tear the tender leaves to bits with their strong bills.

A Country Year - Farming Life.

19th January to 5th February

This morning I met Hood as he was driving the unlambed ewes from the little All Hallows farm meadow, where they are now confined at night, to the hay-stubble on Baker's, which we are folding before sowing. I stood talking with him for a minute or two, while the sheep went through the gateway on to the main road. When we followed, presently, not one of them was to be seen, till an ominous sound of munching caused me to look over a neighbouring fence. There were the ewes, the whole lot of them, in the well-kept garden of one of my men - at least it had been a garden, but that five minutes had sufficed to reduce it to a trodden wilderness with cabbage-stalks sticking up here and there. I shouted aloud to Hood, whereupon the ewes, of their own accord, and without waiting to be driven, stopped gobbling the remains of the cabbages and ran to the hole, which they must have made in the thick fence with considerable effort and difficulty while we were talking, and through it, one by one, back into the road. This spontaneous retreat seems to prove that they know perfectly well that they were doing what they should not.

It is curious to noting how seldom they stop eating while there is anything left that excites their appetite, and how, after having feed heavily for hours in one place, on the gate being opened, they will rush to another in the hope of finding more food there. Thus this morning, as soon as they had escaped from the ruined garden, they set off down the road, to the gate in the field where they are penned in the daytime, about a quarter of a mile away. Here as heavy as they are in lamb, they broke into a full gallop in their eagerness to reach turnips heaped on the land and steal some before their shepherd arrived to put them in the pen.

This afternoon I went to Bedingham, and found the wheats looking wonderfully green and thick, so much so that in the case of two of the pieces they will, I think, have to be thinned by harrowing. The crops on these fields last year were respectively beans and pease, and doubtless we owe this fine prospect to the nitrogen collected from the atmosphere by these leguminous plants. The remaining piece of wheat, is not nearly so strong, I suppose because it is grown on flag-land, this field having been a clover layer last year, off which a cut of hay was taken, followed, as the autumn proved suitable to its ripening, by a crop of seed.

I found Moore, who is in local charge of this farm, baulking, or earthing up for root. He said, and I agreed with him, that the land had never been known to work so well at this time of year since we had to do with it, the long-continued drought having made it friable and tender, whereas in other Januaries often it is hard with frost or so stiff with wet that, if an attempt is made to stir the soil, it comes up in lumps as large as horses' heads.

The open season has been very fortunate for me upon this farm, as, owing to taking over of Baker's, I was obliged to draw a horse from Bedingham, leaving two only, and one of these an old mare in foal. Therefore, had not the weather been so clement that work could be attended to as it pressed, week in, week out, I might have been forced to buy another horse, which I do not which to do, as I have several growing animals in stock.

To-day I have been making a plan for roofing in the horse and cattle yard at Bedington with galvanised iron supported by oak posts. I believe that the expense of closing them in, which, if one can provide the timber, is not so very great, will be repaid in three years by the manure saved and the increase in its fertilising value. Lastly, the cattle do better under shelter.

A Country Year - Farming Life.

19th January to 5th February

January 28. - The day before yesterday I rode to Kessingland, fifteen miles away, on a bicycle, and beyond Beccles I stopped to talk with an old labourer who was hedge-trimming. He told me that he was seventy years of age and had worked in the neighbourhood all his life, but that never yet had he known such a season for the time of year, or the water in dykes, ponds, and springs to be so low.

Yesterday was mild and dry, and all my three ploughs were at work 'thwarting' - that is cross-ploughing - root-land on Nunnery Farm.

A good many more lambs have been born, and with their mothers, are established in comfortable little hurdle-made pens the old barn at All Hallows. The worst of this plan is that the lambs get through the hurdles and become inextricably mixed in their vain attempts to find their own mothers. It is curious to notice the behaviour of the ewes when the wrong lambs comes to them. First they sniff at it, for to all appearance they are guided in this matter by the scene of smell alone; then if the result is unsatisfactory, they simply put down their heads and with a vicious butt knock the poor little creature into space. Evidently they have no affection for lambs as a class; it is only their individual offspring that claims their sympathy. Yesterday we had to try one old ewe with about a dozen different lambs, each one she knocked over in the most cold-blooded fashion. A cautious sniff at the thirteenth satisfied her that at length her missing infant had returned, whereon she baa-ed contentedly, and with a smile of maternal pride allowed it to partake of refreshment.

I noticed for the first time the brilliant but tiny scarlet blooms open upon the filbert bushes; by the number of them it should be a good nut-year.

My drill was hired out to a neighbour to put in his spring beans; the man in charge of it told me that they went in very well.

To-day I have begun drilling my own spring beans and pease on the eight acres of Bakers. This field has had a good coat of manure which I took over by valuation, supplemented, as there was not enough available, by a few loads of Bungay compost, road scapings, &c., in the far corner. Like the rest of the farm, it is foul, and will, I fancy, give plenty of work to the hoe, for the plough and harrows turn up docks like carrots, to say nothing of countless minor weeds. Tilth, however, is very good, and the beans, with as much pease as we could sow to-day, went in beautifully, not a single seed being visible after the drill had dropped them, for the soil ran in behind almost like dry sand. We only use six 'coulters' on the drill, a seven-foot instrument, for planting beans, as against twelve or thirteen for pease. Coulters, may I explain are the shares connected to the body of the instrument, whence the seed is lifted and dropped by wheels set with cups through a number of flexible funnels fitting one into another. Down the funnels the seed trickles at a given rate, to fall grain by grain into the trench cut by coulters. Preceding the drill, a rig or two ahead of it, goes a set of iron harrows dragged by two horses, tearing down the rough surface of the plough and breaking the clods into mould. Next comes the drill itself, dragged by three horses, with two men in charge of it. It is followed by a wood harrow, with a pair of horses, which fills in the furrows made by the coulters of the drill, burying the seed in the mould and completing the process.

It is still early to drill spring beans and pease, but I think it wise to get them in while the soil is in such good order, as in our uncertain climate it is impossible to say what kind of weather awaits us.

A Country Year - Farming Life.

19th January to 5th February

Some more lambs were born to-day, and my two Southdown rams were sold at Bungay market, the large one for forty shillings, and the smaller for twenty-five. I am sorry to part with the big ram, as he is a good-looking pedigree animal, but these creatures are a nuisance to keep through the summer; they cannot be allowed to run with the ewes, as they would knock about and perhaps kill the lambs, and if penned up they are apt to develop foot-rot. Of course, in large flocks, where there are proper provisions for keeping rams by themselves, it is another matter, but in the case of a little lot of sheep like mine it is best to get rid of them, and buy or hire others when they are wanted.

January 29. - This morning we finished drilling the pease on All Hallows, and also drilled four acres of pease on All Hallows, the ten-acre which was under barley last year and is now divided into six acres of layer and four of pease.

This afternoon I went to Bedingham. Here I found Moore splitting back the baulks on one of the fields which he had earthed up for root. Yesterday he horse-hoed the five acres of winter beans. I should think that this is almost the first time within living memory that beans have been-hoed at Bedingham on January 28.

January 31. - Yesterday, Sunday, it rained sharply during the morning but cleared in the afternoon, when a gale came up from the south-west; at night also there was flaws of rain. The large ox is sick again.

I find that I am now employing fifteen hands in all on the two farms, not reckoning Mrs. Hood, who makes the butter, or Mrs. Moore, who attends the fowls at Bedingham. This allows for nine men and one boy on the home farms, with four men and one boy at Bedingham. One of these is an extra man, however, employed by piece-work on the draining.

To-day, the last of the month, is lovely and spring-like, with a drying north-west wind. This morning we drilled three acres of sheep's-feed. The rain of yesterday has not done much more than deep this light land, so the seed went in very well,

It looked a curious mixture as it lay in the boxes or hoppers of the drill, oats for the most part, mingled with wheat, tares, and a few beans, but doubtless the sheep will appreciate it in due course.

He who would fill his pouch with grouts, In Januair must sow his oats,

runs the old saw - but these are the only oats I have drilled as yet. To-morrow, however, if it is fine, we are sending five horses to Bedingham to drill oats, pease, and barley. Never before have we drilled barley so early, and both Hood and I (especially Hood) are rather doubtful of the wisdom of doing so on heavy land.

And so goodbye to January. Here are one or two saws collected from various sources for those who care for proverbial wisdom:

If January has never a drop, The barn will need an oaken prop;

which is certainly comforting news for the farmer in this year of grace. Lest he be too elated, however, I append another:

In January if the sun appear, March and April may pay dear.

Also a third of still more evil import:

If grass do grow in Januair or Februair, it will grow the worse for it all the year.

A Country Year - Farming Life.

19th January to 5th February

From The Book of the Seasons by William Howitt (1836) - February. Thrashing, tending cattle, early, calves, etc. continue, as in last month, to occupy the thoughts and the hands of the husbandman. Manures too are carried to grass lands. Ploughing is on the increase; and spring wheat, beans peas, oats, and tares are sown. Timber is felled, and tree-seeds sown. Copse-wood is cut, and plantations are thinned. In the garden, various operations of pruning, digging, sowing, etc. are going on.

From a Farmer's Year by Henry Rider Haggard - his common place book for 1898.

February 1. - Last night there was a sharp rain, but the month has opened with a beautiful day, more like April than February weather. the thermometer marking 53 degrees in the shade and on a north wall. In the afternoon I went over to Bedingham, where the oats were being drilled, four bushels of them to an acre. They went in rather indifferently, for last night's rain has already affected this cold and sticky soil. The pease, with which the remaining half of the same field is sown, went in well this afternoon, when the land had dried somewhat in the stiff west wind. Tomorrow if the rain holds off, we propose to drill barley at Bedingham.

February 3. - Yesterday was much colder, with a strong nor'-west wind, increasing to a gale, and a good deal of bright sunshine. There is one plough going on All Hallows Farm, thwarting for root, but all the other horses are at Bedingham drilling, or trying to drill, barley, except one that is carting root into the shed. We have set a fold for sheep on the three-acre pasture. This is the first field that I laid for permanent grass, and is the worst land I have on the farm. It has now been down for about six years, and has reached a rather critical stage in the life-history of a meadow. As a good deal of moss and many daisies have appeared in places among the herbage, we have come to the conclusion that the best chance of turning it into a really sound pasture is to sheep it heavily, and afterwards harrow it and give it a good sprinkling of clover seed.

The sky last night looked heavy and grey, as though snow were coming. There was a very fine sunset, the lights upon the Common reflected in long lines and arrows from the clouds above being unusually beautiful.

Yesterday was Candlemas Day, and again, if we may trust to proverbs, the farmers outlook is black enough. It is a wise proverb that urges,

Lock in the barn on Candlemas Day

Half your corn and half of your hay,

calling attention as it does to the fact that in this climate the 2nd of February is often for all practical purposes mid-winter. Two more, and goodbye to Candlemas Day,

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,

Winter will have another flight;

But if it be dark with clouds and rain,

Winter has gone and will not come again.

As far as the sun shines on Candlemas Day,

So far the snow will blow afore May.

A Country Year - Farming Life.

19th January to 5th February

To-day the weather is squally, with cold rain and fine afterwards. We began to thrash this morning, but were obliged to give up about eleven o'clock. It is very curious to observe how absolutely indifferent the lambs seem to cold. One would think that the icy blasts of wind blowing on their wet skins would freeze them through, but they appear to mind little. Sheep are naturally cold-loving animals. Occasionally they shiver when penned up wet in a high, but it is heat that really makes them miserable, and flies.

February 4. - To-day is much colder, with occasional storms of snow and hail driven by a high nor'-west wind. As I write for the first time this winter the lawn is white, although the weather is not bad enough to stop the thrashing.

It is curious to look at the steamer and listen to its hungry swelling hum as it devours sheaf after sheaf of corn, and to compare it with the style of thrashing that I can remember when I was a boy. Now the straw is tossed automatically to the elevator, or to pitchforks of those staking it; the husk is shaken out and rejected, grit and stones are caught and cast away, and the pure grain is sorted into three or four classes in accordance with the size and quality of the kernels, all by the ingenious mechanism of a not very complicated machine.

In the old days the thrashing was done by an instrument like a large windlass, with four or six horses attached to the spokes and a man seated on a little stool in the centre armed with a long whip to keep them up to their work as they walked round and round. The actual machinery that did the thrashing was hidden inside the barn, and I cannot recall sufficient of its details to describe it. I do, however, remember seeing the flail used from time to time, the last occasion being not more than fifteen years ago. From the flail to a modern steam-thrasher is a long stride, and the time and labour saved by the latter are almost incalculable. Yet I believe that farming paid better in the days of flails and reaping hooks than it does now in those steamers and self-binders.

In walking around the farm this afternoon I noticed that the rooks are playing havoc on the three acres of mixed grain which we drilled a few days ago for sheep food. They are congregated there literally in scores, and if you shout at them to frighten them away, they satisfy themselves by retiring to some trees near at hand and awaiting your departure to renew their operations. The beans attract them most, and their method of reducing these into possession is to walk down the lines of the drill until (as I suppose) they smell the bean underneath. Then they bore down with their strong beaks and extract it, leaving a neat little hole to show that they have been there. Maize they love even better than beans; indeed, it is difficult to keep them off a field sown with that crop. Hood promises to set up some mawkins to fright them, but the mawkin nowadays is a poor creature compared with what he used to be, and it is a wonder that any experienced rook consents to be scared by him. Thirty years or so ago he was really a work of art, with a hat, a coat, a stick, and sometimes a painted face, ferocious enough to frighten a little boy in the twilight, let alone a bird. Now a rag or two and a jumble sale cloth cap are considered sufficient, backed up generally by the argument, which may prove more effective, of a dead rook tied up by the leg to the stick.

In the course of my walk I came across sheep's-parsley in bloom and, in sheltered places, honeysuckle and the arum-like plants which we call 'lords and ladies' in full leaf.

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