his in-door stock are fed and attended to, and that his men have instructions for commencing their next day’s work.
Such is a brief sketch of a farmer’s daily routine, varied of course from month to month as seasons change and bring special duties with them, as hay and corn harvest, &c., &c.
It is now time that our farmer derived some substantial benefit from his labour, so we will proceed to give some computation of his probable profits. His returns consist in his fat stock, sold at a profit over and above the cost price, deducting the value of purchased or artificial food; his crops of corn, harvested, threshed, and sold to the miller or corn dealer; his young stock, the produce of his breeding animals, a surplus of which are generally sold, after keeping the best and finest to replace the vacancies caused by death or those disposed of; and the other miscellaneous products of the farm, such as butter, cheese, wool, &c. Going further into particulars, the quantity of corn yielded per acre varies very much with the quality of the land and the nature of the seasons. Upon fair medium soils five quarters of wheat, six of barley, seven or eight of oats, and five of beans, are considered a very good average. Of green crops, such as turnips and mangold wurtzel, large weights are often produced per acre. In favourable seasons and upon good land, from twenty-five to thirty, and even forty tons per acre are not unfrequently grown. But this crop is, as a rule, never sold, but consumed upon the farm by the sheep and beasts. Upon the price our farmer gets for his produce will depend materially the state of his balance sheet. Wheat is now sold at 40s. per quarter, and even less; but this price, our farmer tells us, does not remunerate him for so expensive a crop as wheat. Farmers generally consider from 55s. to 60s. per quarter as a fair and not exorbitant price, injuring neither the producer nor consumer. Barley, we are told, at 40s. or 42s. per quarter, pays much better than wheat, not only from there being generally a greater yield, but from its being a less expensive crop to grow. Turnips come next in order, but being consumed on the farm, their value is not estimated in the balance sheet, but is returned in the shape of beef and mutton. Clover, which forms part of the rotation of crops, is also not valued, being consumed by the stock.
Coming now to the consideration of the profit realised by the breeding of sheep and cattle, a vexata quæstio is raised. That great agricultural authority, Mr. Mechi, considers that live stock do not pay at all, except from the benefit the farmer derives from the manure. On the contrary, an equally eminent writer, Mr. Caird, gives it as his opinion that they are the most lucrative sources of profit to the British farmer. As in most other matters, the mean of the two opinions is most probably the correct one. Upon rich grazing farms, where cattle are fattened without artificial food, live stock undoubtedly pay well, as requiring no extra expense in either labour or food. But upon purely arable farms, where stall-feeding is indispensable and large quantities of artificial food are used, the profit must be looked for entirely in the rich manure they produce. Cattle for grazing are bought in at various prices, from 121. to 181. or 20l., and sold out again at from 17l. to 25l. Where stall feeding is carried to its full perfection, and animals are kept the requisite time, they make large prices: 50l. is not unfrequently given for a fat bullock. No live stock at the present time pays so well as sheep. We have not only the carcase, making the somewhat long price of 7d. per lb., but also the wool, selling at the unprecedented price of 70s. per tod, or 2s. 6d. per pound. The weight of wool clipped from a long-woolled Leicester or Lincoln sheep will average eight pounds per fleece; so that here we get an annual return, if wool remain at its present high price, of 20s. per sheep in wool alone. In making up his balance sheet, however, our farmer has to deduct losses in stock (often a very serious, if not a ruinous item), repairs of farm implements, wear and tear, and a hundred other small items, apparently trifling in themselves, but amounting to a considerable sum at the year’s end. In summing up our farmer’s profits, a clear 15 per cent. may be regarded as a fair return—not exceeded on the average of years, and too often diminished by inclement seasons and casualties that the most careful cannot foresee or guard against.
DELSTHORPE SANDS.
“Ah! it’s a nice thing to be the belle of the village; to walk down the little street with a quiet, independent air, and feignedly unconscious that all the marriageable girls are looking out with envy, and all the youths with love; tripping along towards the seashore, pretending not to see Fred Wilson, the young farmer, as he half reins in his stout cob to bow as he passes, and to walk by the retiring waves for an hour on the hard firm sand, with a little coquettish soup-plate straw hat up the top of those wanton tresses, floating down and half covering a charming little figure, every golden hair being a very chain dragging some poor heart at its end.”
Not a bad soliloquy that for an old bachelor of five-and-forty, down by the sea-side for the