Farmers’ Column.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 28, 5 August 1871, Page 9

Farmers’ Column.

EBEN ELSHENBER, THE MOOR FARMER. Ebenezer Alexander, or as he was usually called, Eben Elshender, a native of the North of Scotland, was originally a manufacturer, but not being successful in this line, and falling into low spirits, lie went to spend some time at a village were an elder and more prosperous brother had a bleaching establishment, in the hope of recovering the tone of his mind by means of country air and exercise. The place seemed at first sight unlikely to cheer up an invalid of his mind, being situated in a high and sterile district, with a north cast exposure, and far from all other human haunts ; but things turned out much better than might have been expected, and we shall tell how this came about. Eben, in his wanderings in the neighborhood, was speedily attracted to a hollow in the neighboring moorlands, which might be considered as the only place within several miles presenting the least charm for the eye; a brook, fringed by a line of willows and a strip of green, formed the simple elements of the scene, and from its situation it had a look of seclusion and warmth. He was led, by what he saw here, to surmise that elevation is not an insuperable difficulty in cultivation, provided there be sheltei , and soon becoming convinced of the fact, his active mind in no long time conceived that he might employ himself worse than in endeavoring to clear a little possession for himself, at a nominal rent, out of the neighboring land. He looked round, but excepting the few patches in the neighborhood of the village, the region was one either of unbroken heath, or of moss of great depth, broken into pits, and filled with water, even at midsummer. Nothing, therefore, could seem more hopeless. On the left only, as he looked northward a large flat lying far beneath him and black and barren, or covered with brown heath, but looking to the sun, seemed to offer the semblance of a cultivated field, and he determined to visit it. He did so, but found it very unpromising. The surface though apparently smooth at a distance, was rough and uneven ; the soil was either strong and shallow, or a deep quick moss, wet everywhere even in summer, and with no fall by which it might be drained. A rivulet skirted it on the east, and was the natural boundry in that direction ; but a wall many feet in height rose on the bank, and closed in the surface of the proposed farm from almost the possibility of being drained ; and there were similiar embankments on the north and west. Still it was a large surface, not materially uneven ; it lay beautifully to the sun, and he could not but think that, if drained, and sheltered, and cultivated, here might be an extensive, perhaps a valuable farm. It would not require deep cuttings, as in moss flows, nor extensive levellings, as in very unequal surfaces. He determined to think further. He spoke of his purpose to none, but be brooded over it for days, again and again visiting the ground, and at last he waited on the agent of the proprietor. Even from him he exacted a promise of secrecy, if nothing should follow upon his offer ; and then, for a lease of thiry years, offered a shilling an acre for four hundred acres of that unbroken waste, with power to renew his lease for thirty years more, if he should so incline, at five shillings per acre ; but with liberty, also, to quit at the end of five years, without being liable in damages from any cause. Many landlords seem to fancy that though land is of no value in their hands, they, have yet a right-to be sharers in the profit produced by the intelligence, labor and capital of others; and that they are extremely liberal in forbearing to share for a few years in what had never existed

for them, and yet will, at the end of those few years, be a valuable inheritance to them and their heirs for ever. The landlord in the present case was wiser. He saw that he was about to receive immediately for a small portion of this moor in cultivation, as much as the entire moor brought as an inferior sheep walk, and that at the end of thirty years it would exceed the original income of the entire possession : while this attempt at cultivation, if successful, would be an example of the utmost value, and might give his village that neighborhood which it so much required. The villagers were astounded to hear that they were to obtain such a neighbor, but happy even in the hope of it. Enclosed as the place was by banks, which, instead of admitting to be drained, would, if taken down, innundate it with water, it looked to them like a huge frying pan and of course there was no abstaining from some little quiet jokes. The last was indeed the worst aspect of the affair. There was a fall for draining within the farm, but not without it; there was no final outlet. He next marked off the site for his steading on a very slight but bare and valueless knoll, being desirous at once to sit dry and to spare his good land if there were any. As he felt that nothing would be more apt to encourage him than the comfort of his home, as soon as his turf cottage was roofed in, he had a floor laid down in one end of it, and raising up slight ribs of wood by the walls, and continuing them overhead, had the whole neatly covered by a thin boarding, which, with the addition of a little carpet and a slight curtain festooned over his couch —

A couch ordained a double debt to pay 1- ;

A couch by night, a sofa all the day—made his end of the tenement seem a palace, and enabled him to look on the storm or sunshine with equal consciousness of snugness and security to health. Good fires soon made the other end very tolerable to his servants; and being washed with lime, though not plastered, it formed a very cheerful temporary residence. He had the ranpest of the heath pulled and secured for thatch or fuel, intending to burn the rest on the ground as soon as the ground should be dry. He next laid out the fields, and ordered them to be cleared of stones, an operation that uncovered them in some places to the depth of several feet, and finally he set himself to endeavor to lay the land dry. For this last purpose, at the lowest part of the farm, but where the surrounding wall, as it may be termed, was highest (and this was on the east) he ordered a bank of moss to be dug out, and placed in a situation convenient for being dried and burned. In the course of this digging lie came upon both stones and clay, treasures of great value in his circumstances ; and lest the winter, by filling the pond with water, should render further digging impossible, be pursued his labor with great assiduity. His determination was, that this reservoir should afford him au opportunity of draining the land ; and should it prove unequal to this, that a pump or pumps, to be worked by a small windmill, should raise the water to a height enabling him to send it off his territories. In the meantime lie knew what ridicule the suspicion even of such a project would draw upon him, and therefore he gratified inquiries by informing them that he was forming a fishpond for the residence, and even expected to draw profit from the ice in winter, by letting it out for curling, though the game was not then known in that part of Scotland ; and the parties, breathing softly, turned from him, and gently lifting up their hands and eyes, departed. Meantime he was intersecting his fields in numerous directions by drains, leading them into one another, diverging, branching, and every way varying them according to the inequalities of the ground, and after proving their running, carefully filling them with the stones taken from the surface, and all tending at last to the general reservoir. Even in winter, therefore, the land became drier and drier, and people now began to see the use of the pond. By the return of spring he had effectually drained a large space in front of his residence, and generally prepared it for the operation of the plough. And even in this, by a sort of natural instinct, he differed from the accustomed mode. A-ware that oxen draw most gently and steadily, he had secured the temporary use of a strong yoke of these, to be tried in all such portions of the soil as seemed likely to be capable of being opened up by the plough. People from the village had been engaged to attend at the same time to complete, with the spade and other implements, what the plough might leave imperfectly done, and give him, if possible, a field ; and they had by this time so entered into the spirit of the thing, that the attendance was large, and in many cases gratuitous. He had no lime for the present; but he had been scaviuger to the village during the winter, and he had secured all the runnings from his own cattle in a great tank. He now set to burning, in close kilns, all the turf he had been able to accumulate during the summer; and between these and the refuse of the

few cattle for which he had been able to find food, he was enabled to plough and manure some twenty acres of land, which he sowed and planted with the usual crops, acorn pan yiiig all the white crops with sown grass. To complete his experiment, he had procured a cask to carry out the runnings of his stables, &c. ; and. having placed it on a cart, and fitted it with a tailbox pierced with holes, such as is used for watering streets and roads, he, as a last operation, sprinkled this liquor, so far as it would go, over the ground that had been dressed with ashes, at night, that no portion of it might be wasted by the sun ; and so closed the labors of his first spring. Science had not then disclosed to us, what is now known to be true, that the terms good and bad laud, as generally understood, are expressions without meaning, as almost every species of land requires some culture to make it productive ; and by suitable means much may be made of almost any kind of land. Neither was it then known, as it now is, what are the precise ingredients necessary to tlie production of the various crops, and to which the soil is a mere matrix or receiver; and that burned earth or lime, ammonia or the runnings of stables, and other usual manures, contain many of those necessary ingredients. But by instinct or accident, by reasoning from what he had noticed, or heard, or read, and perhaps so far experimenting without much knowledge or expectation, our friend had hit upon many things now known to be useful, and the result surprised many. Not only was there no failure in the crops of Glen Eden (as they now began seriously to call it), but they were rich and beautiful. The oats, standing upon moss of great depth, but drained —aud that but for the draining and manure would not have born a grass leaf-—were as luxuriant as if the depth of the moss had been the cause of their exellenc-e. The other soils, lately so thin and dead, were now deep and dry, and bearing excellent barley, with a'flush of clover.about its roots. Potatoes, the gift of a warm and distant region, were flourishing in their little beds on this lately cold and barren moor, as if it had been their native and appropriate soil; and, in short, industry and intelligence had in a few months triumphed over the ignorance and neglect of centuries.

Till these things became apparent however, our experimenter kept in the shade. He had dismissed all his workers, except his -find, whom lie termed his resident manager; and his wife, who was his soul servant, and a gibconite of a boy for looking after his sheep. As the crops began to show themselves, his hind urged upon him the beauty of their appearance and the almost certain success of his experiment, and consequently the duty of resuming operations. According to all appearances, his first crops would more than pay the expense that would give him a permanent and valuable possession ; and as Eben inclined to this opinion, he determined to resume. As a proper preparative to this he allowed his mother and sister to visit him ; and though they were shocked with the outward aspect of his residence, a black and cheerless looking turf hut, in the rnidst of a comparative wild, aud guarded by a pet sheep and her lambs, that, as they approached, patted the ground in a very menacing manner, yet when they entered it, and found the servant cheerfully preparing for them a meal in the one end, while in the other was a little parlor such as a gentleman might inhabit with rest and enjoyment, they were not only surprised and pleased, but would gladly have protracted their visit, and were delighted to understand that they were speedily to join him. Of course from greater experience he rose to greater success. Even his laborers worked more cheerfully from seeing the success of what had been done. Moss that had hitherto seemed a nuisance was to him a treasure, and husbanded accordingly; and stones that, above ground, were such an encumbrance, were, when placed in drains beneath it, of the utmost value. He became perfectly happy in his labor of improving, and almost regretted to think that one day it must have an end. Thirty years have passed since these operations began ; the barren moor has been reclaimed into a valuable and productive farm ; the once bare and rugged banks that impeded its draining have long been turned into boundaries covered with herbage of the softest texture, and crowned with woods at once an ornament and a shelter, and that being to be paid for, will render their owner rich. Even the deep and unsightly pool, that first assisted in laying the land dry, has been surrounded and screened by willows and alders, both useful in their way ; and from the number of ducks and geese constantly breeding on its borders and floating on its bosom, must add no inconsiderable item to the profits of the farm. Where the first damp and disheartening turf shed was erected, there are now warm and substantial offices; and fronting all, and flanked by garden walls, and behind them trees, stands a farm house, in its first days a cottage, bub always the seat of plain abundance, and now of every comfort and a generous hospitality.