FARMERS WAY OF LIFE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4951, 4 February 1937, Page 2

FARMERS WAY OF LIFE

IN HUNGARY. In a recent trip through Hungary I was much impressed by the striking hats of some of the carriage drivers, says a Budapest correspondent of the "Christian Science Monitor." They resemble bowlers with an ostrich feather s+retched over the crown lengthv-ise. Most self-respect-ing persons in Central Europe wear hats with feathers, but the uniformity of these carriage drivers' headgear was unusual. Two bay horses pulling a twoseated open yellow buggy, with a befeathered young man in front and an important looking older man behind was an outfit which we met by dozens in Hungary's provinces. On inquiry I learned that these are the vehicles of the great land owners. The feather is part of the coachman's livery. It signifies that the man in the back seat has many fields, woods and gardens.

On the country roads outside the cities we met substantial waggons pulled by strong lively horses that were driven by men wearing widebrimmed hats and gaily-embroidered shirts. On each waggon was the owner's name and address, always written with the last name first, Robinson Jack. Sometimes one horse is used instead of a team, but he does not work in shafts. He is hitched on one side of the tongue, leaving the other side empty. You might think he'd pull the waggon kitty-cornered, but he doesn't. Hungary's small farmer possesses , a little white house beside the dusty road running through his one-street village. His neighbours own the others. One of the little black-haired boys and one of the little brownhaired girls I saw walking in a ; straight double line from the school homewards were his children. Hif i neighbours' girl will marry his boy, and his girl his neighbour's boy; thus i they will keep the family possessions intact.

The fields are already cut up into many small pieces and widely scattered about the village, but each farmer has a well-balanced combination of gardens, meadows, wheat' fields, cornfields, and lives well. His wheat isn't quite as good as that from the count's estate across the river nor his horses quite as "classy," but they are good enough. He has several cows, a big family of pigs, and two gangs of geese of nine or ten members each. They go out to the pasture each morning with hundreds of other geese, but each gang waddles its way apart. When they swim, they swim in gangs, they eat in gangs, they rush from oncoming autos in gangs. I marvelled how a goose knew his gang. Although the small farmer is not so expert as the superintendent hired by the great landowners living in the castles, still with his horses, cattle, pigs and chickens, his gardens, orchards and fields, he gets more -from an acre of land than the aristocrat.