BURKE ON FARMING
by
SUNDOWNER
DECEMBER 1
ONG before I finished MitchE ells Wet Days I was tired of his manner; but his matter held me to the end. He was, in fact, my only reading for almost, a week, and I did not wait for train before turning to him., But it is only in patches that I would wish to read him again, and most of those
are borrowed patches. Members of the W.D.F.U.
will perhaps feel thankful, when they read what a wife’s duties were in the age of Henry VIII. that four centuries separate them from the author of this Passage (written by the "first duly -accredited writer on British history"): It is a wives occupacion to winow al maner of corne, to make malte, wash and _wring, to make hey, to shere corne and in time of neede to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or donge carte, dryve the plough, to lode hay corne and such other. Also to go or ride to the market to sell butter, chese, mylke, egges, checkens, kapons, hennes, pygges, gees and al maner of corne. And also to bye al manner of necessary thinges belonging to a household, and to make a true rekening and accompt to her husband what she hath receyved and what she hathe payed. And yf the husband go to market to bye or sell as they ofte do, he then to shew his wife in lyke maner. For if one of them should use to disceive the other, he disceyveth himselfe, and he is not lyke to thryve, and therefore they must be true ether to other. . . could peradventure shew the husbande of divers pointes that the wives disceve their husbandes» in, and in like maner -howe busbandes disceve their wives. But yf I should do so I should show mo subtil pointes of disceite than either of them knew of before; and therefore me semeth best ‘to holde my peace. 3 ; % Eo *
DECEMBER 3
FIND it difficult to think of Edmund Burke as a farmer, but Mitchell gives him an honourable place in the history of agriculture, and credits him with many fresh and interesting ideas. He does not, however, suggest that Burke made farming pay. He
almost suggests that it was Burke’s belief that farm-
ing never pays. Here is the great man’s answer to those who think farming either easy, safe, or profitable:
; Farming is a very poor trade; it is subject to great risks and losses. The capital, such as it is, is turned but once in the year; in some branches it requires threc years before the money is paid; I believe never less than three in the turnip and grass-land course. It is very rare that the most prosperous farmer, counting the value of his quick and dead stock, the interest of the money he turns, together with his own wages as a bailiff or overseer, ever makes 12 or 15 per centum on his capital. . .. I have rarely known a farmer who to his own trade has not added some other employed or traffic, who, after a course of the most unremitting parsimony and labour, and persevering in his business for a long .course of years. died worth more than paid his debts, leaving his posterity to continue in nearly the same equal conflict between industry and want in which the last predecessor, and a long line of predecessors before him, lived and died. » I am not sure that the picture has become much brighter since Burke’s day, If farming is considered as 4 business, it is seldom a lucrative business over a whole lifetime. I have a fairly accurate knowledge of the history of 40 or 50 farmers of my own age, and although some have grown rich, most have ended as I have myself-with a roof over their heads, and a good deal more experience than money. It is by no means a bad end, or even disappointing; but we would be a sorry lot of failures if our happiness depended on riches. * oe *
DECEMBER 5
UTP the most interesting fact Mitchell reports about Burke is ‘his belief that it was a mistake to replace bullocks by horses. Burke himself, I gather, refused to make the change, not because he was incapable of change but because he could not persuade himself that horses would be cheaper,
handier, or more efficient. Though he did not go as
far as one of his Scottish supporters, a Senior Lord of Sessions, who proved. mathematically that oxen "cost less, keep for less, and sell for more" than horses, and that using them would "cheapen food, stop the importation of oats, and reduce wages," he
retaitied his plough team of*four bullocks, and argued that it would be good for England if all, farmers did the sarne. I have a sneaking suspicion, too, that he was right, or at least, right in part. When I look back on the farms and farmers that I knew best, recall what hofses. cost them to breed or buy, and the time, money, and labour spent on them when they were in use, I find my-|. self wondering if it would not have been better to keep to the bullocks with which some of ‘them began, and which still, when I was a boy, did much of the heavy transport on the roads-at almost no cost at all, once they were there, but a little axle grease and much profanity. In any case, I find an idea here for Andy. Why should I not teach him to carry and haul while he is cleaning up the rough grass my sheep refuse to eat? He would not cost as much to keep as one leg of a horse, and if he added a little to the gaiety of the neighbours that would not be a bad return for the kindnesses I can’t otherwise pay for.
DECEMBER 6
READER sénds this note: "If Elsie has no secret, if there is nothing behind those eyes but anatomical details, what makes you worfy about disposing of that small scrap of surplus flesh which she produced the other day? I would be more afraid to deny Elsie some intelligence and some free will
than to affirm that she possesses them, because I
am afraid that, if we deny her her thoughts, some one will. later on get around to denying us ours." If I knew the answer to that question I would know the answer to the flower in the crannied wall. But I can’t help it if I contradict myself. I was born, or very early became, a lover of animals, and at the same time their murderer and devourer. In 60 years I have net been able to get that confusion straight, whether I wrestle.with it on my feet or on my knees. Even in our strictly human relations we murder our friends and torture those we love (if the poets and prophets know anything). My sheep,’ my lambs, my cows, my calves, every living creature about me, confronts me daily with a biological dilemma whose horns I shall never escape. The best I can do is to live with them as long as I can, as gently as I can, as harmoniously as I can, and when I am sharpening my knife hope that they aré too dull to understand, (To be continued)
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 654, 18 January 1952, Page 16
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1,239BURKE ON FARMING New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 654, 18 January 1952, Page 16
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