Going out to Farm.

Otago Witness, Issue 1383, 1 June 1878, Page 18

Going out to Farm.

For several years past I have been acquainted with a fool. In order to relieve any anxiety which this admission may suddenly create in the public mind, I will add that the said fool is not a member of the family. He belongs to a different nationality, and hasn't the least family resemblance. I have known this Fool (I use a big F this time) to sit on the bank of a river, for a whole day, watching for the water to all run out. I have known of his starting out to cut a aaw-log in two with a pen-knife. I have seen him put his shoulder to a brick church, and try to push the edifice over. He was recorded as a Fool in public documents, acted like a Fool — and had my sympathies until the other day. Not having aeen him playing in the dust, or grinning at the lamp-posts for a week or so, I asked one of his brothers if Tom was ill.

" Oh, no ; Tom is all right," he replied. "We made up our minds that he would never amount to anything around town, and so we sent him to the country to make a farmer of him ! "

Hia words didn't strike me dumb, for I have known many other fools (with big F's and little f's) to be sent out on the same . errand. There was the case of Hinchman. He had been in the grocery business for 40 years. He knew enough to weigh sugar and tea, and to measure out potatoes, and figure-out the coat of two brooms at 2s. each, but he didn't know much more. He was good-natured, quiet, and law-abiding, and might have died among his musty herrings and faded clothespins, if fire hadn't burned him out. His loss was £] 50 and a penny or two, with no insurance, and he was a ruined man. No, he wasn't, either. After reflecting that he was only 60 years old, weighed 105 pounds, and had muscle enough to lift a bag of bran, he concluded to rent a farm, do all the work himself, and come into the city again at the end of five years with money enough to start a bank. When I asked him if he knew anything about farming, ho replied :

" Farming ! Why, any man can go out and run a farm ! "

Perhaps they can. But I kept track of Mr Hinchman for a year, and I found that he didn't make a great deal of money. He didn't plant dried apples, but he planted his oats in hills and poled them. He didn't boil his potatoes before planting them so as to raise a crop ready for thd table ; but he did cut out and throw away all the ' ' eyes," so as to raise smooth, nice, and symmetrical potatoes. He didn't sow any bran because he forgot it ; but he sowed oats and wheat together, in order to get two crops off the same field at once. When I caught him in town one day, he wouldn't admit that farming was a science, and that a good farmer must have the intelligence of a successful merchant ; but I didn't care to argue with him. He was getting ready to build a few rods of rail fence, and w?»s buying a step-ladder to enable him to carry up the fifth and sixth rails. He died after harvesting his first crops ; and when a crowd of us went out to the auction we found that he had been planting cabbages under an old shed, where the poor things wouldn't get sun-struck or, drowned out.

That case wasn't more singular than Blackstone's. He was a middle-aged, corpulent, wheezy-voiced lawyer, and might have been a leading light at the bar a thousand years before I knew him. He had a consumptive son, a daughter with weak eyes, and a wife who could only get around on crutches. When Blackstone came into the office to advertise the fact that he wanted to lease " a modest, compact, eligibly situated, romantic-look-ing farm," I asked if he had had any experience.

"Do you think I'm a fool ! " ho roared, in reply. "I guess a man who has practised law for 34 years, and who has been justice-of-the-peace, postmaster, and assessor, knows enough to run a farm ! I want rest and recreation, sir ; and my family wants rest and recreation, sir ; and we'll take a farm, and rest up and make some money, and by and by return to public life, sir."

I didn't argue with him ; but I didn't forget to keep track of his case. He secured a farm and took possession. He trimmed the orchard out of season, and killed most of the trees. When he should have been sowing his wheat he was inventing a patent hens-nest, and when he ought to have been hoeing corn he was making a water-wheel for the creek, to amuse his poor daughter. He was delighted when his corn shot up two feet I high and grew no more, as it wouldn't be |.so much trouble to nick off the ears ; and III I when wheat, oats, rye, and pumpkins

were all growing together in one field, he wished he had only thought to mix in a few potatoes and cucumbers. He didn't plough his land as other farmers do, but set a stake in the centre of the field and ploughed circles around it. The idea was original, the field looked more romantic, and he further explained :

" Nature has made every thing to work to a common centre. There is a centre to storms, to frosts, to seasons, to trade and finance, and why shouldn't there be a centre to a corn field 1 "

There was a centre — it was half an acre of mud-holes. Blackstone insisted that he gathered 15 ears of corn from that field ; but lawyers always exaggerate about half, you know. The son died while trying to cut wood enough to cook, dinner. The daughter got the idea, one day, that one of the cows had the headache, and Bhe was bathing the poor creature's brow with camphor, when the animal struck her in the face with one of its horns and inflicted injuries which soon ended in death. Blackstone then went into stockraising ; but, after a year, having collected together an old blind horse and a yearling calf, he and hia wife moved away in the night, and have never been heard of since. Adam didn't know much about farming when he found himself and wife on the wrong side of the Garden of Eden, but he scrubbed around and posted himself as fast as he could. He wasn't in for making money, but it was a question of bread and butter and vegetables. His ways have been improved on, and improvements are still being made ; but it don't necessarily follow that because a man can mix hairoil, hammer out a horseshoe, spout .law, or pull a tooth, he can also take a farm and become a farmer. • Dr Beech was remarking, last year, that he guessed he'd retire from the practice of medicine, and pursue agriculture for a while. I didn't want to vex him ; but while I was wondering if he'd soak his seed corn in arnica to prevent the corn stocks from becoming weak in the back, and if he wouldn't administer chloroform to his cabbages to give them a quiet night's rest, he observed : " What ails the farming community is the fact that agriculturists are an extravagant set. On my farm nothing shall be wasted. Every animal and fowl with too great an appetite shall be toned down with medicine. Every one with a weak stomach shall be toned up by daily doses. There shall be buga to eat the plants, grasshoppers to eat the bugs, fowls to eat the grasshoppers, and I shall eat the fowls." He tried farming, and the sheriff ate him. If any reader has an idea that I am a farmer, he is mistaken. True, I once hired out to a farmer to split 100,000 rails in exchange for an old gander and a broken-down farming-mill ; but after splitting 15 rails I decided not to take advantage of an innocent man. I know a carrot from a beet, especially if it has a sign hung to it, and once in a great while I can tell a field of barley from a field of wheat or oats ; but I don't ambush farmers on the highway and make speeches to them on the rotation of crops. There are some things about farm-work very pleasant to me. I like to sit in a rockingchair on the verandah and see the boys digging in to save two acres of fresh-cut hay from a thunder-storm. I like to sit under the harvest apple-trees, loaf around the currant bxish.es, take my chances at the dinner-table, and give my opinion on a two-gallon jug of cider. Beyond these few things, agriculture is a mystery to mo, and always will bo. Certain of my friends have received written instructions to the effect that in case I became a lunatic, or my head gets soft, to keep a watchful eye on me, and to push me into the river the moment they hear me talk about taking a farm. — M Quad.