Pictures of Farm Life.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2719, 14 December 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

Pictures of Farm Life.

If anyone looks into an illustiated book of any kind, which does not purport to be a technical work on farming, he cannot help noticing tiio caricatures of farm life and scenes, and especially the wonderful representations of farm implements, which are almost universally presented to the public. It seems as if we were stepping back a hundred years aud beholding the style of work as done, not by our fathers, but grandfathers and great grandfathers. Apparently there is a general conspiracy among artists to represent farming as it was carried out in the olden time, and to ignore everything that has been done in the way of improvement within the present generation. Even in the case of the animals there is a great deal of room for improvement. Artists have, no doubt, made a close study of animal life, and the characteristics of live stock are faithfully portrayed, especially in the paintings at the Academies, but in illustrating books, or in ordinary engravings, it would often be very difficult to make out which particular breed of animal is intended to be represented—horses are only light and heavy legged, cows are all of one variety, and sheep are only horued aud liorniess. It is, however, in the matter of farm implements that there is the most exasperating disregard of present day facts. We are treated to representations of the scythe and the sickle, such as the present generation never saw—except, perhaps, in

museums—and not only is the existence of the reaping inachinc ignored, but the improved forms of the more primitive tools are taken no note, of, and the forks, rakes, spades, &c. , are of such a heavy and clumsy pattern as must make the ShefAold manufacturers wonder where is thfc so called "age of steel." Whoever saw a sheaf binder represented in a " high class " picture of the harvest field ? or, where the liorses were well drawn and lifelike, who has not noticed the ancient ami clumsy make of the harness which they wore, as if the saddler's art had never made any progress ? Pictures of ploughing are really comical. The arrangement of the parts seems to be a standing puzzle to many engravers, and an implement constructed as it is ofteu represented would be an impossibility. One often sees the furrow being thrown to the left hand : while the mode of fastening the whittletrees to the end of the beam through the medium of a hake or " bridle " is left to the imagination, as there is no distinct delineation of this part of the implement. The hay field is still represented as a number of women pottering about among the cocks witli unwieldy hand rakes, in sublime unconsciousness of the fact that horse rakes have been indispensable requisites for at least 20 years. Farm houses and buildings are always represented as old wooden, thatched, tumbledown shanties, a trig steading being beyond the knowledge or conception of those who design pictures. Hedges are drawn as long, straggling wildernesses of underwood, as such a thing as a neatly trimmed fence does not appear to be met with anywhere. It seems, in short, that the rougher and more topsy turvcy things are about a farm the better do they look in a picture. It cannot, of course, be denied that in many instances matters of this sort about a farm arc quite as bad as they are represented, but in other points mentioned it is certain that a state of things such as depicted is not to be met with in any of the more civilised parts of Great Britain, and has not been met with for 20 or 30 years. The comic papers generally make the farmer and farm labourer the butt for showing off Cockney wit, but if the artists could hear the remarks on the technical details of their pictures made by those very countrymen they would learn that they excite more pity for the ignorance of the townsman than amusement at a good joke We are told that it is high art to represent things on a farm as they existed a century ago— if they ever existed as represented — but if this is so, then so much the worse for art. It is a matter of taste, no doubt, but it must be a depraved taste which prefers to see a set of harrows represented with a thick wooden frame and wooden teeth in place of the neat zigzag frames of channelled iron, braced ou correct inachanical principles. Let anyone compare the correct representations of implements as met with in any maker's catalogue witli those presented to the world in ordinary artists' engravings, and they will see at once that the latter are a long long way behind the times. If it is intended to represent the olden time, then, of course, there is nothing to complain of, but otherwise a strict adherence to the truth should be attended to, Once upon a time there was a great noise made about one of the art designs issued by the authorities at Souta Kensigtou containing a flower which was represented with one petal more than exists in nature ; let us hope we will yet see the time when deviations from the truth in pictures of farm life will also call for remonstrance from those in high places.— Agricultural Giizcetc.