Chapter XXX: Commerce and Agriculture

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ONE of the most distinguishing features between commerce and
agriculture undoubtedly is the marked indifference shown to the
value of time by the small followers of the latter, compared to
the respectful treatment it receives at the hands of the members
of the commercial world. To look at their relative movements one
would think that the farmer was the man who carried on his
business under cover, instead of being the one who exposes all
his capital to the weather. It is a rare thing to see a
farmer—even in hay time—in a hurry. If the returns could be
obtained we dare say it would be found that three-fourths of the
people who are late for railway trains are farmers.

In these accelerated days, when even the very street waggon
horses trot, they are the only beings whose pace has not been
improved. The small farmer is just the same slowly moving
dawdling creature that he was before the perfection of steam.
Never punctual, never ready, never able to give a direct answer
to a question; a pitchfork at their backs would fail to push some
of these fellows into prosperity. They seem wholly lost to that
emulative spirit which actuates the trader to endeavour to make
each succeeding year leave him better than the last. A farmer
will be forty years on a farm without having benefited himself,
his family, his landlord, or any human being whatever. The last
year’s tenancy will find him as poor as the first, with, in all
probability, his land a great deal poorer. In dealing, a small
farmer is never happy without a haggle. Even if he gets his own
price he reproaches hiself when he returns home with not having
asked a little more, and so got a wrangle. Very often, however,
they outwit themselves entirely by asking so much more than a
thing is really worth, that a man who knows what he is about, and
has no hopes of being able to get the sun to stand still,
declines entering upon an apparently endless negotiation.

See lawyer Hindmarch coming up the High Street at Halterley fair,
leading his great grey colt, with his landlord Sir Moses hailing
him with his usual “Well my man, how d’ye do? I hope you’re well,
how much for the colt?”

The lawyer’s keen intellect—seeing that it is his landlord, with
whom he is well over the left—springs a few pounds upon an
already exorbitant price, and Sir Moses, who can as he says,
measure the horse out to ninepence, turns round on his heel with
a chuck of his chin, as much as to say, “you may go on.” Then the
lawyer relenting says, “w—h—o—y, but there’ll be summit to return
upon that, you know, Sir Moses, Sir.”

“I should think so,” replies the Baronet, walking away, to “Well
my man—how d’ye do? I hope you’re well,” somebody else.

A sale by auction of agricultural stock illustrates our position
still further, and one remarkable feature is that the smaller the
sale the more unpunctual people are. They seldom get begun under
a couple of hours after the advertised time, and then the
dwelling, the coaxing, the wrangling, the “puttings-up” again,
the ponderous attempts at wit are painful and oppressive to any
one accustomed to the easy gliding celerity of town auctioneers.
A conference with a farmer is worse, especially if the party is
indiscreet enough to let the farmer come to him instead of his
going to the farmer.

The chances, then, are, that he is saddled with a sort of old man
of the sea; as a certain ambassador once was with a gowk of an
Englishman, who gained an audience under a mistaken notion, and
kept sitting and sitting long after his business was discussed,
in spite of his Excellency’s repeated bows and intimations that
he might retire.

Gowk seemed quite insensible to a hint. In vain his Excellency
stood bowing and bowing—hoping to see him rise. No such luck. At
length his Excellency asked him if there was anything else he
could do for him?

“Why, noa.” replied Gowk drily; adding after a pause, “but you
haven’t asked me to dine.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” replied his Excellency, “I wasn’t aware
that it was in my instructions, but I’ll refer to them and see,”
added he, backing out of the room.

Let us fancy old Heavyheels approaching his landlord, to ask if
he thinks they are gannin to get a new barrun, or anything else
he may happen to want, for these worthies have not discovered the
use of the penny-post, and will trudge any distance to deliver
their own messages. Having got rolled into the room, the first
thing Heels does is to look out for a seat, upon which he squats
like one of Major Yammerton’s hares, and from which he is about
as difficult to raise. Instead of coming out with his question as
a trader would, “What’s rum? what’s sugar? what’s indigo?” he
fixes his unmeaning eyes on his landlord, and with a heavy
aspiration, and propping his chin up with a baggy umbrella,
ejaculates—“_N-o-o_,” just as if his landlord had sent for him
instead of his having come of his own accord.

“Well!” says the landlord briskly, in hopes of getting him on.

“It’s a foine day,” observes Heavyheels, as if he had nothing
whatever on his mind, and so he goes maundering and sauntering
on, wasting his own and his landlord’s time, most likely ending
with some such preposterous proposition as would stamp any man
for a fool if it wasn’t so decidedly in old Heavyheel’s own
favour.

To give them their due, they are never shy about asking, and have
always a host of grievances to bait a landlord with who gives
them an opportunity. Some of the women—we beg their pardon—ladies
of the establishments, seem to think that a landlord rides out
for the sake of being worried, and rush at him as he passes like
a cur dog at a beggar.

Altogether they are a wonderful breed! It will hardly be credited
hereafter, when the last of these grubbing old earthworms is
extinct, that in this anxious, commercial, money-striving
country, where every man is treading on his neighbour’s heels for
cash, that there should ever have been a race of men who required
all the coaxing and urging and patting on the back to induce them
to benefit themselves that these slugs of small tenant farmers
have done. And the bulk of them not a bit better for it. They say
“y-e-a-s,” and go and do the reverse directly.

Fancy our friend Goodbeer, the brewer, assembling his tied
Bonnifaces at a banquet consisting of all the delicacies of the
season—beef, mutton, and cheese, as the sailor said—and after
giving the usual loyal and patriotic toasts, introducing his
calling in the urgent way some landlords do theirs—pointing out
that the more swipes they sell the greater will be their profit,
recommending them to water judiciously, keeping the capsicum out
of sight, and, in lieu of some new implement of husbandry,
telling them that a good, strong, salt Dutch cheese, is found to
be a great promoter of thirst, and recommending each man to try a
cheese on himself—perhaps ending by bowling one at each of them
by way of a start.

But some will, perhaps, say that the interests of the landlord
and tenant-farmer are identical, and that you cannot injure the
latter without hurting the former.

Not more identical, we submit, than the interests of Goodbeer
with the Bonnifaces; the land is let upon a calculation what each
acre will produce, just as Goodbeer lets a public-house on a
calculation founded on its then consumption of malt liquor; and
whatever either party makes beyond that amount, either through
the aid of guano, Dutch cheese, or what not, is the tenant’s. The
only difference we know between them is, that Goodbeer, being a
trader, will have his money to the day; while in course of time
the too easy landlord’s rent has become postponed to every other
person’s claim. It is, “O, it will make ne matter to you, Sir
Moses,” with too many of them.

Then, if that convenient view is acquiesced in, the party
submitting is called a “good landlord” (which in too many
instances only means a great fool), until some other favour is
refused, when the hundredth one denied obliterates the
recollection of the ninety-nine conferred, and he sinks into a
“rank bad un.” The best landlord, we imagine, is he who lets his
land on fair terms, and keeps his tenants well up to the mark
both with their farming and their payments. At present the
landlords are too often a sort of sleeping partners with their
tenants, sharing with them the losses of the bad years without
partaking with them in the advantages of the good ones.

“Ah, it’s all dom’d well,” we fancy we hear Sir Moses Mainchance
exclaim, “saying, ‘keep them up to the mark,’ but how d’ye do it?
how d’ye do it? can you bind a weasel? No man’s tried harder than
I have!”

We grant that it is difficult, but agriculture never had such
opportunities as it has now. The thing is to get rid of the
weasels, and with public companies framed for draining, building,
doing everything that is required without that terrible
investigation of title, no one is justified in keeping his
property in an unproductive state. The fact is that no man of
capital will live in a cottage, the thing therefore is to lay a
certain number of these small holdings together, making one good
farm of them all, with suitable buildings, and, as the saying is,
let the weasels go to the wall. They will be far happier and more
at home with spades or hoes in their hands, than in acting a part
for which they have neither capital, courage, nor capacity.
Fellows take a hundred acres who should only have five, and
haven’t the wit to find out that it is cheaper to buy manure than
to rent land.

This is not a question of crinoline or taste that might be
advantageously left to Mrs. Pringle; but is one that concerns the
very food and well being of the people, and landlords ought not
to require coaxing and patting on the back to induce them to
partake of the cheese that the commercial world offers them. Even
if they are indifferent about benefiting themselves they should
not be regardless of the interests for their country. But there
are very few people who cannot spend a little more money than
they have. Let them “up then and at” the drainage companies, and
see what wonders they’ll accomplish with their aid!

We really believe the productive powers of the country might be
quadrupled.