CHAPTER XVII.

Book farmers and their ways--Some Englishmen lack adaptiveness--Doctoring sick sheep by the book--Failures in farming--Young Englishmen sent out to try life in Canada--The sporting farmer--The hunting farmer--The country school-teacher.

Book farmers come to us now and again. These are usually persons from Britain, possessing some means, but not sufficient to make them gentlemen at home. They have had no particular knowledge of farming at home, but since farming is supposed to be so easy a matter in Canada, they do not for a moment doubt their ability to get on with a farm. They resort to the best works on agriculture; and after the perusal of a few volumes really begin to flatter themselves that they have a very superior knowledge of farming, and are able to teach the Canadian on his native heath just how it ought to be done. Such a man purchases his farm and usually pays the cash down for it, and for his stock as well. Searching over the community he finds a pair of the heaviest horses he can, for the light Canadian horses, he knows, will be of no use to him, and he gets some long poles made at the nearest carpenter shop, and hires the village painter to paint them in black and red sections that he may set them up for his man to strike out his lands by in ploughing.

Light, strong, durable Canadian harness is not to his mind, for he recollects seeing the plough horses in England return from the fields with great broad back-bands on their harness, to which were attached immense iron chains of traces, and he follows suit. And he sets John to ploughing, properly equipped, not for a moment doubting the result of all this preparation. And after a proper method of ploughing he does raise fair crops as a rule, for our lands are ordinarily so rich that if they have even a fair show at all they will produce. Harvest-time coming on, many other hands are brought into requisition, and he follows up the old time-honored custom in England of serving up the quart of beer per day to each hand. In due time his harvest is all garnered properly, and his work nicely done. His man comes in in the morning and tells him, about the time the first few rains come on, that “one of the sheep is sick.” “All right, John, I will attend to it,” for, of course, he can, for he knows he has at his elbow, upon the shelf, somebody’s treatise on the sheep, which is the best extant. The sheep volume is brought down and closely scanned, and the right page describing the disease sheep ought to have at this time of the year found. With the volume under arm he sallies forth to view the sheep, while John follows with the remedies. Arrived at the sheep he adjusts his spectacles at the proper angle upon his nose, and intently examines his sick patient The more he examines his patient and gets at its symptoms the more he is in doubt if the symptoms really correspond with those mentioned on the particular page of the treatise.

Shoving the spectacles up just a little closer on his nose he re-examines his patient, and glances from the patient to the book, the quandary all the time deepening in his mind. John is not allowed to suggest that the sheep has caught cold by lying in some exposed place through the last storm, and that he only wants warmth and food. It would never do to give in to John, for “what has John read about sheep?” The proper remedy is at last hit upon. There can possibly be no doubt about it, but to make assurance doubly sure he re-reads the page and looks his patient over again. No doubt this time, and John is sent to the house for a bottle, from which he will administer the proper remedy internally. John returns with the bottle, with a little water in it, and our book farmer adds the proper remedy and shakes it up thoroughly. All being ready, John makes the poor sheep swallow the mixture, much against its will, for it’s the most noxious stuff it ever had in its life, and the book farmer quietly awaits the result, his spectacles gradually continuing to slip away from the bridge of his nose, and to run an imminent risk of falling off the extreme end of that important organ. Some twenty minutes now elapse and John says the sheep is worse.

Back upwards again the spectacles are pushed, and the patient critically examined. While the examination is going on the sheep dies under his gaze. “Dear me; how can that be? I must have got the wrong page. Oh, yes, I see, I did get the wrong page. Never mind, John, I will fix the next one up all right in case it becomes ill.” And he closes the book with a snap, and goes back again to his library.

Such book farmers invariably have failed in Ontario. I defy any reader to fix on any one such book farmer who has succeeded. When he comes to strike his balances, after his crops have been marketed, and has taken an inventory of stock, he finds that his crops have cost him more than they brought back in cash. Another year will remedy that, however, and he tries it again, only to find the balance on the wrong side once more. Usually two years suffice to teach this book farmer that he is not a farmer, but he may possibly hold on for three seasons. Then he calls a sale, sells or rents his farm, and gets a neat, comfortable little dwelling in some neighboring town, which is quite sufficient for him and his household, even if it be not palatial in its appointments. From his retirement he writes back to England that farming won’t pay in Canada, for he has tried it, and it certainly will not pay.

This does a great deal of harm, and our country gets in bad odor among many persons at home, when the book farmer alone is to blame, and not the country.

As to failures at farming, I do not think you can call to mind the failure of any farmer in Ontario, on any good farm, who farms his land in right down earnest. Benjamin Franklin said:

“He who by the plough would thrive, Must himself both hold and drive.”

And that was perfectly true then as now. Look at the farmer in Ontario who rolls up his shirt sleeves and follows the plough, who does as much work himself as he possibly can, and only hires for doing that which he can’t do himself, and you will find that farmer succeeding.

We have been getting in Ontario of late another class of farmers whom I wish to speak of. They are the sons of men of means in Britain. Usually they are about twenty years of age, and have just left their schools and homes. Every avenue at home being so full, they are sent to Canada to learn farming, with the parent’s view of buying them a farm as soon as they have learned the occupation. Sometimes these persons pay a small sum to our good farmers, annually, to be taught farming, but they are to work at the same time the same as a hired man. Such a one has worn good clothes all his life, and the transition from a tight-fitting, neat suit to garments suitable for shovelling manure into the waggon is very sudden and hard to endure. A blister or two is on his hands at night, and his back aches from bending so many times all day with his fork for the billets of manure out of the heap. That night he tosses upon his bed, for his bones even are tired and ache, but he is up betimes next morning and at it again, only to find that he has more blisters on his hands again in the evening. If he sticks to it he soon gets accustomed to the work, his blistered hands get all calloused over, blisters are no more dreaded, and he stands his work well. Those who stick to the work succeed and learn to farm well, but in very many cases he gives up and goes to town, and waits, all anxiety, for the next remittance from home. For a couple of years the remittances come to him pretty regularly, and our young would-be farmer is a gentleman about town. During those two years, however, some very urgent letters have been written home for money, and thus far they have not failed to draw. At this lapse of time, and after the receipt of so many letters asking for money, it begins to dawn upon the parental mind that the son is not sticking to the farm in Canada.

Reluctantly and grieving, the parent makes up his mind to send no more until his son will begin to do something himself. Our would-be farmer then gets some light occupation, and does not fail to continue to write for money. Mamma, with a mother’s love, may still send over a few pounds, but if all the pounds cease to come, go to work he must at last.

It is hard to get at what these young men really will do in the end. Some even get so low as to drive a circus waggon, while others work as day laborers in some of our manufactories. When some months roll round, and the parents at home find that their son is still alive and promising amends, past offences are condoned and more remittances follow. And so the years and months slip by, money-less at times and again flush.

It really appears to us here in Ontario that the families from whence these young men come have no end of means, and we grieve to see them fooling away their time and opportunities. Who ever heard of learning to farm in that manner, or who ever heard of any one succeeding in Canada by such methods of life?

I am glad to say, however, that many such young men who are sent out to learn farming do succeed. They who have the grit in them, and who really make up their minds to work, do, notwithstanding the blisters on their hands, or callosities, or tired limbs, get over them all and become self-sustaining and good citizens.

For those who will work we have plenty of room, and good places are always open to them, but the man who comes to us, and who cannot throw off his Oxford suit and don blue overalls and shovel manure when it is required, will not succeed as a farmer in Ontario.

A class of farmer in Ontario I may say a word or two about is the sporting farmer. Usually he is the owner of 150 acres or so of inherited lands, upon which are good buildings, which his father erected, and also cleared the forest from the land. He’s not going to take anybody’s dust on the roads, and he procures a horse which can pass that of any of his neighbors. For a time this satisfies him, but sporting men begin to find him out, and tell him where he can get a colt which can go in less than three minutes. Gradually he comes to think that he might as well get

a colt, for it will make a fine driver, and now and again he can win some races, which will go to reduce the price he must pay for him. Entering him at the races, he must necessarily be prepared to back his own horse, and he makes his first bet on a horse-race. Once more sporting men are too sharp for him, for though his horse makes a good dash and behaves well upon the track, it comes in just a head behind, and far enough in the rear to lose the race. He is assured, however, that with some training his colt will do better, and he pays a professional trainer to train him.

At the next race he enters him again, and again backs his own horse, for success is this time assured. By some mischance this time he again loses the race, and his money at the same time. But by this time his courage is up, and he’s bound to win, so he buys a better horse. Again the process goes on, at the end of which he still finds himself out of pocket. The 150-acre farm, which his father prided never yet bore a mortgage, now gets “a plaster” put on it. While this racing has been going on, his farm has been neglected, and does not produce as formerly, so that he is in a poorer position to pay the interest on the mortgage and make both ends meet at the same time. In most cases such young men lose their farms, and at middle age have to begin at the bottom of the ladder and work their way up by themselves and unaided. Fortunately for them, however, they know how to work, and can get along even in their reduced state.

The hunting farmer is another class which we have in Ontario. Like his sporting brethren, he, too, has inherited a farm and can easily make a living, and some money besides. He keeps some hounds and a breech-loader. Do a flock of pigeons fly over, the plough is left in the field to get a shot at them, and the balance of that half day is consumed. Or it may be that some ducks are around in the swamp or creek a mile or so from his house, and a day must be given to them.

A fox has been seen around some hills in the neighborhood, and he must have a day with the hounds. While all this is going on, with the press of work, while he really is at home, many things are neglected. Fences, which his father used to pride himself in keeping always trim, begin to lean. A gate has lost its lower hinge, and a few shingles have blown off the corner of his barn. Gradually his farm loses its neat, trim appearance, and the neighbors begin to call Johnny So-and-so a shiftless fellow. Hunting farmers do not usually lose their farms, for their losses are mainly through want of care for their farms. Unlike his sporting brother, he does not bet, but has a keen zest for the chase, and must indulge in it.

If you will look about you, you will find that such persons do not add to their means, but just get a fair living from their farms, and do not make any great improvements on the homestead. His neighbor beside him, who may take even a day now and again for a hunt, but who daily plods along and follows his plough and drives his own horses, has bought another farm and has a credit at his bankers or at some loan and savings company.

The country school-teacher under the old order of things, and before the school law was amended, deserves a notice. Numbers of these old school-teachers, who furbished up their faculties and got passably well qualified to teach an ordinary district country school in the past, in many instances married the daughters of neighboring farmers, who attended their schools as pupils. In some instances, without a doubt, this teacher had occasion to punish his future wife for some slight infraction of school laws. Causing her to stand upon the floor or to write an extra exercise was a frequent method of such punishments. Becoming the teacher’s wife must, in after years, one would say, make the position rather anomalous, and would, one would think, be a delicate, debatable ground between husband and wife as the years rolled on. Ontario wives are noted for their urbanity, but in such instances it would be manifestly fair for the wife and former pupil to indulge in a little punishment for some infractions by her husband of new rules as the time went by. She could not fairly be blamed if she now and again gave him an extra dose of salt in his porridge, or refused him a light in the evening to do his reading by, or even indulged at a little pull of his whiskers, to pay off old scores of ante-nuptial days. We, however, charitably infer that, at the time the teacher insisted upon his punishments of his future wife, Cupid had not got around. These marriages have uniformly been happy ones, and these former teachers have become successful men after turning farmers. In many instances they get farms with their pupil wives, and having the work in them, usually succeed, and become good men for our country. Such former teachers are frequently found in our township councils, are school trustees, and useful men generally. As their children grow up to the age of understanding, it, however, must be just a little funny for their children to know that “pa” formerly punished “ma” in school, and they are always bound to aver that “ma” has not yet got even with “pa” in the account of punishment.