"DOWN ON THE FARM."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

"DOWN ON THE FARM."

BORROWING AND LENDING. DANGEROUS PRACTICES. (By TE RIKI.) The other morning I went into the cultivation to see how the potatoes were growing. I found they were growing so w ell that it was time they were moulded up. I told my wife that I was going to Smith to borrow his cultivator. -My wife said that it would be better to hoe potatoes there were in that "miserable little patch" than to wander round the district trying to borrow a horse hoe. "Am I an Alabama nigger," I replied "that I should have to scratch round in the hot sun all day when I can use horse-power? This is the age of machinery." "Never a borrower nor a lender be, for borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry," quoted my wife. "If you bought all the machinery you need on a larni these days when you can borrow It, you won't only dull the edge of husbandry, you'll knock the bally edge right off it," I retorted. I was a bit snappy about it, as I considered that quotation of Shakespeare to have been one of his weakest efforts. What does it mean, anyway? If husbandry has an edge, what is it, and where is it? The thing has no sense. Sundry Offerings.

I fared forth to Smith to borrow his cultivator. Mr. Smith makes model yachts in his spare time. Ho has always been interested in the sea. Often wishes he had been a sailor—the life is so free. Be took me inside and showed mo the hull of a racing cutter built out of long strips of wood. It apjiears to me to be a fiddling enough job to hollow out a hull from a block of wood without making it harder by building it up out of little bits. Ho discussed such technicalities as "wave line" and "skin friction" and asked my advice on the rig. Now, my experience of boats is very limited. I once made one out of a sheet of iron, but I didn't put any sails on it; I recollect that I had trouble enough to keep it right side up without. However, being human, I did not let my lack of experience prevent me from giving my advice.

I mentioned that I had come to borrow the cultivator. He said the last person to use it had been too lazy to oil it, and had put his big foot on it and yanked it about and bent the lever. We both knew who had it last. I said nothing; borrowers have to put up with this kind of aspersion. I was just going down to the shed to get the cultivator when Mrs. Smith came out and offered me a cup of tea and a new religion. In the next hour I discovered it was a kind of fatalism. I was assured that it is no use worrying 'about the future —it will come whether you like it or not ... I got home in time for lunch. All That Was Needed. After lunch I found that all I needed to get on with the job was a pair of trace chains, a swingletree, and a horse collar. My own team and gear were elsewhere, so I went borrowing once more. Mr. Brown grabbed me and took me inside to show me a new acquisition— a slide rule. Brown's hobby is mathematics of any kind, the more complicated the better. He always regrets that his parents did not put him through school and university, instead of inconsiderately going bankrupt and putting him in a flax mill at the age of twelve: He says he wishes he was a civil engineer—the life is so free.

I followed him in with forebodings; I knew what I.was in for, but when one is about to borrow something, it is advisable to show polite interest. Mr. Brown demonstrated the new toy and large book of instructions on how to use same. "Look, this is how you use it," ho explained. "Now suppose you want to find the weight of a cubic inch of benzine" (I was not interested to know what a cubic inch of benzine weighed). "You just look up this book, page umpty ump. You take the ruler. Now put that line of figures alongside that line there. Now get 065 alongside 55G and leave it there." I did as bidden. "Now I just have to look up these logarithm tables and there's the answer." After running his index finger up and down several pages of figures for five minutes he gave a triumphant whoop. "Ah, here we are! Here's the answer, see how -simple it is to work out a, problem this way. Point seven one nought three recurring inches." I pointed out mildly that the answer required to be in weight of some kind. "Ah, dash it all, I've been looking at the wrong tables. Just a minute. Heie we are."

More sliding and thumbing of the and mumbling of figures under the breath, and the exclamation:

"Ah, "Ot it! Now this is the weight of a cubic inch of benzine—one hundred weight two quarters —" "Here, where's my hat?" I yelled. "Are you using your harness to-day I "Yes, the boys are usjing it. but you may find an old horse collar down in the barn." , , "Thanks," I said as I tore jput of the house. Private Ambitions. As I trudged up the road with a motheaten horse collar on my shoulder, I had the sudden fleeting impression that someone was taking careful aim at me with a small cannon on stilts. On closer inspection I was relieved to find that it was merely my old friend Henry, the surveyor, on his lawful occasions ot seeing that the public road had not shifted in its relation to the nearest meridian of longitude. In the course of conversation I discovered that he is tued of his job. His ambition has always been to be a farmer. The life is so free.

After I left, the saying of the eld Lama in "Kim" kept recurring to my mind, "Chained to the wheel—chained to the wheel." It. seems to be the commonest illusion in the world that we feel that we should all be doing sometiling else. The other fellow always has the "cushy" job. But is it really an illusion? Perhaps we are close to our nomad ancestors that staying in one place or on one job all our lives is not natural to us.

As I worked at making a pair of traces out of fencing wire-and a swingletree out of a piece of stick, I pondered over this problem, but found no solution. The one problem I have solved, however, is, why you should not a "borrower nor a lender be."

The reason, of course, is that you will be obliged to waste too much of your time in listening to your neighbours tc'ling about their hobbies.