Oathill Farm: A Journey Through Neglect and Possibility

CHAPTER ONE The Farm

e saw it first in nineteen twenty-four, on a cold grey morning, lying in an isolated little valley on the eastern slopes of the Cotswolds; eighty-five acres of poor, stony land, overgrown hedges, tumbledown buildings, arable a mass of weeds, and grassland, if such it could be called, full of little bushes, or rushes in the wetter parts.

Six miles from a railway station, well off a road over a swampy piece of common land, and far from a school or village; such, probably, were the reasons why it was vacant. Yet a careful inspection showed that it had good possibilities. It was compact, lying in a ring fence, with the buildings well placed. The house was small but sound. A fine spring of water bubbled out of the ground, and although sadly trodden in by pigs and cattle, it supplied every field on the farm, and there were geological indications that it had never run dry. It was a healthy soil for stock rearing, stone brash (oolitic limestone), 450 feet above sea-level, with a general slope south, and sheltered by higher hills. Most important of all, THE LAND-most long-suffering of all Man's possessions-had been badly neglected, but not robbed, as the situation prevented the selling-off of all the produce other than on the hoof. We have been told since that on more than one occasion four horses were required to drag out eight sacks of wheat through the swampy common land behind which the farm is situated.

So here was a farm that was secluded, too far from a village for stray cats, stray dogs, and stray people to be a nuisance. It had a water supply free from pollution-at that time the nearest large village drew its drinking water from a stream which drained two churchyards and six farmyards, with a peculiar flavour and rich colour only appreciated by those reared upon it, who now deplore the tasteless, odourless, and colourless product which has to be paid for by a water rate! The overgrown hedges could be cut and laid, the ditches scoured and the swamps drained. The buildings could be made sound and adequate by our own labour. A road could be built from stone quarried from the hillside (it took a thousand tons and all our spare time for ten years to make it six hundred sixty yards long and capable of taking the heavy traffic now imposed upon it). Above all, the land could be cleaned and made fertile. Everything else was dependent on this in our case, every penny of our resources would be absorbed in taking the farm, all we put on the land would first have to come out of it by the sweat of our brow.

The vendor was not available to show us round this 'Small Desirable Property' as the auctioneer's particulars and order-to-view described it. But the lad he employed was found asleep under a hedge while his two neglected horses stood yoked to a plough. He was pleased to point out the boundaries and give any information required.

The last harvest had yielded about forty quarters of corn. Ten tons of straw and five of hay were available. The roots, such as they were, had been given to a neighbouring farmer to pen off. A few calves were reared, grazed on the common and roadside wastes, and sold as stores. A couple of sows, an odd cow, and a few ducks completed the stock. The last tenant had been there for ten years, was reputed to have come with nothing and gone away with one thousand pounds, a story we did not doubt in view of the unparalleled prosperity agriculture had enjoyed during the Great War and two years after it, which left the farms and farmers poor in everything except money. It was very certain that on this farm far more had been taken out than had been put in.

Leaving word with the boy that we would come again three days later, advising the time by telegram so that the owner could be on the spot, we went on to the village inn a few miles away, not with the sole intention of imbibing strong drink, or spending money on a lunch (although we did both), but so as to acquire local knowledge. The parson or squire might be able to tell a little if so disposed, but no secret is safe from the village gossip, and elderly labourers, having nothing to look forward to, forget nothing of the past, and will repeat themselves over and over again when the beer is flowing.

A few pints produced a complete summary of the habits, morals, ability, and financial standing of every occupier and landlord back to eighteen thirty-seven. All, it appeared, had done well; one farmer born there in the 'fifties had had twenty-two farms in his time and left over forty thousand pounds.

The name Oathill Farm, for which we could see no simple explanation on the site, was invariably pronounced 'Olt-hill'. This puzzled us at the time, but pondering later we recognized the truth of the saying, 'Words are the only things which last for ever'. The Brythonic 'Alt', still used in Wales and the west of Scotland, meaning a little stream in a valley, correctly described the farm. Some solicitor's clerk drawing up the deeds perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago might spell it 'Oathill' as a familiar word nearest to the pronunciation as he heard it, but the local labourers, who have never heard of philology, still use Althill, as their fathers did before them. The meaning has been lost since Roman times, but waits for the understanding of those who have ears to hear. If any reader would care to check this, look at any Oathill, Oatley Hill, or Holthill, on the Ordnance map, and he will find that in every case there are a hill, a little valley, and a stream.

The farm had originally been divided into four large fields, from the open field system of about seventeen seventy-six, for the familiar four-course rotation of winter corn, roots, spring corn, and clover. One of these fields had been subdivided in eighteen ninety to provide a permanent grass field, and this general layout can still be seen on the map. But no rotation seemed to have been followed for at least ten years. The method, if such it could be called, was to leave the land in grass, usually a temporary mixture of rye grass and clover, from which the latter soon disappeared, and then plough a strip for winter corn, and then, when too late for autumn wheat drilling, start ploughing again for spring corn on another strip. After two or three corn crops an odd patch would be put in roots and the rest put down to grass again, complete with the arable weeds which had been encouraged by the corn crops. Much of the land in this district is still being farmed on this 'neolithic' rotation, but without the saving grace of being left in grass from time to time, growing poor crops of corn, corn, corn, then potatoes to rob the land a little more, followed by more corn; a procedure which in the long run impoverishes the farmer as well as the land.

At Oathill as many as six crops appeared as odd patches in one field. All the arable was a mass of couch grass and docks. The permanent grass, mostly bent and broom grass, had tumbled down; there were no signs of clover, and little thorn-bushes were springing up everywhere. The stream, which flowed so clear in places, flooded about three acres; these were covered with rushes for want of a little cleaning, excellent perhaps for the ducks, but a wicked waste of good land, a breeding-place for fluke and other parasites, and an eyesore to tidy farmers.

The buildings consisted of a large stone barn, roofed with Cotswold slates, which is simply the oolitic limestone, split by frost and shaped by hand; a stable, with loft over, for four horses; an open cattle shed; two small loose boxes; three pigsties; a two-bay cart shed. The first two were in a good state of repair, but dark, and with bad floors. The rest were in the last stages of dilapidation, with leaky thatch running water on the walls and washing out the mortar, and all threatening to fall down at any moment. What is worse for stock than a damp, dark, building? The accumulation of the manure in the yard was so deep that the anaemic-looking cow upon it was able to eat the thatch, or the corn sprouting from it. Not a gate on the farm would swing, several were broken beyond repair, and others missing altogether.

However, to return to the inn. The last round of drinks, by which time we had nearly bought the pub up, produced the information that the farm was also haunted. The occupier was lodging in the village, as he did not care to sleep there at night on his own, and one housekeeper had left the same day as she arrived. Believing, in those days, in very little which could not be proved by chemical analysis, this only interested us from the point of view of driving a better bargain. In passing, it may be mentioned that the only manifestation we have seen which could be mistaken for a phantasm took the form of a large white owl with only one claw. Living in the barn, very tame, and largely depending on vermin we trapped and left for him, he has been handled when gorged with food, and he purred like a cat. Living for something over twenty years, and willing to clear up four or five rats at a time, this kindly spirit of the wild illustrates what a service his feathered brethren must render to agriculture. He finally fell a prey to a poisoned rat baited by the official ratcatchers of the local War Agriculture Committee.

Tramps, we were also told, were a great nuisance, lying about all over the place, and the local people did not care to go down there after dark. Gipsies were reputed to camp on the common and steal everything they could lay their hands on. A pleasant outlook for a lonely farm!

Fortunately, the writer had learned how to deal with all and every kind of vermin which infest the countryside, so we did not worry overmuch. Normally tramps only camp on farms which are not occupied, and are afraid of dogs and men. They depend largely on begging in the villages when the men are away at work and the women are afraid of them, and give them money and food which they can ill afford. There are only two things a tramp should ever be offered: work, if you are very kindhearted, an offer which he does not want; or personal violence. If you must leave your wife alone in the house, buy a second-hand policeman's helmet and hang it in the hall, and leave the door open. Gipsies are different. Play on their superstitious fears by hiding their death sign where you know they will find it, and they move on without taking their horses out. Destroying all the sallow willow is also a good method of discouraging them, because it is from this that they make the clothes-pegs which are hawked round the villages.

Having advised the time of our arrival, as arranged, we duly arrived at the farm again to find the familiar buff-coloured envelope stuck under the door-knocker, showing that the owner had not been at home to receive it. This simple gesture, we understood, was the old English farming custom of pretending that one is not too anxious to do business. Just as a third-rate solicitor, bank manager, or civil servant is always busy writing when you are shown into his room, while the really big men in business or the professions are always ready to meet you at the time appointed and deal immediately with the matter in hand.

However, as we had come to inspect the house, and had no time to waste, we intended to get on with it. A ladder from the buildings, a loose window catch on the second story and a strong clasp knife helped us to make an entry. All the lower windows were shuttered and barred, and the front door was locked, double bolted, barred, and chained. These precautions amused us so much that we could not resist the temptation to place the telegram in the centre of the dining-room table, before quitting the house and carefully shooting the window catch, and before returning the ladder to its proper place. On his return the owner would have to think the pet ghost had been busy again.

This visit confirmed our previous impression that the house was small, but sound, with four bedrooms, two sitting-rooms, a kitchen, dairy, and outhouse. In the outhouse were a good pump and sink, together with bread oven and copper. We could add a bedroom and bathroom without any great expense, when time and money permitted. The usual medieval convenience at the end of the garden could also be replaced by indoor sanitation as there was plenty of water available.

The garden contained an excellent crop of nettles, tin cans, and ashes, with a few mildewed gooseberry bushes and plum suckers. The lawn, over which the pigs roamed, and where the ducks were penned, was redeemed by two fine spruce firs, the relics, perhaps, of some bygone Christmas when a happy family celebrated the festival here in the time-honoured way.

An orchard adjoining the house contained a score of old apple trees, some already tumbled down, others in the last stages of decay, and only one worth keeping.

The rickyard and rick sites elsewhere covered a couple of acres, with old rotten straw, dumps of thatch, old implements, thistles, and other rubbish. This is still far too common on many farms, indicating that the farmers have more land than they deserve; they ought to be able to put it to better use than as a site for the rotting down of good straw, which should have been long since returned to the land; it is a pity if the rickyard cannot grow something better than weeds.

Another walk round the farm, summing up its faults and failings (which I have given in detail) convinced us that we could make a success of it. It only remained to find the elusive owner and complete the deal.

The assurance and confidence of youth! The elder partner was under twenty years of age, and the younger not quite eighteen. Capital one hundred fifty pounds. Knowledge and experience? Four years' general farming as a pupil for one, two years' engineering and business for the other. Our greatest asset was a mother with absolute faith in all her children, believing them to have inherited in some small measure the ability of their father, who went to London as the penniless son of a small Scottish farmer to build step by step a successful business. This almost failed at his early death, and she was left to rear and educate five children under sixteen. All were given the best education she could afford, a free choice of trade or profession, but in which they would have to make their own way on leaving school. The older sons safely launched, the two youngest, choosing farming, were backed to the limit of her resources, with a farm bought on mortgage, a little working capital borrowed from an old friend, and a supreme trust in Providence. What more could anyone want, excepting perhaps a mother who was also prepared to pioneer in the wilderness and keep house for her sons. In full measure we had all these things.

It should perhaps be mentioned that any so-called expert on farming, whether farmer, auctioneer, land agent, or county organizer, would have predicted utter failure for this venture. Prices were tumbling, old and capable men were said to be losing money. It is quite certain that had there been a War Agricultural Committee functioning in those days we would never have been allowed to take the farm at all. A bank manager poured scorn on all my plans and schemes, refusing to grant even a fifty pound loan to tide over a short period. I blushed as I stood before his desk and he talked to me like a delinquent schoolboy, yet in more recent years I have lounged in a chair while a bank director listened with careful attention to my views on financial stability in farming, which have not changed in the smallest detail over the years.

Others may be tempted to do likewise under similar circumstances, so ignore the gloomy predictions of those who have looked on the grapes which are sour. Given the will there is hardly anything which cannot be achieved. Remember that the aerodynamic experts can demonstrate, with all the resources at their disposal, that nothing the size, shape, and weight, and fitted with such inadequate wings, as a bumblebee can possibly fly. The bumblebee, not knowing this, but having the will, does so quite comfortably, every day, collects a little honey, and at the same time performs a service to agriculture which cannot be measured in millions of pounds, by the fertilization of red clover which is the basis of rotational farming.

From what did such confidence spring? From his earliest youth, the writer felt that there was only one thing worth doing on earth- farm it! I had listened for hours on end to my father's tales of his boyhood days in Scotland, visualizing the windswept mountainside where for eight generations our family fought against the rocks and heather encroaching on the hard-won acres from which a living could only be scratched by incessant toil. An old lady who lived with us used to tell how in the Crimean War her father earned seven shillings a week, with bread at a shilling a loaf, as a labourer in Essex. All this could leave me few illusions as to an earthly paradise on the land, compared with the comfort and security of the home in which we were born. Yet I never had the slightest doubt, and my younger brother shared my enthusiasm and assurance that we would some day become farmers.

All that remained was to find the ways and means. Reared as we were under the smoke pall of a great city, with only a few yards on which to keep poultry and rabbits, and our knowledge of the country gained only at rare intervals, it would seem that we had a long way to travel to realize our ambitions. However, as we got older we spent many happy days in the country, and helped on a farm in the last years of the Great War.

In my last year at school I took the full course from the Agricultural Correspondence College, then at Ripon, Yorkshire, and now at Warborough, Oxfordshire. It was well worth the ten guineas it cost, running to some hundred thousand words, a masterpiece of condensation of fact, and without a single line which did not teach me something. I should perhaps mention that I have no interest whatever in advertising this particular college; others may run a similar course, but I am convinced that in this class of training one can only take out as much as is put in by study and application. Personally I almost committed it to heart.

On leaving school, my eldest brother asked me what I intended to do for a living, and told me that my foolish dreams of becoming a farmer should be given up. Seeing that no capital would be available, I should be condemning myself to a life of unremitting toil, in mud, snow, or dust; no holidays, no security, poverty and want, saving all the years for a set of false teeth and a coffin, or finishing in the workhouse. On the other hand, as I had done fairly well at school, for a premium of fifty pounds a sure position could be obtained in the more gentlemanly occupation of a clerk, with security, steady promotion, and a pension at the end of it.

A black moment. Were all my dreams to be dashed to the ground? Toil and hardship meant little to the adolescent finding his strength for the first time, but I did want to make a home for my mother in the country within a very few years. No! I would become a farmer by work, study, and prayer, or die in the attempt. 'Let me have the fifty pounds', I said, 'and I will be a farmer before I am twenty-one.'

I then wrote to the farmer for whom we had worked in holidays, and arranged to work for him in return for experience. But I soon saw that this was not the place to learn what I required. A kindly, decent old man was this farmer, but always behind, or in a muddle with the work. No rotation of crops was followed, no balanced rations fed, or any of the other things I had expected to find from my correspondence course in agriculture. I learned later that very few farmers in every thousand at that time used the resources of science which were at their disposal. Much of the labour employed was useless, and from such farms nothing could be learned. The animals were always sick or ailing, the crops spoiled by the weather. This farmer, moreover, never grumbled at or found fault with my work; after ten years at school I expected criticism and would have valued it. He told me I was wasting my life in agriculture, advising me to go back to the town or, since I loved the country so much, to win a scholarship, go to college, and become a County Education official-he had been told they earned as much as five pounds a week, without soiling their hands-more than he had ever earned in his life, and therefore an incredible sum to one overburdened with debts and mortgage interest, and with seldom a shilling he could call his own.

I thanked him for his advice, but I had no objection to soiling my hands and intended to earn a great deal more than the sum that seemed so much to him, as capital and a wage had got to be found. But first, by hook or by crook, I had got to learn my trade.

I advertised and answered advertisements, spent a few pounds on travelling to interviews, and learned just a little by talking to farmers and walking round their farms.

Paradoxically I found it very difficult to enter this bankrupt industry (bankrupt, that is, in the estimation of the farmers' leaders). Apparently farmers required from fifty to three hundred pounds premium to teach one how to lose money. At one end of the scale they looked for cheap labour that would pay for the privilege of working, and those at the other end of the scale spoke highly of the hunting, shooting, and fishing in their district, and hardly mentioned their farming.

At last the right place was found, with a young progressive farmer, who had modern methods of rationing, recording, manuring,

and cropping, and good pedigree stock: no rich man's hobby, his farm, but a sound business concern. He was asking a premium of sixty pounds, while by that time my financial resources had dwindled to forty pounds. Putting all my cards on the table, I talked him into taking me. It appeared he was shortly moving to another farm, a long way from the railway station, to which the milk would have to be taken every evening. None of his men would take it, as they would not get home till nine o'clock, for they lived in the opposite direction. This was too late, seeing that they had to start again at five in the morning. It was agreed that I should drive the milk after the men had gone home, and in return, if satisfactory, my premium would be returned as wages after six months.

On that place I learned how to FARM, which means a great deal more than the words convey. Good farming is the cumulative effect of making the best possible use of land, labour, and capital. This must not be confused with neat and tidy farming only, which is often uneconomic; although, of course, efficient farming will always have an order and purpose which is apparent to the discerning eye.

Everything was of the very best of its kind: pedigree horses, both light and heavy, cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry. I learned that one really first-class beast leaves a bigger profit than a dozen average animals or a score of indifferent cattle. All consume the same quantity of food and require the same labour, but the margin between cost and selling price bears no comparison. How well that knowledge has served me!

On that farm too, some of the finest judges of their day were frequent visitors, and I owe much to their kindness in teaching me how to recognize the best and not be deceived merely by show condition. What a contrast between the able and talented man, who so freely shares his knowledge, and the ignorant labourer, so common in farming, who is afraid that someone might learn from him and profit by it.

It was part of my work to keep the books, and from them I learned the fundamental reason why such small profits are made in farming. True the farmer cleared about one thousand pounds a year, but there was sixty pounds an acre invested in land, stock, tenant-right, equipment, and working capital. The total capital was turned over once in three years, in which period with ordinary business it might be turned over thirty times. Therefore the solution must be intensity of production. The farm which could turn its capital over once a year with the same margin of profit would pay three times as well. British agriculture with invested capital of some thirty pounds per acre and an output of seven pounds, turning its capital over once in four years, was not, and could not be, a business proposition for the average farmer. So simple! I could think it out for myself at the age of seventeen, yet I suppose ninety-nine farmers out of a hundred would rather farm a thousand acres extensively and probably lose money than a hundred acres intensively and make some. True, money in farming is not everything, but we have never learned to farm without it, as land should be farmed and maintained, with fences, roads, buildings, and the wherewithal to reward good and loyal service on the basis it deserves. Carried a stage further, we have since learned that, providing the output per acre is really high, it does not matter how extravagantly you farm, you will still show a profit. On the other hand, however carefully you farm, if the output per acre is low, you will make a loss.

On the practical side I was given an opportunity to try every job on the farm, and learned to milk, drive a team, stack and thatch, and prepare animals for show and sale. In some respects I felt that I was not getting all the practical experience I would have liked, because the busier we were haymaking, harvesting, or the like, the less I seemed to have to do with it. The Boss, knowing that he must be right on the spot when important work was in hand, tended to send me to deal with little matters of business he would normally have attended to himself. I have realized since that in deputizing for him in showing prospective customers stock he had for sale, or in driving a bargain for him, I was acquiring knowledge which would some day be invaluable to me.

Working from five in the morning to nine o'clock at night, I had few opportunities for spending money. For this I was truly thankful, as my personal expenditure could be reduced to four-pence a month on hair-cutting and as little as possible on essential clothes.

I was very happy in my work, finding no toil or drudgery in it. My employer sometimes took me to shows and sales. He also taught me to ride. He was a very clever horse-master, but weighing fourteen stone and standing six feet three inches, could not ride the lightweight ponies and horses for which at that time there was a great demand. With only a few old crocks, mares, and foals, left over by the army buyers during the Great War, anything that could be hunted sold for a high price. Weighing in those days little over eight stone, and taking very easily to riding, under such a capable master, I think I proved quite useful to him. The wiles and guile of such a man in selling a horse were an education in themselves. He would have one broken-in in a few summer evenings.

Then when cub-hunting started and the meet was close to the farm, he would say, 'George, we will go to the meet to-morrow.' Off we would go, perhaps before five o'clock; the only justification

I can see for fox-hunting is the ride in the early morning. Arriving in good time, he would look for a fairly easy jump, and telling me to follow him, he would put his magnificent heavy-weight hunter at it, and mine would follow in the excitement of the moment. Doing this several times, until he was sure the young horse would jump without question, he would then say, 'Hang about here, after they have finished, until I come.'

In due course he would meet someone looking for a horse. 'Ah, yes,' he would say, 'I've got just what you want. I wonder where my pupil is?' Knowing full well where I was he had little difficulty in finding me. The horse having been duly inspected, the customer would ask if it could jump. 'Oh yes. Jump anything. Now what would be suitable?' Here he would look all around the country, but never at the jump the horse had been over several times. As often as not the customer would suggest the obvious place; and I would be told to put the horse over it, doing so as nonchalantly as possible. Thus another horse was sold. He had a hundred similar tricks, but I never knew him fake a horse, or sell one as sound if it was not. He considered that a perfectly trained hunter was wasted on ninety-nine hunting people out of a hundred, but for the hundredth man he could always find a beauty. His own was a miracle of co-ordination between human brain and equine muscles. Sometimes he would let me ride it home from the meet or at exercise, and I found it a unique experience. With a mouth like oiled-silk, he would start off at any pace on a named foot. So beautifully balanced was he that he could correct the rider's weight in the saddle, so responsive that a rabbit hole could be sidestepped by a twist of the wrist; he could change his feet at the touch of the leg. Approaching a jump his stride could be shortened or lengthened so that he always jumped at a distance equal to the height of the fence, clearing it with effortless ease, to the comfort and security of the rider. Such a horse could be sold for five hundred guineas, and ruined in a few weeks by some wartime profiteer taking up hunting for the first time.

But these interludes were few and far between, and I always felt a little guiltily after a day's hunting that I was neglecting the serious business of learning my trade. The financial side of hunting made little appeal, as I saw many fooling away the easy money on wine, women, and racing. It also enabled me to form first-hand opinions on a sport which has survived from the dark ages and must be considered an anachronism where modern farming is concerned.

Ethically it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering for the gratification of a mere thrill, and for that reason fox-hunting is a disgrace to the civilization that permits it, and a reflection on the mentality of those who take part in it. To contend that hunting provides employment is to put it on a level with crime and lunacy, for which the same thing could be said. The work and trade associated with the sport could be put to more productive use.

Riding can be enjoyed without hunting. It is to this day my greatest pleasure, and it must be remembered that only about five per cent ride straight to hounds, the rest of the field career round the lanes and through the gates. For the good horseman there is always the drag-hunt, which almost invariably develops into a steeplechase. (This, however, makes it unpopular with those who only require a little social activity, the admiration of the crowd, the pomp and pageantry associated with hunting.)

So the days, weeks, and months slipped by. I learned something every day. The men on the farm were very helpful. I never hesitated to flatter or bribe to obtain their knowledge and skill. When one old man complained that the Boss ought to send him out a pint of beer each day if he had got to teach me how to thatch, I instantly offered to buy him a barrel on the day I was satisfied I could thatch as well as my instructor. Never was I so thoroughly taught. Others hearing about this went out of their way to impart their knowledge and they found me a ready pupil. Strange as it may seem there are many in the industry who will not help. Quite recently we offered a rural craftsman, specially skilled in his trade, twenty pounds a week to teach some boys, and although there was no question of him fearing competition, he refused on the grounds that it had taken him sixty years to learn and he would rather his trade died with him than that others should acquire it easily.

That I would offer to wash the dairy utensils for the dairymaid so that she could keep a date, or stop up all night to help the poultry-maid to pluck and truss poultry, was attributed to my kindness of heart. Little did they know it was simply determination to master every task on the farm, whether outside my interests or not.

A few weeks before my year was up, a new pupil came from the Harper Adams Agricultural College. Having had four years there he was now ready to gain practical experience. In my opinion he was doing things the wrong way round, but nevertheless, from him I learned quite a lot of the theory and scientific aspect of farming, and also the standard textbooks with which one should be familiar.

Altogether this was a very happy and profitable year. I finished with thirty-five pounds in hand, and a very kind and generous reference, in which I was described as 'the gentlest and most efficient milker' the Boss had ever had, and 'a first-class horseman with either heavy or light animals'. In view of the unfailing kindness and patience he had taken to teach me, I am sorry that I have been unable to get in touch with him again and obtain his permission to mention his name.

Once more I was up against the problem of finding a suitable situation; the faster British agriculture slipped down the precipice of post-war depression, the higher the premiums the farmers asked. My experience counted for nothing. One farmer told me he had lost seven thousand pounds in the last year in depreciation alone, yet apparently he felt qualified to teach, or did he really want the premium of two hundred pounds? This surely would only be a drop in the bucket, as he gave no indication of changing his methods to meet the times, but could only curse the Government for repealing the Corn Production Act, under which prices were to be linked with wages.

Then I saw an advertisement requiring a young man to milk twelve cows on a small farm in Essex. I applied, and obtained the situation subject to a month on trial.

It was a small grass farm, heavily stocked with poultry and pigs, and with the cows to keep the grass down. The farmer had little interest in his cattle, apart from the milk cheque, but was a first-class poultryman and did quite well with the pigs.

Taking this job I felt was a descent to the ranks of the farm labourers, and looked round for ways and means to remedy the situation. Carefully laying my plans, I put my whole heart and soul into the job, looking after the cows as they had never been looked after before. At the end of the month on trial, the farmer said he was satisfied with my work and hoped I liked the situation. I told him at once that I did not intend to stop. At this he was very disappointed and offered me an extra shilling a week, raising me to six shillings together with my board and lodging. This also I refused, and was then asked what I wanted.

My conditions were that instead of milking at seven a.m. and three p.m., it should be done at five a.m. and five p.m., which would give me four hours free during the day to work on the pig and poultry section and learn all about it. I also required seven and six a week. This extra half-crown I would justify by producing an extra two and sixpenceworth more milk daily if permission was given to use the feeding-stuffs in hand by feeding according to yield, and not the same all round, as was his method, giving too much for the dry cows and low yielders, not enough for the deep milkers. Also I required one whole day off per month, not weekly half-holidays between the milkings on Saturdays as was the local custom. The object of this was to enable me to interview other farmers when the time came to try for another place.

Telling me that I would soon get tired of my proposition, he agreed to try it. And so while doing my job as a dairyman I made the opportunity to learn how to run a successful poultry farm. Poultry in my experience requires as much knowledge, care, and attention as any other class of stock, yet more people go into this branch of the industry than into any other, knowing nothing whatever of even the guiding principles on which a poultry farm should be run.

An incident which clearly illustrates this point occurred a few weeks after I went to this farm. A gentleman came with his poultry manager (note the manager) to buy some breeding stock. In taking them to see the birds, we passed a pen of large Buff Rock capons. 'What are those?' inquired the gentleman. 'Capons, sir,' I replied. Nothing more was said until they had inspected the breeding stock and selected what they required. And then, when they were about to leave, the manager said to his employer, 'What about having a breeding pen of those capons?'

A capon is, of course, an emasculated cockerel, and useful only for fattening or rearing chickens. Can anyone imagine the manager of an ordinary farm not knowing what a bullock was?

Telling this story to my employer, he said, 'That's nothing, I once sold a man a hen and setting of eggs. Meeting him later and inquiring how they had done, I got the reply, "She hatched ten, but I supposed she wouldn't have enough milk for all those, so I drowned four out of the way."'

Every possible source of revenue was exploited on that farm. We had a dozen breeds of poultry, four of ducks, two of geese, and turkeys. Even peacocks added their shrill cry to that of guineafowl and the challenge of golden pheasant. Hatching eggs, day-old chicks, broodies, fattened cockerels, and breeding pens brought in a steady income, the rare birds being as profitable as the domestic poultry. Peacocks would sell at five pounds, yet took no more food than a cockerel, reared under broody hens, followed by capons-as they require heat for six months, and the hen gets tired of them after a few weeks. With the secretive attitude of the countryman my employer would never admit he cleared a profit. Yet I calculated he cleared four hundred pounds a year on the poultry, against one hundred pounds on the cattle, and as much on the pigs. All this on twenty-seven acres, while the great arable farms of the district were falling down to scrub, as their owners went bankrupt. I saw here quite clearly that it is not the acreage you farm, but the intensity of production you maintain, which determines the financial success of the venture.

As week by week went by I studied the advertisement columns in the agricultural papers, always searching for a suitable vacancy that would enable me to take another step on the uphill path to becoming a farmer in five years.

At last I found it. An elderly sheep farmer in the far north required an assistant. I applied and enclosed a stamp. The reply came, that although he liked my letter, I was too young, and a year's experience of lowland sheep was insufficient. I wrote again saying that a young horse is easier to break than an old one, that sheep were in my blood, my ancestors having been reared on ewes' milk for generations in Scotland, and begged for an interview.

My request was granted, and I travelled through the night for the interview. How the great range of cloud-topped mountain stirred my blood, the purple heather and white foaming streams, the scent of moss and cool sweet air. What a contrast from the flat desolation of the Essex marshland where I had been working!

No one was at the station to meet me. So, buying an Ordnance Survey map of the district, I walked the six miles over the hills to the farm. The more I saw of the country the more I loved it and felt I simply must get the job. Here it seemed to my boyish imagination was a real man's job, shepherding on these hills.

My reception at the farm did not seem too cordial. The farmer eyed me up and down, like a horse he might be buying. The conversation on his part was restricted to 'Aye' and 'So', and an occasional 'No', while his wife sat silent without saying a word. However, I said my piece, and hoped for the best.

Then, after a ten-minute silence by the clock, he said, 'We'll look round'. Outside, he silently showed me round the steading, leaving me to make what I trusted were suitable comments. At last we arrived at the Dutch barn, and stood under it, as rain was now falling in a steady downpour. Looking across a field he suddenly said, 'What breed of sheep is that?' I could only just see two sheep through the driving rain, and on the spur of the moment, and for no reason at all, except that I had heard they were kept in that district, I said, 'A Swaledale'. A breed I had never seen and could not have described.

Not a muscle of the farmer's face moved. Then he said, 'Is yon a lamb or a ewe?' Once again I guessed, and said, 'A lamb'. Turning to me, with a smile, he said. 'You'll suit me weel, I shall no bother to take up any references.'

Taking me back into the farmhouse, we sat down to a substantial meal, which his wife had prepared, and over it I learned that the farm extended to some two thousand acres, fifty arable, a hundred enclosed grass, and the rest open moor.

The stock consisted of six hundred fifty Blackfaced mountain ewes, and thirty pedigree Swaledales for ram breeding. These were his pride and joy,

and I realized what a lucky guess I had made in naming the breed. According to the law of averages it might well have been a Blackface when I said a Swaledale, as I did not then know the difference. Apart from the sheep there were a few cows which reared their own calves, half a dozen working horses for the arable, and the same number of rough ponies for riding round the moor.

Returning in the train that night I took myself to task very seriously. 'George, my lad, there is not going to be any more jobs got by guessing. You will now study the photographs in The Farmer and Stock-Breeder year books, until you can recognize any breed at sight.' So to this day I can distinguish any of the thirty-six breeds kept in this country, and nearly all the crosses between them.

By the next morning I was back in Essex, and gave fair notice to my employer. He called me all the names he could lay his tongue to, which hurt me very much at the time, but on reflection I realized that a man who is very annoyed in those circumstances has really valued one's services very highly. We parted, certainly without any animosity on my part, as I had had the opportunity to show I could manage a herd of cows without supervision, had gained a good all-round knowledge of poultry and bee-keeping, and learned to do a number of useful odd jobs, such as concreting, gardening, and hedge-laying, on which that man was very efficient.

In due course I arrived again at the sheep farm, and hid my lack of knowledge as far as possible by outdoing everyone on the farm in taciturnity, never using two words if one would do, not that unless really necessary, and that only after due reflection. This I found invaluable as a form of discipline, as I usually talk too much, and it gave me far more time to think, and forced other people into loquacity from sheer self-defence.

I soon found that my new employer was a very sick man, and drinking hard. Right from the start I had a lot of responsibility thrust upon me. I had to carry all the orders to the men, and report on the work which had been done. On Mondays the farmer went to market and returned drunk. On Tuesdays he was too ill to get up. On Wednesdays he was in a terrible temper. On Thursdays silent. On Fridays apologized for anything he had said on Wednesday. For the rest of the week was one of the nicest men I have ever known.

All this I found very wearing; but after a bit I learned to find out by Sunday night all he wanted done in the following week. On that evening I would often sit up till midnight, absorbing the accumulated knowledge of his fifty years' experience, and then going to bed with a heavy heart, knowing that for the next four days everyone's life would be made a misery, by a man bolstering up his failing health with spirits. For a drunkard is always a very sick man.

Under my new system I gave the orders to the men throughout the week regardless of what he ordered or countermanded. I often made mistakes through lack of knowledge or sudden changes of weather, which I had not learned to forecast. But on the whole we managed better, and were able to keep labour, which had not been possible before.

Once away from the house, what a grand life it was! With a whole day to work and the horizon for the farm boundary. We sometimes went weeks without seeing a stranger. The post and essential supplies were left at the shepherd's cottage a mile away. There was of course a full day's work to be done on the enclosed land as in general farming, but one had only to glance up, to see the great flock grazing on the green surrounding mountains, which shut in the farm like the rim of a saucer. This never failed to thrill me: some age-old instinct, I suppose, from generations of men whose lives must have been spent in the care and protection of the flocks and herds from neolithic times.

So deep does that instinct lie that the best type of shepherd and flockmaster develop almost psychic powers in the care and protection of their charges. Once on a still and sultry night my employer woke me at one o'clock, and told me I must move the sheep from the lower ground. I was out in a few minutes, but could not detect any reason for his decision. A storm might be threatening, but as yet there was no rain. However, orders were given to be obeyed. Calling the dogs I set off; and got my first surprise at the river running through the valley. It was brimful and beginning to sweep over the wooden footbridge. Setting the dogs to their task I no sooner had the flock moving than I could hear the river roaring in spate, yet still not a drop of rain had fallen. Then as we mounted higher, continuous lightning began to flicker and flash in the sky on the other side of the range, and I realized that a great storm was raging on the other side and the whole watershed was feeding the torrent which now overflowed the banks.

Then with my sheep safe, I became anxious; what of the shepherd below? I had cleared my section, the flock below would be in greater danger. Running hard for half a mile, being above the rocks and on heather, it was a great relief to find the next flock coming steadily up under the masterly control of the shepherd's dogs. But where was the man himself? With the continuous lightning the whole landscape was illuminated, yet not a sign or a signal, although the dogs co-operated under perfect control, compared with the ragged work mine had put in at an unaccustomed task. Normally they were used to bringing sheep down the hillside to be penned, and never up, as when turned loose the flock find their own way to the higher ground. Then the storm broke, and dashing for shelter under the rocks, for a thunderstorm is no joke at fourteen hundred feet, I thought no more about the shepherd, a man well able to look after himself under any circumstances when his sheep were safe.

At dawn the storm was spent and down through the rising mist which shrouded the mountainside, I slowly made my way. Reaching the river, I found it still a hundred yards wide, although subsiding, and the bridge swept away. On the other side stood the shepherd. The moment he saw me came the hail, 'Have you seen my sheep?'

This surprised me. 'They are where you put them.'

'Are they safe?' he shouted again.

'Yes,' I replied, 'you know very well.'

'Thank God! Where was my faith? I could no' cross, the bridge was awa'. I prayed for yon to be guided.' His two dogs, hearing his voice, came trotting along the bank on my side of the river looking for a place to cross. I was left to wonder at the prescience which warned my employer of the approaching danger which woke him after midnight; and the telepathic communication between the collies and the shepherd in response to the intensity of thought and concentration called prayer.

Then one day the master had a stroke and collapsed completely, and for seven whole weeks I had complete control of the farm. It so happened that with the exception of the shepherd we had all new labour at the time, and so they accepted my authority without question, although I was only eighteen at the time.

How we worked during those weeks! I learned to trust and rely on the best type of labour, who toiled unselfishly without thought of reward and at considerable personal risk simply to do their job.

Snow is the greatest danger, and at one time all worked for fifty hours straight off, driving the flock in a raging blizzard, at one thousand four hundred feet above sea-level, with the snow in their faces, to save them from the great drifts which trapped many hundreds of sheep on other farms in the district.

All day long, one Sunday, as we rested before the fire, or looked out of the window, the weather steadily deteriorated, until by seven o'clock it was obvious that the sheep would have to be driven from the deep corries in which they would shelter from the rising wind and falling snow.

The shepherd, two men, and myself, set out, heavily clad and with scarves tied over our mouths as the horizontally driven snow made it impossible to breathe without them. Each with the long northern crook, or cromac, as it is called, made from seven foot of ash, and two dogs at heel, we toiled up the mountainside.

On the top the gale raged at seventy to eighty miles an hour, but in deathly silence as the great plume of snow muffled every sound. So strong it came that we could not stand against it, but crawled over the ridge, the faithful collies keeping close to our sides. Then we went diagonally down till each found the deep, wide, riven gully into which the sheep were already gathering for shelter. These were hustled out, and would move along to the next in the hope of finding shelter, so on each of us depended the whole safety of the flock. As no man could move along except with the greatest difficulty, each would have to guard his own, or have the whole flock smothered under perhaps twenty feet of snow. Sheep can of course live for some days under snow; the record is about six weeks, but they catch cold when released and develop what is called snow fever.

Although on the farm I was now accepted as the foreman, having passed all the orders from the farmer to the men and, now he was ill, making my own decisions, on the open moor when there was work to be done, it was the shepherd who took charge.

There were four open corries to be guarded, so leaving me at the first, he led the other two men on to their places and finally battled to the most difficult of all, where the full blast of the wind drove the snow in great drifts which would remain all winter.

Rough, roofless stone shelters, rather like grouse butts, had been set up at some time. These had now filled with snow, but by scraping it out it was possible to get a few minutes' respite from the wind, which in spite of the cold, or because of it, felt like the breath from a blast furnace and driven sand the moment you faced it.

The collies too would bury themselves in the snow, and had to be routed out every time the sheep came silently along like bundles of cotton-wool as their fleeces trailed in the snow, travelling before the wind on the open mountainside which was swept free, but getting deeper and deeper in the places where they sought shelter. A Blackface mountain sheep is almost helpless in even a two-foot drift and has to be dragged out by brute force, or have a track trodden for it to enable it to get out.

And so in the bitter cold and darkness of a long winter's night we exercised unceasing vigilance until dawn. Then the shepherd moved back with the wind to his first man, who went on to take the shepherd's place. And then to the next, changing over again, and finally to me. In this way one could go back to the farm for a meal, report all was well on the hill, and return with food and drink for the others.

At midday the weather moderated; but in the late afternoon renewed its onslaught with unabating fury, and the wind went back from east to north, always a bad sign. So we were then faced with another night on the mountainside, as the sheep started to come again to the hill. They had grazed on whin and gorse all day on the lower slopes, which were only partially covered with snow, the drifts forming only in the deep valleys in the bottom, and the sheltering places on the top. For a mountain sheep farm, or hirsel, is selected in such a manner that food and shelter can be obtained by the stock; but no protection can be devised from snowdrifts, as sheep seem to have no self-preserving instinct in regard to them; which is strange in such intelligent and self-reliant creatures.

On the Tuesday morning the flock was still safe, but the shepherd was suffering from exposure and exhaustion, and it was agreed that the other two men should take him back to the farm, the old man first exacting a promise from me to continue minding the sheep until dark, when I would be relieved if the weather did not improve.

With the resilience of youth, fortified by rum and milk, from which the greatest benefit is derived by one who normally never touches alcohol, proving it can be a good friend, if sometimes a bad master, I was able to continue slowly moving backwards and forwards on the mile-long stretch; though with a falling wind, going round with the sun, the danger to the flock became less every hour. At dark they were safe, and I slowly picked my way home, very, very tired but truly thankful that I was equal to the hardest physical task that might come the way of any farmer, and compared with which the hardest day's threshing is but child's play, because it does not go on all night. Reaching the house at nine o'clock, exactly fifty hours from when I left it, I went to sleep immediately I sat down in the warm kitchen.

The next day we rested, all ordinary work being at a standstill, but then we had to be hard at work again helping neighbours to dig out their sheep trapped in drifts; for nowhere do you find such genuine co-operation as between the best type of sheep farmers.

Many hundreds of sheep were lost, and many more sadly reduced in condition, which involves a whole cycle of troubles: weak lambs, no milk, and later in the season ravages from the green-bottle maggot-fly.

The shepherd made little progress towards recovery, so that at lambing time I found myself shepherd as well as foreman. I went each evening to his cottage for advice and then followed it as well as I was able; it proved an invaluable experience.

The shepherd was a man who will always remain in my memory: a simple Galloway shepherd, who had strayed a little from his native heath, who in the true sense of the word gave his life to the sheep. An ignorant fool to some, a morose old man to others, but finding that I never spared myself in looking after the flock, he opened his heart to me and taught much that has added pleasure, interest, and enlightenment to my life. From him I learned much of the age-old wisdom of the hills. Almost unlettered, yet with a mathematical mind worthy of a senior wrangler or famous astronomer, his calculations and observations of celestial phenomena, based on Celtic folklore, of which he had a great stock, held me spellbound. His simple laws, passed on en bloc twenty years later to an instructor in astro-navigation, may yet revolutionize the teaching of one of the most difficult branches of practical science.

Whole books have been written on standing stone circles by great and learned archaeologists without coming to any conclusions, yet this untutored peasant could demonstrate them for what they are, calendrical observatories. From his teaching I can calculate the time within a quarter of an hour at any season of the year by a glance at the stars, or the age of the moon in days for any date.

Marking the positions of Deneb, in the constellation of the Swan, at dawn on the day the rams were turned in with the flock, the shepherd expected the arrival of the first lambs when Vega occupied the same position at sunset. While other people, using gestation tables, roamed the hillside night after night looking for lambs, our man would remain tranquilly in his cottage, saving his energy until the stars showed that the lambs were due.

With the decline of physical strength his mental faculty became more acute. At no time did he confuse astronomy with astrology or other pseudonymous science, but his intuition was uncanny. One day the farmer's wife told me that as he could no longer look after himself he would have to be sent to an institution. Knowing it would kill him, I threatened to leave on the day he was sent, which compelled her to drop the project. The same evening, as I approached his cottage, I saw him standing on a little hillock before the door, leaning on his long crook and with a plaid over his shoulder. From here he could survey the valley and the heights beyond. As he turned to me, his long beard and his piercing eyes, burning bright with fever, gave him a druidical appearance. The setting sun shining through the clouds and throwing a halo round the great riven peak of Black Law behind him, completed the illusion. Before I could speak a word, he held up his hand.

'My son,' he said, 'for what you have done to-day you will receive your reward. All that on which you set your heart will be achieved. Those that work with you will prosper, and any who work against you will be cast down. You will spend the best years of your life in a fat and sinful land, yet whenever you set foot upon the hills my spirit will guide and comfort you.'

What could I say? Two years before I had been confirmed in a fashionable London church. A well-fed and comfortable-looking bishop, exuding wellbeing from every pore, had laid his hands upon my head and intoned his apostolic blessing; and in my heart I had felt what a farce it was. Yet here in the shadow of the great hills, from this unwashed, half-starved, but utterly sincere ascetic, who dwelling in the solitary places of the earth had found for himself many of the eternal truths, I seemed to receive something concrete: a real and driving force that would make his words come true.

Cheered and fortified by the old man's prophecy, I threw myself more wholeheartedly than ever into my work. The future might be foretold, but it could only be achieved by constant application and study, unremitting care and attention to detail.

We had a wonderful lambing season that year, the weather having relented after playing havoc with so many flocks in the district during the great blizzard. As the days lengthened I was working eighteen hours a day, directing the work on the enclosed land and shepherding the hill. I was completely happy and contented in my work, experiencing a sense of divine vocation which I have never lost in doing anything in connection with farming.

At last my employer made a partial recovery from his serious illness. We rode together round the farm and up on to the hill, now white with ewes and lambs in the spring sunlight. For once he found fault with nothing, being deeply moved to be out again and on his own mountainside, always known as 'the Hill'. I seized the opportunity of pressing the shepherd's case; and he quite agreed with me that the old man should be allowed to die where he had lived, if someone could be found to look after him. Contentedly we rode on. Suddenly, he said, 'George, how much money have you got?'

Wondering, I replied, 'About sixty pounds, sir.'

'Well,' said he quietly, 'I am prepared to take you into partnership without capital. I, like my shepherd, am finished on the hill, but your youth and strength, and the ability you have shown, convinces me that you can manage it for me.'

'You are very generous, sir, and I have done nothing to deserve it.'

'Maybe not,' came the reply, 'but you have been looking after this place as if it was your own, and I realize that you will not stop long in any paid position. For the little time I have left, money means very little to me, but the flock is my life's work. I can only give you half of all I've got, my wife must have the other when the time comes. But her share will be no good without someone who can show-has shown-the sheep come first, last, and all the time. Think it over and tell me on Sunday.'

A very tempting offer, this. No books were kept and no valuation made. Hill farmers are often so superstitious that they do not even count their sheep for fear there should be less next time. The bank book is the only record. If the balance is better than the previous year at the same date, all is well. If not, it cannot be remedied, except by work and prayer during the following year. A file of newspaper clippings giving the numbers and prices of ewes and lambs sold at the annual sales is the only indication of the value of the farm, the produce from the enclosed land being consumed on the spot, sufficient cattle and wool being sold to pay the rent and wages. If the farm changes hands the stock is valued by the neighbours, at considerably more than the market price, as an open hill farm is valueless without the stock which have become acclimatized over many generations to the particular mountainside.

As near as could be calculated the share offered would be worth about two thousand one hundred pounds. Three hundred pounds a week for doing what was only my duty by my employer and the flock during the seven weeks I had complete charge. On the other hand, so small is the gross return from this type of farming, my share would only bring in about one hundred forty pounds per annum. Also I could see no real future for improvement: the hill was steadily deteriorating for lack of cattle and wethers, which are no longer kept owing to the changing demand for young mutton and beef. To attempt reseeding is to attract other flocks from the open sheep-walk and the poisoning of the fresh grazing, for a sheep's worst enemy is another sheep.

I could put up with the farmer, who since his illness had given up drinking, but I disliked his wife, and had in any case set my heart on going into partnership with my younger brother; and so in due course I turned the offer down.

Then for a few more months I carried on as usual. The great annual sheep sale came; it was my responsibility to get the flock safely to market. The master and shepherd would come later-it was their last sale. Our stock made a higher average and for a larger number than ever before. Congratulations poured in on every side, the other shepherds accepted me as one of themselves, and I felt it was one of the greatest days of my life.

On the strength of such a good sale, a neighbouring flock-master made an offer to take over the farm to run with an adjoining property, and on pressure from his wife, and the assurance that the old shepherd could keep his cottage, my employer agreed to sell. So once more I was free, and with many expressions of goodwill, we parted.

After a short holiday, during which I endeavoured to catch up on my studies in the theory and science of farming, which I had neglected for want of even a spare half-hour at night, I obtained a situation in Oxfordshire. Here again I went for a month on trial. The job seemed too good to be true, as I was to be allowed to have a little land of my own on which I could keep some stock. Only the customary hours were worked, so that it would be possible to look after my animals early and late, and in the winter I would be permitted to fit it in with my ordinary work when the days were short. I felt I had learned how to farm in Derbyshire, with good stock and modern methods; how to do many odd jobs and make profits out of sidelines in Essex; how to work and take responsibility amongst the rocks and heather of the north; but here I was taught how to live. Mine was a kindly and a considerate employer who ordered his life on Christian principles, a very great change from the hard-driving, hard-swearing, and hard-drinking farmers I had found elsewhere. Never seeking to take advantage of anyone, he was true and just in all his dealings; an excellent example to any young man who has to make his way in the world. His sound advice, and kind recommendations to merchants, auctioneers, and traders proved invaluable when we took Oathill Farm. From his wife too I received many kindnesses for which I wish to place on record my appreciation.

It was a typical Cotswold farm, mostly arable, and with a hurdle flock to maintain fertility. Milking cows had replaced fattening bullocks, but otherwise it was the old traditional system which had served English farming so well for many generations, but was breaking down under changing economic conditions. The old test that a farmer should get a 'rent' off his sheep, another off the corn, and a third off cattle, with which to pay one each to the landlord and labour, having the other for himself, no longer applied. Labour alone wanted two 'rents', and if the landlord had the other there was nothing left for the farmer. The only remedy would be to increase production with, say, pigs and poultry, as an extra section to balance increasing costs, and not to sacrifice a fine system which had proved its worth. The paltry expedients by which many farmers tried to meet the situation were exposed by an old labourer when he said to me, 'If it don't pay to do well, master, it can't pay to do bad.' I saw quite clearly the good qualities of the system, by which fertility is maintained, and the remedy for the faults, which I hoped to incorporate in our own methods when we were able to take a farm. Meanwhile, I spent a very happy and enjoyable year, learning to love the Cotswold country, which like its people was poor but honest and would respond to good treatment. The land was cheap to rent or buy compared with other districts, and so I asked a local auctioneer to find us something within our means, and with ample scope for youth and energy.

During the years I was learning farming my brother had not been idle. For two years after he left school he helped an elder brother, who was starting a new business in what was then a completely new industry with a great future. Building their own factory, designing new and wonderful machines, training labour, organizing an office system, and creating a demand, he had unique opportunities to develop his talents and earn money. Yet in spite of all the thrills of business building and a comfortable and assured future, the call of THE LAND was too strong, and so George and Frank Henderson, FARMERS! entered into partnership on the fourth day of March nineteen twenty-four.

CHAPTER TWO The Plan

In the few weeks between singing the agreement and taking possession of the farm, our complete plan for farming the land and stocking it was carefully drawn up, the financial aspect also being carefully budgeted. It is interesting to look back now and see that through all the changing fortunes of agriculture it has never been necessary to change more than a few details of it. Working on the assumption that we would be able to live on the income from stock, using the return from corn sales for debt repayment and improvements, it was calculated that we could establish ourselves as tenant farmers in seven years and then buy the farm freehold in a similar period. The first step was achieved in five years and the second in another five, which indicates that our plan was not too ambitious.

We believed then, as we do now, that the greatest tragedy which had overtaken agriculture was not the repeal of the Corn Production Act, under which prices were to be maintained and linked to wages, but the Agricultural Holdings Act under which tenant farmers were given freedom of cropping, or in other words, freedom to rob their holdings, incidentally and inevitably robbing themselves in the long run, for the preservation of fertility is the first duty of all that live by the land. One hears a lot about the rules of good husbandry; there is only one-leave the land far better than you found it. In the soil lies all that remains of the work of countless generations of the dead. We hold this sacred trust, to maintain the fertility and pass it on unimpaired to the unborn generations to come. The farmer above all must have faith in the future, even the narrow demands of national extremity must not outweigh his judgement and justify the exhaustion of his farm, for a civilization lasts but a thousand years, while in his hands lies the destiny of all mankind.

In the most difficult years of depression a really good crop would clear expenses and cashed through stock would show a reasonable profit. Yet so many farmers tried to remedy the situation in which they found themselves by growing a bigger and bigger acreage of corn, with an inevitable smaller and smaller yield, to be sold at lower and lower prices as the years rolled by, until they were as insolvent as their land was impoverished; and in many cases farms became derelict. The solution, which appealed to some, of tumbling the land down to grass and farming with the proverbial 'sheep dog and a roll of netting', was also doomed to failure, because profit depends on intensity of production, and the stock they could carry was no more, and in many cases a great deal less, than could easily have been maintained on arable land. However, this system had the saving grace that if left Nature to preserve the inherent fertility of the soil, which the farmer showed himself incompetent to manage.

Even the National Farmers' Union at that time advocated a subsidy on arable land as a remedy on one hand, and advised their members to reduce wages on the other-which resulted in the Agricultural Wages Act-without any subsidy. In more recent years a subsidy has been advocated on wages-yet never once did they say, 'Make your farm so productive that you can afford to pay good wages, or teach your men to be so efficient that they can earn them'.

For us the wisdom of the ages was available. A hundred and fifty years of British farming had proved the value of rotational cropping, whereby fertility can be indefinitely maintained by the return in proper order of the manurial residues of the crops grown; and who were we to change it? A five-course rotation, fallow crop, corn, corn, ley, corn, had been common on the Cotswolds, and was well suited to our requirements and the layout of the fields.

In view of the dirty and neglected state of the arable a thorough cleaning of the fallow would have to be the basis of our farming. The destruction of couch grass, one of the most difficult and expensive weeds to eradicate, would be our chief problem. To follow the usual method of working out with many cultivations, collecting and burning, we believe to be the greatest mistake a farmer can make. This robs the land of fertility to a greater extent than the taking of a heavy crop of wheat, and leaves behind tiny pieces of root ready to grow again and befoul the field with this obnoxious weed. Ploughing in the weed every month from February to August will thoroughly exhaust and destroy it, and fertilize the land as to the equivalent of mustard grown for green manure. Our method, still believed by many farmers in the district to be wasteful and risky, was the basis of our rotation, yet on their farms we see the 'squitch' fires burning year after year, yet we have never had to destroy a handful by this slow and uncertain means. One-fifth of our land was to be cleaned each year by continuous ploughing. Coltsfoot, another troublesome weed in our early years, was easily overcome by deep ploughing, or as deep as the nature of the soil would permit. Thistles, another bugbear of farming, were overcome by the same means and by planting winter corn. Docks are the only weed which continue to be a nuisance; a field will appear free from them for years, until a deeper ploughing germinates a full crop which can only be laboriously removed by pulling.

Once cleaned a field would grow two good crops of corn if generously helped with artificial manure. The use of artificials is only justified by the intention of making a bigger and bigger manure heap. To sell off corn and straw grown by chemical manures should be made an indictable offence.

'Seeds', the common term by which farmers describe the mixture of clover and temporary grasses, and the basis of fertility in rotational farming, was very difficult to establish in our early years; but heavy manuring with farmyard dung has brought about such an improvement that a good crop of self-sown clover can be depended upon to appear on any stubble in a wet autumn.

After clover, penned off or dunged, a fair crop could be grown, but here again artificial manure justified its use to provide more corn and straw to be consumed on the holding.

Yields have been carefully checked and tabulated over the years, and have justified our belief in the proper use of every source of available manure. Superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia have given satisfactory results every year except one. Potash has not justified its use, from the point of view of increased yield (though may be useful in maintaining a balance), once a field has been heavily dunged in the rotation.

Wise and thoughtful people in recent years have drawn attention to the misuse of artificial manures. In our experience they do no permanent harm if used in conjunction with farmyard manure and ploughed-in green crops. The health and stamina of stock and crops is not affected as long as the balance is maintained and the cycle continued of-better crops-more stock-more manure-more humus-and more corn to be consumed on the holding.

Once a field had been cleaned of couch by thorough bare fallowing then roots could take their place in rotation and add to the stock-carrying capacity of the farm. It is hopeless to plant even potatoes, which are considered a cleaning crop, where couch abounds, for its spreading roots will penetrate right through the tubers themselves (and also, as an old gardener told me when I was very young, right through a man's heart, but perhaps he was speaking metaphorically).

Our livestock scheme was more ambitious, if on a modest scale. After paying the small ingoing of tenant right valuation, and taking over the dead stock and machinery which was sufficient to work the farm, only two hundred pounds was available, and this at a high rate of interest. Yet nevertheless we determined to have nothing but pedigree stock. For others, the risks, dangers, and disappointments of the open market; in which one as often buys disease, vice, and trouble as healthy and profitable stock. For us, only the best would be good enough. We could not buy it, so we would have to breed it. We therefore allotted fifty pounds for each section, poultry, cattle, sheep, and pigs. Each branch would have to develop out of profits. In this way our experience would always be equal to the stock we had to manage, without the temptation to invest capital too heavily on a boom in one section, and lose it in the next slump.

Hedge-laying and tree felling were also carefully considered. There were a hundred chains on the farm, and all except seven were badly neglected. We sold sixty pounds worth of firewood out of them in the first year, which indicates the state in which we took them over. Surface roots spread a chain into the fields, robbing the crops and breaking the implements.

The buildings would be reconstructed to accommodate the stock, and a road built, when time and money were available.

Labour presented little difficulty. We decided to employ one man for the first year, to help with the hedging and ditching, until the younger partner had gained practical experience. The man's wages could be more than half met by the sale of firewood.

For ourselves, we adopted the principle 'the world forgetting, by the world forgot'. We intended to work about eighty hours a week, or twice the output of the ordinary labourer, allowing for the fact that twenty percent of their time is wasted for want of careful planning and real interest in the job. If it were not, they would not be labourers very long. On the other hand we proposed to live on half a labourer's wage, which is quite easy if a good part of one's food is produced on the farm. This method can be recommended to anyone who cares to try it. One acquires the serenity of outlook only usually found in a monastery. One is not troubled with second-hand opinions absorbed from the daily paper. In fact for the first five years we did not buy one.

It may be that man is intended for higher things than looking after lower animals, but we were happy and contented, with simple living, the health and vitality of youth, our plans and dreams, being our own masters, and serving the LAND. In the hours when other young men of our class were shooting, playing cards and tennis, or taking a girl to the pictures or on the river, we were working. For everything one has in this world a price has to be paid. The hours we put in then have paid substantial dividends ever since, even if we missed some of the love, light, and laughter which is the prerogative of youth.

To some this book will appear egoistical and boastful, and the writer regrets he cannot strike the modest note that characterizes the work of the best farmer-authors. But it should be remembered that we have always lacked the courage to launch out on anything that was not backed by sound principles of which we had a thorough grasp. It is said that even a fool can learn by experience; we have always preferred to learn from others. Once when I was a pupil and helping to cut in half a very hot hay-rick, which had heated almost to the point of spontaneous combustion, and sweat was blinding me and soaking my clothes, a farmer came along. After watching for a few minutes, he said, 'You are a very lucky young man'. 'Why, sir?' I inquired. 'Because you are getting this experience for nothing; someone else is paying for it.' How true. Needless to say we have never had a hot rick on our farm. It is the same with almost everything; we studied, compared, and observed before attempting it. Somewhere there is always someone who is doing a job a little better and there are many who are doing it a great deal worse; from either a lot can be learned. Now if we were to set up in business as art critics or designers of ladies' underwear, only then could a book be written on our ludicrous adventures in a business of which we know nothing at all. To us farming is a very serious occupation, and successful farmers, like millionaires, seldom smile. The lighthearted manner in which authors describe being thrown at every jump, or funking it altogether, speaks well for their courage. I was taught by an expert how to present a sound, trained, balanced, and collected horse knowing exactly what it could do, otherwise I would never have had the intestinal fortitude, spelled with a capital G, to attempt it. It is very much the same with our farming.