Farmer's Glory

by A G Street

  This had always proved useful, as the coppers thus collected were used to pay the odd money in the men’s wages caused by the insurance deductions. The dairyman used to read the amounts from the slate to me on pay-days, and after a while I noticed that the Admiral’s account never varied. I commented on this regularity one day, and the dairyman said that he had told the Admiral that he must have a regular quantity or none at all.

  I knew that the dairyman was an autocratic old bird in his way, but the Admiral’s reputation was certainly not renowned for meekness, so I inquired particulars.

  ‘Oh, I jist telled un,’ the old man replied. ‘I telled un as ’ow I werden gwaine to ’ave no ’oppin about. A quart one minute and a pint and a half the next. I telled un he had to ’ave a quart mornin’ and a quart night, as I wadn no clurk.’

  ‘But supposing they don’t want so much sometimes?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, ’ee got plenty o’ money to buy two quart o’ milk, and ’ee all day to drink it in. Any’ow, I telled un as I wadn gwaine to ’ave no argyfyin’ about it, and ’ee do ’ave it.’

  That is, I think, an example of the most ideal form of milk-retailing. United Dairies, with all their modern methods, will never attain such a high standard.

  But I could remember that those few gallons of milk, thus sold, came to quite a few shillings each week, being sold at a much higher price than the bulk of the milk which went to London. Why should not I try to sell my milk retail?

  I played with this notion in my mind all the winter. The only possible market was in the country town some five miles away. Well, that would be only a ten minutes’ journey with a motor van. The next point was whether I should sell enough milk to make the venture worth while. I would look an awful fool to have a go at this business, and afterwards to be forced to retire defeated.

  But there was another seemingly insuperable objection. I should have to do this work myself, at any rate in the beginning, and I discovered that I was a snob, an awful snob. And yet, God knows, I had nothing to be snobbish about, but rather plenty of things of which to be ashamed. Still, to be a milkman, at the beck and call of any one who might purchase a pint of milk from me! What would people think? What would my friends think? Fancy donning a white coat and possibly creeping round to the back doors of houses, where I had been accustomed to enter as a guest by the front entrance. Fancy going round soliciting custom. No! I could not do it.

  These and similar thoughts ran through my mind. I suppose that everyone is a snob in some way or other. That I was one over this matter, I confess. I am ashamed of it now, and at the back of my mind I was ashamed of it then, but at the same time it was a very real problem. That I knew, deep down, it was wrong and despicable did not make it any the easier, but I think, the more difficult.

  And I knew that I had a good article to offer to the public. Milk produced by this open-air system is cleaner than a large proportion of milk which is milked by hand in buildings. I had proved this by bacteriological examinations, and by practical tests of its keeping qualities in my own larder. Moreover, the open-air idea as a cure for tuberculosis was a popular one for human beings, and cows which were never shut up together in hot buildings, were surely less likely to contract this disease. That point should weigh with the mothers of babies.

  The more I thought about it the more convinced I became that there was a chance of working up a retail business. Well, was I in a position to ignore any possible chance of improving the returns from my farm? No! In justice to my creditors, and if I was to retain any semblance of self-respect, I must make an attempt. Who knows, there might be some fun as well as some money in it? Snobbery must take a back seat.

  I decided not to start until after haymaking, so as to have that worry off my mind for at least another twelve months, and when it was over, we commenced operations. I inserted in the local press an advertisement extolling the fine qualities of my goods and announcing that I should commence retailing them in a fortnight’s time. The next step was to send a circular in the same strain to all the people in the town, with whom I had any acquaintance either from social or business reasons.

  Once again my friends turned up trumps. My scriptural knowledge is a trifle hazy, but I think that it was the ‘unjust steward’ in the parable, who made friends of the ‘mammon of unrighteousness’ during his palmy days. Very certainly, I had been an ‘unjust steward’ some years before, but I hesitate to describe the friends I made during that time as of the ‘mammon of unrighteousness’. But they were good friends which I had made in the golfing, tennis, and social worlds, and while most of them were mildly amused at my new venture, they supported me right nobly.

  In the beginning my farming friends teased me unmercifully. On the market day after my advertisements appeared, I was greeted with ‘What cheer, Milky?’ and similar remarks. One wag informed me that the only way to get business was for me to make love to all the cooks in the town, and he painted a lurid picture of my procedure in this direction to the great entertainment of his hearers. Still, this teasing was all very good-humoured, much the same as I should have indulged in had any one else started a venture of this kind. And, here and there, amongst the older farmers came comforting, approving, and helpful remarks. Some of these had relations living in the town, and advised me to call on them to try and get some business.

  I confess that I funked this calling on people in search of custom. For one thing it meant dealing with the ladies, for a mere husband has no place in the domestic purchase of his food, and I soon found that any direct reference to him, or any suggestion from him to his better half, spelt disaster to my cause.

  Still, you do not get business unless you go after it, so this canvassing had to be done. I well remember my first morning at it, and especially my first call. I sallied forth with a list of likely buyers, and in great trepidation rang the bell of the first house on my list. When its jangling had died away, I was seized with panic. What on earth should I say to the lady? All the nice opening gambits, which I had so carefully rehearsed in my mind the evening before, seemed suddenly to be silly and feeble. There was a feeling of apprehension in my tummy. My hands were moist as they were many years before when I had knocked at my schoolmaster’s study in certain anticipation of a licking. I hoped and prayed that no one would answer the bell, so that I could bolt for home.

  But in due course I was admitted and nervously stated my case to the lady of the house. She listened to me courteously, asked one or two pertinent questions as to service and times of delivery, and then said: ‘So you are going to try to get some money out of the consumer yourself, instead of whining to the government to get it for you.’

  That, mark you, from a townswoman! It opened my eyes as to the true opinion held by townsfolk of the agricultural situation. In this case it was my good fortune that this lady was not too well satisfied with her existing milk supply, and she promised me her business, expressing the hope that we should soon play golf together once more.

  Of course, it did not all happen like that, but everywhere I found people most courteous and friendly. Where they were thoroughly satisfied with their present milkman they quite rightly refused to change, and wished me luck. I discovered that I could never tell from which source business was most likely to come. Where I considered my chances rosy, nothing happened, and often where I thought it hardly worth while to call, good business dropped into my lap.

  I engaged a young man to help me with this business, purchased a motor van, and on the appointed day we set out for the unknown, in my case in a Christopher Columbus frame of mind. The old dairyman helped us load up, and as we were moving off he said: ‘God send ’ee luck.’

  That day we sold five gallons of milk. In one week we had got it up to twelve gallons. All this trade was chiefly with my friends. Then we settled down to quiet plodding, and slowly but surely the business grew. We had a lot to learn, we made many mistakes, but never a week went by without a new customer’s name appearing on our books. In three months w
e had got the daily sale up to twenty-five gallons. This may not seem a very rapid rise to some people, but when you remember that on the average it means six customers to the gallon, it was not bad progress.

  I was informed that I had missed my vocation, and that I should have been a commercial traveller. This may be true, for I talked about open air milk so much at that time that I could do it almost automatically.

  But I was extraordinarily lucky with that retail venture. Everybody I came into contact with seemed anxious to help me. In looking back on my own life I can remember few occasions when I went out of my way to help other folk, but very certainly people have spared themselves no trouble to help me. One does little in this world unaided, I find.

  Not only did my town friends help me with their custom, but my farming friends aided me whenever it lay in their power. One man’s advice I shall always treasure. When he found out that I was going in for bottled milk only, he warned me not to buy any bottling machinery until the size of the business warranted it. This he put at a daily sale of fifty gallons. ‘Keep your money in your pocket,’ he said. ‘You can bottle milk by hand. It means work, but that won’t hurt you. Work never hurt anybody. Get up a bit earlier.’

  So at the beginning we worked. We bottled by hand, we washed the bottles by hand, and we got up early in the morning that summer to supply our customers with the morning’s milk, cooled, bottled, and delivered by 7 a.m. This delivery of fresh milk only two hours from the cow undoubtedly brought us business.

  There is no need for me to describe our efforts during the next year in detail. Running one retail business is very like running another. There were moments of triumph and satisfaction, and times of despair and fear, but week by week the list of names in our ledger grew longer. There was also a certain amount of fun in the business.

  The joy of most forms of sport is obtained from the pursuit and capture of something or other. I have chased rabbits, fished for trout, participated in fox and wolf hunting, and stalked moose and elk. Still, I must confess that in the pursuit of the wily milk-buyer to his lair I obtained even more pleasure than from these other pursuits. In addition to the joy of the chase and the satisfaction in the ultimate capture, this form of hunting paid. As I have said before, I have a mercenary mind.

  At Michaelmas 1930, when we had been retailing for three months, the old dairyman came to me, and suggested that while he did not wish to stop work altogether, he wanted to ease off. I was not surprised; we had all been going it during the last two years. By this time all the hand-milked cows had gone, and I was milking no cows other than the outdoor herd, which had greatly increased in size. From the sale of the last lot of old cows I was proposing still further to add to it. I suggested to the old man that he might stay on in his cottage and help us at odd times and when any one was ill. But he wanted some regular work, and proposed that I should still keep one or two cows at the buildings for him to look after; saying that I needed a certain amount of cream for the business, which he could separate from their milk, and that he could help a little with the washing-up of the dairy utensils.

  ‘You gie I twenty-five shillings a week and me house,’ he said, ‘and I’ll do what I can. I don’t want to gie up altogether. I still wants to ’ave a interest like.’

  We fixed it up as he suggested, and it worked admirably, suiting both parties. But in a few months Nemesis descended on us in the shape of a Farm Wages Board Inspector. All was well with the other men’s wages but in the dairyman’s case I was breaking the law. Even though he was over seventy an official permit must be produced to pay him at less than the legal rate for a man over twenty-one years. The Inspector asked the exact number of hours the dairyman worked in each week. ‘Goodness only knows,’ I said. ‘I don’t. You had best ask him.’

  ‘Can I see him without you being present?’ he asked.

  ‘Certainly. He’s over in the dairy now,’ I replied.

  The Inspector returned from the interview with a broad smile on his face. ‘Couldn’t get much out of him. He said that he came when he liked and went when he liked. It’s obviously all right but you’ll have to get a certificate of exemption from paying the legal rate on the grounds of age and infirmity. We’ll put the hours down at forty-eight.’ The old man was forced to submit to the indignity of a medical examination to ascertain if he was unfit for a full day’s work, and when this was done an official inquiry took place in the local market town.

  I drove the dairyman into town on the appointed day. As we were walking through the streets he seemed to be very old and feeble. He could still handle refractory cows, but modern traffic bewildered him. The inquiry was held in the Town Hall. There were present a chairman, a secretary, two or three other members of the Board, and the official representative of the Agricultural Workers’ Union.

  When the facts of the case had been read out by the secretary, the Chairman looked over his spectacles and said: ‘George Strong?’ Whereupon the old man rose to his feet and said: ‘Zur?’

  And there he stood, a rugged old peasant like a gnarled and twisted oaken monarch. That he was a better man than any of us in the room was patent to us all. The Chairman asked him if he had anything to say about the business in hand.

  ‘I bain’t gwaine to be interfered with. I does jist what I likes. I allus have all me life. I do know what I be worth bettern any o’ ’ee yer, and I do know what thease job be worth, and I bain’t gwaine to be interfered with.’

  He sat down, and there was a beautiful hush for a moment or two. Presently the Chairman fumbled with his papers, and asked the Labourers’ Representative if he had any objections to the certificate being granted. ‘None at all,’ was the reply, ‘I think that this is a case in which there is no objection on any grounds.’

  In due course the machinery of the Agricultural Wages Board produced the necessary permit, and we returned home.

  I do not tell this with any idea of poking fun at the Wages Board and its regulations, but only to point out that there are two sides to every question. I well know that the passing of these regulations is entirely due to the tyranny and injustice of some few farmers in days gone by. But all my farming experience has been that the agricultural labourer has always known his worth, and been well able to obtain it from the farmer. Also the relation between employer and employed has been a friendly intimate thing, in which each party has had a sound respect for the other.

  I came across this sort of thing only the other day as I was paying Bill Turner. ‘Twelve and a half hours overtime, Bill?’ I inquired. ‘Thee and I an’t surely come to ’alf hours, zur? I an’t never bin paid for a ’alf hour eet, and I bain’t gwaine to start now. Thee pay I fer twelve hours. I shall cop t’other somewhen.’ I broke the law, and so paid him. Whether he has ‘copped’ his half hour from me or not yet I do not know, but I am sure that neither of us is losing any sleep over it.

  These new regulations of hours and wages press hardly on agriculture, owing to the fact that they are factory regulations. Farms are not factories with roofs over the top. Farmers have always had to combat the weather in their business, and although some seasons are bad ones from this cause, a retrospect of any ten years of farming invariably shows that on the whole Providence has dealt fairly with the farmer in the matter of weather. But when in addition to his struggles against climatic conditions, a farmer is handicapped by factory-like regulations, he is fighting an uphill battle.

  Granted, the old system had its faults, but it worked, and produced farmers and labourers such as I have described in this book. The present system of bureaucratic interference not only does not work, but its products in the shape of farmers and labourers are not to be compared with their predecessors.

  I am well aware that I am very small beer compared with my father and others of his type, and with very few exceptions the modern young labourer is of little value as compared with his father, either as a workman, a citizen, or as a man.

  During the account of our early retailing struggles I
seem to have made no mention of the outdoor milking plant. There is nothing to tell. That is, in itself, high praise. It functioned twice daily with the regularity of dawn and sunset. It gave us no trouble, and by this time the effect of its travels over the pastures, especially on the downs, was apparent. During the summer of 1930 I cut a heavy crop of hay on a piece of down land. It was a remarkable tribute to the effect of the treading of the cattle and the cake fed to them during the previous two winters. It consisted of a heavy cut of indigenous grasses with a dense mat of wild white clover at the bottom. In this case I undoubtedly reaped what I did not sow. I believe that something awful happened to the man in the scriptures who did this, so I fear the worst.

  It is just a year now since I began retailing, and I see on looking at my ledger that we sold fifty-eight gallons daily during last week. I am a mercenary individual, and I am somewhat disappointed as I had hoped to write sixty gallons at the end of a year’s trading. But still this last year has been a record of steady progress, while the previous seven or eight years were a dismal record of slipping backwards, so in reality I am well content.

  The old system of farming as described in the early part of this book was one which placed the farmer in a yearly rut from which there was no escape. One did the same things, year after year, according to the season. Mistakes of one year were noted and avoided if possible in the next. You were kept so busy and interested that you had no time to think of much else, becoming narrow-minded possibly, but by experience a better performer each succeeding year.

  So it has occurred to me that one farms better in a settled rut of some kind or other. The war unsettled a good many one-time stable things, and in farming it is the change over from one rut to another which has been so painful and expensive. The chief difficulty has been to find another rut or system that will pay, now that corn-growing has become a bad joke. It matters not whether one finally settles on grass, sheep, dairying, pigs, poultry, sugar beet, or some combination of these so long as one eventually decided on a plan of campaign and sticks to it through several seasons, always remembering so to staff one’s farm that one cannot get away from it oneself.