JOHNNY HALFACRE; OR, THE VALUE OF TIME.

BY MARTIN DOYLE.

Statesmen and professional men, whether occupying stations of eminence, or struggling to attain them, duly estimate the importance of time; they know the value of an hour too well to mis-spend it. The lawyer of high practice, during the term season, steadily pursuing his laborious studies, and determined to overcome every difficulty in his pursuit of professional rank and wealth, rises early, and borrows from the night so many of those hours which are spent in rest and sleep by men of less mental activity, that he leaves himself but a very contracted measure of time for those essential purposes. As to dining out with friends at this period of care and labour, he rarely ventures to indulge in such a recreation; or if he does on some very particular occasion, such is the discipline of his mind, such the strength of his self-denying habits, that he can rise from the table at a prescribed moment, and with a cool lawyer-like head apply to his nocturnal labours as if there had been no interruption of an exciting nature.

The physician—I do not mean him who is regularly called out of church, or from the social party, by his servant, under the pretence of a pressing call, but the real and laborious practitioner, to whom minutes are money and fame—will not idle away an hour; neither will the sober steady shopkeeper, until he has realized an independence, absent himself from his counter as long as there is a reasonable chance of a customer dropping in; nor the operative mechanic, who has to finish his piece of work within a prescribed time, and who will contrive to do it even in despite of all the petty interruptions to which he is liable.

Time is proportionably valuable to the meanest peasant who possesses a cabbage garden, and if properly estimated and applied, will add to his comforts in a degree of which, he who is habitually uncalculating and unthrifty in this respect can have but little notion.

This I am anxious to impress upon the class of labourers, many of whom I hope can read what I write, for in them I take an especial interest, probably because they are the least cared for of any class in the community. Some of them perhaps will say, with a show of reality, “If our time were to bring us in such profits as the counsellor and the doctor make, we would be busy too, and no one would see us standing idle, sitting on a ditch side, or smoking and coshering by the fireside, or talking to the neighbours, of a wet day, in a forge. If we could be coining guineas as easily as the likes of them makes the money, sitting in their soft chairs, and never doing a hand’s turn of work that would tire their limbs, we would; but what could we make, after our regular day’s work, if we can get that same, out of a bit of a garden, that would better us any thing to signify?”

Now, I shall show them by actual facts what they could in many cases do.

Johnny Halfacre is a little farmer, whom I occasionally see, and who, being in no way connected with me, nor even conscious that I am particularly observing him, goes on in his own way, without any hint or encouragement from me, or indeed from any one else, as far as I can perceive.

Johnny two years ago had not as much land as would correspond with his name, which is really genuine; he had for several previous years but a rood, including the site of his house, and a shed for a pig, and some poultry; but this rood produced more than half an acre usually does with many, and entirely by his good management and judicious application of time.

Johnny had exactly five shillings a-week, paid in full every Friday evening, from his employer, for Johnny never had time to be sick, far less to be drunk, and always avoided broken days, by contriving in-door work, at Mr B.’s, in wet weather; his wife, who had two children, washed occasionally for a neighbour’s family, thus adding two shillings and sixpence each week to their income, and the contribution of additional suds to the dunghill; but in other respects they had no advantage over other labourers. Their own little garden added greatly to the support of the family, by judicious cropping and excellent management. Johnny had every year some drills of very early ash-leaved potatoes put down in January, if possible, which he either sold at a very high price in summer at a neighbouring town, or consumed as he found most economical; and his early sowing of potatoes was far better than the more common practice of the Irish cottier, who leaves his garden uncropped with them until March or April, with the view of obtaining a more abundant crop (but of inferior quality) at a late season, when they might be purchased at a mere trifle, and that, too, without the advantage of a second crop of any description to succeed them. Johnny had too much sense for this: he began to dig his dish of potatoes for dinner in the first or second week in July, when his neighbours were half starving, or paying exorbitantly for oatmeal and old potatoes; and as he dug out his crop, he either sowed turnips, with a little ashes and a sprinkling of dung, or planted borecole for the winter; generally he had some of both, for he found turnips good for his own table in winter, and profitable for the support of some poultry, of which I shall take notice soon. He had also every variety of common kitchen vegetables in small patches, continually changing places, and thus improving the soil; he had, besides, two hives of bees; and for the sake of the straw, as well as for rotation, and the support of his pig and poultry, a little rye, vetches, or clover.

Johnny, however, only worked in the garden in the evening, after his ordinary day’s work, or, in summer, at sunrise; yet there never was a weed to be seen in it, for they never had time to grow: by using the hoe for a few moments now and then, they were always kept down, and every waste blade and briar and useless sod around the hedge which enclosed it, was carefully pared and burnt for manure.

He had worked in the large garden of a gentleman who kept an English gardener, who had taught Johnny the use of a sprong in preference to a spade for turning up the earth, especially when too hard for the latter implement; and though the handle was short, and, according to my own notion, fatiguing to the back, the fact was, that Johnny soon preferred it for dispatch and correctness of operation to the long-handled spade which all my other neighbours use. When he cut his own rye or other corn, the ground was usually so hard that a broad spade could not enter it: but Johnny quickly turned it up and broke it with his sprong, and then completely pulverized it with what the Englishman called a beck, a three-forked hoe, which, acting like the long tines of a harrow, loosened and rendered the whole perfectly fine, while it brought any latent roots of couch (or scutch grass) that might have escaped on former occasions, to the surface.

Johnny’s various vegetables greatly assisted his housekeeping. He had often a good bowl of soup, flavoured with leeks, onions, carrots, &c., made with the least conceivable portion of meat, but thickened with barley, properly shelled, and prepared like French barley, but at only one-third of the price of that which is sold under such denomination in the shops; and his family always breakfasted on porridge, or coarse bread of their own baking, with or without milk, according to circumstances—for Johnny at this time had no cow—sometimes washed down with a cup of tea, and more generally in winter with a mug of light and good table beer, which the Englishman taught Johnny to brew at Mr B.’s brew-house. Half a bushel of malt, with a quarter of a pound of hops, produced ten gallons of unadulterated beer which could not be bought any where, and the grains (given to his pig) fully counterbalanced the cost of fuel. Even at this time he killed a pig every year, and never wanted a small supply of salt meat for his cabbage or beans, which with this combination of flesh went farther in this way towards the actual supply of his dinner, and sometimes of his supper too (for any remainder of the dinner was heated and peppered up for the supper, with the addition of a broken loaf, or a skillet full of potatoes), than can be imagined by the poor man who has never cultivated his garden in the same manner—whose cabbages are of little value from want of bacon, and whose allotment, producing but one crop instead of two each year, is thus of but half its proper value to him; besides, with him potatoes succeed potatoes continually, until the ground becomes sick of yielding them.

But, further, Johnny Halfacre’s garden, in which he seldom ceased from doing something in the summer evenings as long as daylight lasted, greatly aided in supporting his pig at that time when food is so dear and scarce for swine. The tops of blossoming bean-stalks (by the plucking off of which the crop is improved) and other vegetable waste, besides vetches and rye—the latter both in the green and ripe state—gave him sufficient food to keep the pig in fair order, with a little help from other sources; and the pig, by being always well littered, and supplied with this food, gave a return in most excellent manure, which with other sources of a similar kind, and the economical distribution of crops, supplied the entire garden with fertilizing matter.

What the other means of providing manure were, ought to be mentioned, for the man’s system is of such easy application that it only requires to be stated in order to be followed.

For two or three evenings in the summer before last, I perceived Johnny Halfacre without his coat, rolling a wheelbarrow frequently from an adjacent common to a corner of his garden separated from the road by an old weather-beaten paling. When I had leisure to see what he had been doing at this time, I found that he had marked off an oblong space for four geese and a gander, which he had bought from Bridget Gozzard at rather a high price, partly for the sake of their powerful manure, which, combined with other substances, is good for stimulating the growth of vegetables, as well as for the profit which he expected to realize by rearing goslings for the market. Johnny was aware that fat green geese are worth from six to ten shillings each, in the very early season in the great English markets, and are also profitable if reared for the stubbles at Michaelmas; and he did not see why he and his industrious wife should not realise a profit as well as English housewives by the breeding of such poultry, when a steam-packet and a rail-road could take them off even to London in a few hours. Cocks and hens would ruin his own garden, and bring him into disputes with his neighbours—he had the advantage of a run on the common for geese—there was a pond of water near his house—and therefore he gave them and ducks the preference. He first built his back wall two feet and a half high and ten feet in length, with the sods from the common, and then put down ten upright stakes in front, every pair answering for the jambs of each compartment, with a board stretching the whole length across, and which formed the front support of his rustic roof; from this board he laid rafters to the top of the back wall, and having first interwoven some small branches of a tree through these rafters, he laid as many scraws (thinly pared grassy sods) as secured the whole roof from rain. The jambs were then contracted to a narrow opening, for the sake of shelter and warmth, by more sods laid one over the other.

By this simple process of construction he formed a separate chamber for each bird, with a yard in front six feet broad and ten long, and with an opening through the paling at the road side, by which the inmates could go in and out at their pleasure. His rye assisted in feeding them, and he also cultivated grey peas for them, which are excellent for fattening; and with cabbage and lettuce leaves, the pods of beans, and other green food, he afterwards kept them in high condition; and in the succeeding year, when other young geese were dying of disease, occasioned by want of shelter, and from starvation, his were thriving.

And to the credit of this worthy man and his wife I must mention, that the feather-plucker was indignantly sent away from his door whenever he came round for the execrable purpose of plucking the geese alive. Johnny’s wife would as soon have let him pull out the hairs of her own head, as give up one of her birds to his barbarous hands; and the consequence was, that while their neighbours’ geese were miserably crawling about, with draggling and mutilated wings and smarting bodies, until many of them died, in their miseries invoking as it were in their dying screams shame and curses on their unfeeling owners, Johnny Halfacre’s geese strutted about on the common, with an independent and unconstrained step, as if conscious of their security from the tortures to which their fellows had been doomed.

HOW JOHNNY HALFACRE BECAME A LITTLE FARMER.

If it be true, and it unquestionably is, that “he who despiseth small things, shall fall by little and little,” the converse is, I think, no less so—that he who pays attention to little matters will rise by degrees.

Mr B. having narrowly observed Johnny’s general good conduct and extreme industry as a common labourer, put him in possession, two years ago, of a field adjoining his cottage and garden, which contains about six statute acres, and which fortunately was in good condition.

Johnny at first was afraid to accept the tempting offer, at which any other labourer would have jumped, on the sincere and modest plea that he had no capital for such a weighty speculation. He did not wish to grasp at more than he could properly manage; but Mr B. set him at ease, by telling him that he considered health, industry, and skill, sufficient capital for Johnny to possess, as he himself would not only build a barn, cow-shed, ass-house, and pig-styes, but put the boundary fence into perfect order (according to the frequent practice of British landlords), and lend Johnny a sum sufficient for the purchase of every thing necessary to give him a good start, charging him only five per cent on the advances. Mr B., who in riding over his property often “went by the field of the slothful,” which “was all grown over with thorns and nettles that covered the face of it, and the stone wall whereof was broken down,” wished to render Johnny an exemplar of superior management to other tenants.

I shall not trouble the reader with all the details of Johnny’s management during the two last years, but shall very briefly notice those particulars of husbandry which are new to my countrymen of the same class. He has not subdivided the field, nor does he intend to do so, as he values every foot of it too much for such waste. He does not keep a horse, nor will he do so, unless his holding be increased; but he keeps a donkey and a well-constructed cart. As yet he has no cow, not having his land in sufficiently clean order for laying down any part of it with grasses; but he has two yards full of pigs, which he keeps for the sake of the rich manure they supply. I do not advocate his system altogether, but merely relate the most striking features of it. His pig-yards are very commodious, and well arranged for weaning, fattening, &c.; and his stock now consists of a sow with ten young ones in one yard, and six store pigs in another. These are in fine condition—fed on vetches, rye (of which the grain is now, July 20, ripe), and wash, consisting of pollards and water; their food next week, and for some time after, will be beans, ripe and unripe, according to their successive stages. These pigs are now ten months old, and have never been outside their yard, nor do they seem to be (compared with pigs of the same age which have had the run of the common) injured by confinement. Being always highly littered in the yard, having the sleeping chamber kept perfectly clean, and being abundantly fed, they sport about the straw, and seem quite contented. But without such care and comfort young swine will certainly not thrive in imprisonment.

Johnny will fatten up these pigs in October for sale in November, with barley-meal, pollards, toppings, and potatoes; and judging from his success last year under similar circumstances, they will weigh (at the age of fourteen months) nearly two cwt. each. He does not intend to sell any of his ten young ones until they shall have been fattened in the same way; but their mother will be put up as soon as possible after they shall be weaned. He does not expect to realize any ready money by rearing and fattening them; when sold, his stock will merely pay for their keep—he considers the large quantity of valuable manure a sufficient return.

He has hired a labourer to work with him, and will incur but little expense for horse-labour, as he and his assistant together are able to dig an acre very deeply in ten days; and he considers one such digging equal to three light ploughings; and from his experience of the last year, he is of opinion that spade-husbandry is far cheaper than that which is effected by the plough. As he reaps his vetches and rye for the pigs, he cuts out the stubbles with a bean-hoe for litter; and for the perfect cleansing of the ground before he digs it up, he collects the stubbles and clears them from earth with a little harrow drawn by the ass, and will pursue the same plan with all his stubbles. Last year he cut and bound half an acre of wheat himself with a fagging-hook, which I have described in my Cyclopædia, in one day; and he and his labourer intend to cut down an acre this year in the same way.

I could enumerate many other particulars of this man’s excellent husbandry—such as burning the clay of headlands for manuring his turnip-crop and cabbage seedling beds—but I fear to be tedious, and therefore shall only add, that Johnny Halfacre is a true exemplification of the sacred proverb, that “the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.” He is always diligent (not only in seed-time and harvest, but all the year round), but never so busy with his field or garden crops as to choke the seed of God’s word in his heart, and render that unfruitful by sloth or negligence. As far as I can judge, he does not permit his worldly to supersede his eternal interests; and as he knows the value of the present TIME, so does he estimate aright the infinitely superior importance of that which is future.

Idleness.—The worst vices springing from the worst principles—the excesses of the libertine, and the outrages of the plunderer—usually take their rise from early and unsubdued idleness.—Farr’s Discourses on Education.