Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it Part 6

"Oh, yes, ma'am," was the rejoinder. "I know just what you want; but they are very difficult to get: you want _running_ ducks."

I was obliged to ask what she meant by the term _running_, and was then informed that the ducks for the London market were put up to fatten, and as they were crammed with grease to hasten the process, the fat all went into the dripping-pan. Now a _running_ duck was one well fed, and allowed to roam or _run_ till it was killed. I am now able from experience to say, that they are incomparably superior to their fattened brethren.

The novice in poultry-rearing must be told that it is almost useless to set a hen in very hot weather. As we had more eggs than were required, we did so during part of June, July, and August, but had very bad fortune with them; the hen seldom hatching more than three or four, and those puny little creatures.

There is an old Kentish proverb which says,

"Between the sickle and the scythe, Whatever's born will never thrive;"

and as it was just between the hay and corn-harvest that we tried to rear our ducks and chickens, I am induced to believe that, like many other old saws, it was founded on experience. They may be reared in September, though they require great care, and must not be allowed to run on the gra.s.s, which at that season is seldom dry.

A friend once told me she reared a brood of seventeen chickens, which were hatched the last week in September; they were placed in an empty greenhouse, and were consequently kept warm and dry. March is _the_ month for poultry; the hatches are better, and they grow much more rapidly than at any other time.

I am quite sure that a poultry-yard may be made very profitable to any one who will bestow a little trouble on it. Great care must be taken with the young chickens at night; the hen should be securely cooped with them: for want of this precaution we in one night lost eight, when they were a few days old, being, as we supposed, carried off by the cats.

The best food for ducks when first hatched is bread and milk; in a few days barley-meal, wetted with water into b.a.l.l.s about as big as peas, should be given to them. It is usual, as soon as both ducks and chickens come out of the sh.e.l.l, to put a pepper-corn down their throats. I don't know that it is really of service to them, but it is a time-honored custom, and so perhaps it is as well to follow it.

As for our b.u.t.ter-making, it continued to prosper; we had some little trouble with it in the spring, when the weather set in suddenly very hot. It was certainly much more difficult to reduce the temperature of the cream to 55' than it was to raise it to that degree.

I often thought with vain longing of the shop in the Strand, where we used to purchase Wenham Lake Ice: how firm would the b.u.t.ter have come, could we have had a few lumps to put in the churn half and hour before we required to use it!

Farmers' wives tell us, that to get firm b.u.t.ter in very hot weather they get up at three o'clock in the morning, in order that it may be made before the sun becomes powerful. Now this is a thing that would not have suited H. or myself at all, and therefore we never mustered up courage to attempt it.

One day in March--and this is the last disaster I have to record concerning our b.u.t.ter--we were particularly anxious to have it good, as we expected visitors, to whom we had frequently boasted of our skill as dairywomen: the day was very warm, and the cream appeared much thicker than usual; we churned for more than an hour without its appearing to undergo any change; we frequently removed the lid to see if there was any sign of b.u.t.ter coming, but each time we were disheartened when we discovered it looked just the same as when placed in the churn. At last the handle went round as easily as if no cream were in it, and presently it began to run over the top of the churn.

When we looked in a curious sight presented itself: the cream had risen to the top, just as milk does when it boils! We were greatly astonished. In nine months' b.u.t.ter-making we had seen nothing like it.

Tom, who milked the cows was supposed to know something of the art of churning; he was, therefore, called into the dairy: as soon as he saw the state of the matter he exclaimed, "Why, the cream's gone to sleep!"

"The cream gone to sleep!" What in the world could that mean? Such a propensity we had never discovered in cream before; we could gain no solution of the mystery from Tom; all he said was, that we must go on churning till it "waked up."

H. and myself had been hard at work for two hours, so willingly yielded to his request that he might be allowed to rouse the cream from its slumber. He, the cook, and housemaid, churned away by turns till seven in the evening, but the sleep of the cream remained unbroken, and as it was then considered a hopeless affair, the slothful fluid was consigned to the pig-tub.

Now we have never felt quite sure of our b.u.t.ter since. Every time we churn there is a lurking fear that the cream may choose to take a nap; however, it is as yet the first and last time in our experience.

I can give no advice to my readers on the subject, because I am wholly ignorant on the subject, though I have consulted every farmer's wife in the neighborhood on the matter. They all say that cream will go to sleep sometimes, though it usually wakes up after a few hours.* [I have since been told by an old woman conversant with sleepy cream, that a quart of milk nearly boiling hot will wake it up.] Perhaps, after all, we were too impatient, and should not have given in after _only_ nine hours' churning. With this solitary exception our b.u.t.ter-making progressed as favorably as we could desire.

I do not quite know how to believe the stories I am told of wonderful cows which my friends are fortunate enough to possess. One gentleman has informed me that he has one which gives fifteen pounds of b.u.t.ter weekly. Now we have had several, but never made more on the average than eight pounds per week. I believe that a great deal depends on the manner in which they are milked, and once in the hands of a beginner in that art the cows decreased in milk so rapidly, that we did not get more than a gallon daily from both animals; after they had been three weeks under his management we changed the milker, but did not get anything like the proper quant.i.ty again till after they had calved.

I believe the usual average is one pound of b.u.t.ter from every ten quarts of milk. Ours used to give us thirteen or fourteen quarts each daily, and yet we never made more than eight pounds. We used about two quarts of new milk, so that if ten quarts will give a pound of b.u.t.ter, we did not get so much as we ought. Still we were very well satisfied with the produce we received.

There requires management with two cows, in order that one may always be in full milk when the other calves. If you rear a calf for the butcher, it will require the whole of the milk for six or seven weeks, which is about the age they are killed for fine veal. We once--it was in the winter--received $26 for one. With two cows this may usually be done, and its is more profitable than making b.u.t.ter. Where only one is kept, it is better to part with the calf when a few days old, and then the price is $5.

If a lady wishes her dairy to be very nicely finished, she should have all the articles she requires of gla.s.s, instead of wood and earthenware. Everything for the diary of that material can be purchased in Leicester Square, and certainly, if expense had been no object to us, we should much have preferred a gla.s.s churn, pans, &c.

They have the great advantage of being kept beautifully clean with very little labor; but they are so liable to be broken, that they should never be used unless servants are very careful. A marble table is, however, in every respect better than a board to make the b.u.t.ter upon. It is expensive at first, but will, with ordinary care, last several generations of b.u.t.ter-makers.

Whilst on the subject of the dairy, I must say a few words respecting the great care required in was.h.i.+ng the articles used in it. As soon as the b.u.t.ter was taken from the churn I was in the habit of half filling it with boiling water, into which I had put some lumps of soda, and then turning the handle a few times, in order that it might be well washed round. It was then left till it was convenient for "cook" to cleanse all the utensils we had used.

From some cause or other I neglected for two or three weeks to do this, and one day, when the freshmade b.u.t.ter was brought to table, there were complaints that it was _cheesy_; it certainly had a peculiar and very unpleasant taste, for which we could not account.

The next time it was made it had the same fault; and it then occurred to me that it might be the churn. I accordingly returned to my old mode of was.h.i.+ng it, and never after was there a complaint of any unpleasant flavor in the b.u.t.ter.

I mention this to show the amateur dairywoman how very essential is cleanliness in every article she uses. A regular dairymaid would have known this, but a town-servant thinks that if she washes a thing it is sufficient: but more than mere was.h.i.+ng is required; every article must be _scrubbed_ with soap, wood-ashes, and soda, and then placed for hours in the open air.

Now gla.s.s is much easier kept sweet and clean, and for that reason is greatly to be preferred; but I am writing for those who may wish to reap profit from their "farm of four acres," and I fear little would be gained if nothing but gla.s.s were used in the dairy.

Our land turned out better the second summer than the first. We made nearly two tons and a half of hay from each acre. We were enabled to mow the whole three acres, as we had "common rights" in our neighborhood, where the cows could pasture during the spring. Had we been without this privilege we could have mown only two acres, and as hay was $21 the load, the additional acre was worth $50 to us, with the exception of $3 75 for making it. We were advised to have an after-crop, but did not; it would have made the land very poor for the next year, so that what we gained in hay we must have expended in manure.

We were well satisfied with the profit we derived from our pigs during this second six months. All the summer we kept four, at an expense of fifty-eight cents weekly, which was expended for two bushels of fine pollard (bran and meal).

We had such an abundance of vegetables from the garden and orchard, that we must have wasted cartloads, if we had not kept pigs to consume them. As soon as the hay was carried they were turned into the meadows, and suffered to remain there till they were put up to fatten; a process which pigs must go through, though ducks can dispense with it. I have already stated the expense of fattening them, and we never found it vary more than a s.h.i.+lling or two in a pig.

We always found for our family that a bacon pig of sixteen stone (244 pounds) was the best size, and for porkers about eight (112 pounds).

Our fruit was as plentiful as our vegetables,--indeed we might have sold the surplus for many dollars; but we soon found that to do so was to lose _caste_ in the neighborhood. One piece of extravagance we were guilty of the first winter and spring we pa.s.sed at A. The gardener had a little fire in the grapery during the severe weather, because he had placed some plants in it. We were told we could continue it till the grapes ripened for a "mere nothing." Now "mere nothings" mount up to a "considerable something." The coal and c.o.ke consumed before they were ripe cost $20. It is true we had them in July instead of September, but we should have liked them quite as well in that month.

It was a bad grape year, too,--at least with us. I don't think we cut more than twenty pounds weight. Hothouse grapes are not dear at $1 the pound; but we should have had them equally good by waiting two months later, when they would have cost us nothing.

Had we purchased the produce we received from our garden during the year, it would have been worth two guineas weekly. Our peaches, apricots, and nectarines, were abundant, and very fine. We had two splendid walnut-trees, and a mulberry-tree of immense size, which was an object of special abhorrence to "nurse," as for more than two months in the summer the children's frocks, pinners, &c., were dyed with the juice of the fruit. They could hardly pa.s.s near it in the season without some of the ripe berries falling on their heads, and it was hardly possible to prevent them escaping from her to pick them up.

Mulberry-pudding made its appearance often on the nursery-table, and jars of mulberry-jam were provided to secure the same dainty through the winter.

The luxury of a good garden can hardly be appreciated till you have been in possession of one, more especially where there are many children. The way we used to preserve currants, gooseberries, plums, damsons, and, indeed, almost every description of fruit, was this: The wide-mouth bottles which are sold for the purpose were filled with fruit, six ounces of powdered loaf-sugar was shaken in among it; the bottles were then tied down as closely as possible with bladder, and placed up to the neck in a copper, or large saucepan, of cold water, which was allowed to come slowly to the boil. They remained in it till the water was quite cold, when they were taken from the water and wiped quite dry. Before placing them in the store-room the bottle was turned upside down, in order to see that they were perfectly air-tight, for on this depends the fruit keeping good. The fruit will sink down to about the middle of the bottle, and we once tried to fill them up with some from another, but opening them admitted the air, and the contents did not keep well. If properly done, they will be good at the end of a year.

If any lady undertake the management of a four-acre farm, she must expect it to occupy a great deal of her time; if she leaves it to servants, however honest, she will lose by it. It is not that things are stolen, but that they are wasted, unless the mistress herself knows what quant.i.ties of barley, oats, etc., her poultry and pigs consume; and unless she look daily into her dairy and see that the mild is well skimmed, half the cream will be thrown into the wash-tub.

A six-months' longer experience of the country only confirmed my sister and myself in the conviction that we had in every way made a most desirable change when we quitted London for our small farm; but if we had been too fine or too indolent to look after our dairy and poultry-yard, I believe that our milk, b.u.t.ter, eggs, poultry, and pork, would have cost us quite as much as we could have purchased them for in town.

All the good things we were daily consuming in the country would have come to us in London,

"Like angels' visits, few and far between."

I know that many of our old friends were really shocked when we told them, laughingly, of our new pursuits, and that the b.u.t.ter they so much praised, and the apricot-cheese they ate with so much gust, were manufactured by our own hands. We were "poor-thinged" to our faces in a very pitying manner, but we always laughed at these compa.s.sionate people, and endeavored to convince them we spoke the truth in sober earnest, when we a.s.sured them we found great amus.e.m.e.nt in our new pursuits. They shook their heads and sighed in such a manner, that we knew perfectly well that, as soon as we were out of ear-shot, they would say, "Poor things! It is very sad, but they are quite right to try and make the best of it." I believe some of them thought that it was impossible we could have "souls above b.u.t.ter;" for a lady who called one day, taking up one of Mudie's volumes from the table, said,--

"It is possible you care to subscribe to Mudies's?"

"And why should we not care to do so?" replied H.

"Why," was the answer, "I do not see any connection between a love of reading and a love of b.u.t.ter-making."

Now I do not think that either of us had any love of b.u.t.ter-making; and if we could have afforded to give $100 a year to a dairymaid, no doubt we should have left all to her management; but as it was we were obliged to buy it--and very bad it was in our town--or make it ourselves: nor do either my sister or myself regret our resolution to do so.

At first we were quite proud of our skill, and told every one of our success with great triumph. Now--for womanhood is weak--we are content to hear our dairymaid praised for her beautiful b.u.t.ter by our acquaintance, and Tom extolled for his care of the chickens. It is only our friends, among whom I reckon my readers, who know that the b.u.t.ter is made, and the chickens fed, by the mistresses of "the four-acre farm."

CHAPTER XV.

OUR PONY.

I have been told by several friends that, in order to render this little book complete, I should add a chapter detailing the expenses we incurred by keeping a pony and carriage. Some persons imagine that this is an article of luxury which may well be dispensed with; but, though it may not be and absolute necessary, the expense attending one is so slight, in comparison with the comfort and pleasure derived from its possession, that I believe such of my readers as may contemplate residing in the country will readily agree with me, when I have told them the amount it will cost them to keep it,--that if it is a luxury, it is one of the very cheapest in which they can indulge.