I worked at this for nearly six years, a period which included much forestry, though I have not written of that experience in this volume. For the sake of unity I have restricted my narrative within given periods of time. My approach is one of genuine ignorance, and I have described many operations and implements as if the reader were as fresh to them as I was. Hence there is no instruction in this book; and I fear that my views tend to be as inconsistent as my moods, for my chief aim has been to present my physical and mental reactions regardless of their consistency, and to give a truthful picture of what I found in the agricultural world.
JOHN STEWART COLLIS
This book was written just before both the corn-rick and the hayrick were deemed unnecessary by modern methods. The change of scene followed rather swiftly. Thus this book is about the last of its kind that can now be written in England.
JSC, 1973
PART ONE
A FARM IN SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND
1 My First Job
IT WAS 16 APRIL 1940. I could find no lodging close to the farm, but a friend did me the great service of putting me up at her cottage which was about thirty-five minutes’ bicycle-ride distance. This meant rising in time to shave, breakfast, sandwich food for the day, and be ready to start out by six-thirty. I had always wanted something to force me up at this hour, this unsmirched hour of promise and of hope; and now I stepped out into a clear morning, with frost laid across the whole land, the air biting, and the hollows clouded. I arrived at the farm punctually, trying not to feel nervous and like a new boy at school. I gave up shyness some time ago when I realized that it was a form of self-consciousness and conceit, as well as being, like bad manners, a sign of ignorance of human nature; but to turn up into a completely new milieu – and not looking the part in person or clothes – to meet employers and employees and do something I had never done before, certainly made me apprehensive.
The foreman came out and shook hands and we walked across the farm towards some job that had been arranged for me. He was about thirty, non-rustic in appearance, quiet, accentless, pleasant, and exceedingly grave. We walked past some acres of fruit trees, for it was more than half a fruit farm, till we arrived at some ranks of apple trees. Their branches had been cut off and a new kind had evidently been grafted. My job consisted of dragging away and piling up the branches that lay on the ground.
The foreman went off and I was left alone at this my first job on the land. It was not very inspiring, but it was at least foolproof. I worked on for what I felt to be a very long time – nine hours to be exact, with one break, before the day was done. Already I began to ask at intervals what I discovered later is quite a famous question amongst agricultural labourers – what is the time? And after a few hours I began to feel lonely. This was a new experience and foreign to me; for complete isolation with a book is Solitude, a blessed state; but isolation with physical labour can be Loneliness, a very different thing. In the distance I could hear the chug of a machine (it was the spraying engine), a most welcome and important noise. I should have liked to get closer to it. Funny, I thought, that in the first few hours of labour on the land I should welcome the sound and long for the sight of a piece of machinery!
I had plenty of time to examine the grafting. Attached to the stumps where the branches had been cut off, were twigs about the size of a short pencil. Each was attached in a highly skilled manner, as if glued on by some black substance, and tied round with thread. The foreman told me that these apple trees were cookers and would require too much sugar to sell at a profit, so they were putting a sweeter apple on to the trees. I knew nothing whatever about grafting, and it surprised me that this could be done, now that I saw it in front of me.
When I had made some big piles of branches I was instructed to burn them, which I did. A pleasant task – for to reduce bulk to practically nothing, to make a hard thing soft, to cause substance to become insubstantial, is as interesting as making something out of nothing.
2 Broadcasting Artificial Manure
After a few days my next job conducted me nearer the centre of the agricultural world: the spreading of artificial manure. Taking a horse and cart from the stable, Morgan (that was the name of the foreman) and I went across the farm to a far field which had been reserved for potatoes. It was a beautiful morning, and as we jogged along in the early sunshine with a wide view of the countryside and passed by a field of corn coming up and looking more like a green light than a green object, I thought how pleasant it was to be here and to be doing this as my job – no longer to be looking at a horse and cart jogging through a field, but to be part of it now, to be on the field instead of a spectator of it. And I also reflected that if the countryman receives less pay than the townsman, he should not mind, since the latter ought to be compensated for his self-sacrificing denial of essentials.
We filled up with artificial at an old oast-house that served as a lower stable and barn. I had heard of artificial manure but that’s about all, never seen it nor even considered what it looked like. Anyway, here was the stuff in front of me, neatly parcelled up in sacks of hundredweights and half-hundredweights. There were two kinds here, one a substance like very fine sand which I gathered was superphosphate, the other like salt which was potash. We loaded the superphosphate on the cart and brought it to the field, dropping the sacks at fixed intervals along the edge. This done we proceeded to broadcast it. The method was simple. We each filled a bucket, slung its rope over head and shoulder, and then holding the bucket steady with one hand, scattered the manure with the other at the rate of one handful to every second step as we advanced across the field. From a distance it would look the same as sowing grain.
A rather strong wind blew and the powder flew up into our eyes so frequently and so painfully that we had to give up and sow potash instead – which being much heavier and moister is not blown about by the wind. Thus we sowed the potash walking forward and backward across the field, filling up our buckets at each end, for the rest of the morning and the whole afternoon. The ground of course was extremely uneven and I stumbled over the clods as I walked. I now remembered the word clod-hopper, the term of reproach reserved by townsmen for those who produce food, and I was interested to touch the reality. On account of my very early breakfast, with only a snatched bite since, I began to wonder if I could really last out till dinner. At length the great moment came when we knocked off, and then I experienced a pleasure in just sitting down, and in eating cheese, such as I have never known before.
After this I did a lot more manuring on my own for several days. One afternoon I sowed potash up and down twenty-five long rows of blackcurrant trees and plums. Up and down, filling my bucket at each end until eight sacks were empty, five hours had passed and it was five-thirty. It struck me as qualifying for the term ‘grinding toil’. I found these long afternoons something of an endurance test. Owing to laziness I possess a secret reserve of strength, and was not afraid that I wouldn’t be equal to anything that turned up with regard to physical labour; but that afternoon’s expedition, and subsequent work, seemed to me long drawn out. This opinion of mine, soon formed, never abandoned, I found held good for all labourers on the land not doing the more interesting jobs.
However, this particular job evidently left something to show for it, and to my amazement it made an impression on the foreman who remarked on it favourably the next day.
Continuing further at this I began to feel that it could now fairly be said that I was familiar with artificial manure – commercially spoken of as fertilizer. But at this stage I can put forward no opinion on the great Artificial v. Pure Compost problem. I have watched the waging of this war with some care, but consider myself as yet too much a provincial in truth concerning this matter even to state a preference. Yet talking of schools of thought on the subject, it seems that should you live in the USSR it would be wise to watch your step about this. Arthur Koestler in his Darkness At Noon says: ‘A short time ago, our leading agriculturalist, B, was shot with t
hirty of his collaborators because he maintained the opinion that nitrate artificial manure was superior to potash. Number 1 is all for potash; therefore B and the thirty had to be liquidated as saboteurs.’ Now in England if anyone disagrees with anyone else he doesn’t get angry, he just says: ‘That’s a point of view anyway, old man.’ This may not promote progress. Yet some of the thirty-one nitrate-supporters may have secretly wished that Number 1 – i.e. Stalin – was less un-English.
Without airing views on this subject I may add that one day, having been instructed to spread some artificial and to get the sacks, and not remembering whether it was potash or superphosphate that was to be used, I asked by a slip of the tongue: ‘Which sort of superficial manure am I to use?’ This was greeted with laughter by the boss who was not totally devoid of a sense of humour, and though a great supporter of these fertilizers, seemed to discern some slight element of justice or irony in this strange nomenclature.
3 My Furrow
Presently I found myself back on the potato field broadcasting a final portion with ‘super’, while Morgan harrowed with a tractor, and the carter, a genial young Dane, ploughed open furrows for potato planting.
When the coast was clear later on I asked the carter if I might try my hand at ploughing a few furrows. I knew that he would be far from pleased at the request, but putting my pride in my pocket (a thing I do all my life at intervals with deliberation), and going on the principle that ‘nothing dare, nothing do’ I approached the ploughman. And as it is harder to refuse than to acquiesce in such things, he let me try. He said he would lead the horse (only one was being used) the first time, while I managed the plough. This was an easy way of starting. Even so I immediately felt in need of four hands, two for reins and two for plough. However, imitating this man’s method, I put the reins over my head till they were held taut round the right shoulder and under the left arm. And since the horse was started and led by my companion I reached the bottom of the field leaving behind a moderately straight furrow. It would be hard to make a complete bosh of this under the above condition. We returned to the other end again without marked mishap. Then I took over the whole thing. Now I would plough a furrow. It was a psychological necessity for me to plough a furrow – at last about to be fulfilled. I took up my position, and it only remained for me to proceed.
The horse refused to move.
I urged it forward, but it then moved sideways, upsetting the plough. And I spent some time in putting it into position again.
It then moved over the other side with the same result. I had not yet advanced a step. My psychological furrow still remained in the realm of the imagination.
Once more I got into position. This time we did really start, we did really move forward. But after ten yards the horse swerved badly left. Using one hand for the reins, thus leaving only one on the plough, I pulled him round too much. Nevertheless we proceeded, but again owing to lack of rein control the horse went sideways and my furrow, after a few yards of near straightness, went west. Still, when I had reached the bottom the thing had been done. I had ploughed a furrow. It could hardly have been less straight, but a weight was lifted from my mind, for whatever geometrical terms might be necessary to describe my line, to me it was an Event – I had at any rate ploughed a furrow.
4 Potato Planting; Broadcasting Seed
A wet day now drew us indoors – into an old house, at a far corner of the farm, unoccupied and with no road to it. It was serving as a general storehouse for artificial and potatoes and tools. We made use of the wet day to prepare the potatoes for planting. From a pile on the floor we sorted out the medium ones for planting, putting those that were too small on one side, and splitting the large ones to serve as two. So the Potato now came into my field of vision as a definite object on its own. Not being a garden or allotment man I had hitherto never looked at a potato save with my mouth, as it were. Now I decided to fix my eye on it and follow its act.
Early in May we assembled for planting. The personnel included all who worked on the farm: the boss (who, though frequently called away on another job at this period, was present at most of the important occasions), Morgan, the Dane, a general labourer called Arthur Miles and his wife, a land girl, and myself. We each took a row, filled buckets from sacks placed at intervals down the field, and planted the potatoes in the furrows at one foot distance from each other – which seemed to me a lot of room for them to play in. I was glad to put them in and let them get on with it. They have no beauty to recommend them, it is their performance we admire, and now they could start moving. But I soon lost interest in them and became much more concerned with my back. Since it is necessary to carry a bucket and to place each potato right down in the furrow as you advance, the back-strain is unexampled – in fact there is no other agricultural job so hard on the back. A machine-planter has been invented of course, and is much in use. And a good job too, thought I, many thanks and salaams to the benefacting inventor. ‘So you are a believer in thorough agricultural mechanization, are you?’ ‘Pardon me, but I’m in no fit state to think it out – my back’s aching too much. Empirically, as seen here regarding this, a machine seems excellent.’ And I fear that machines come into the world, not following a principle, nor with an eye to future developments, nor in relation to the whole, but by fits and starts, one by one, each seeming splendid to those concerned. I have to admit that whatever views I might hold in the study concerning mechanization, on the field, from this labouring angle, I would cast a highly favourable eye upon any man who appeared with a potato-planter.
‘What did you do today?’ my friends often asked when I got home. ‘Spread potash round the foot of fruit trees’ was about all I sometimes could reply. Thus an accurate day-to-day account of life on a farm would be almost laughably dull – though I wish someone would do it if only for the benefit of the romanticists. But spreading potash at the foot of fruit trees was in no way an irksome job. You simply filled your bucket and circled round each tree in the line, throwing down handfuls of the manure in a circle well away from the foot of the stem – for the roots which it is designed to reach are spread several feet outwards. There was thick grass round most of the trees which I dressed thus, and I wondered how much good I was really doing. I did not care, for I was not responsible. I was most happy and at ease in my non-responsibility. No farmer can be at ease hanging daily upon the response of nature to his decisions.
While on this manuring job one day I noticed that a certain attractively situated field with a long view was being sown with corn by Arthur Miles. This farm (a little less than a hundred acres) had not gone in for much arable work, the concentration being on fruit, hence it was not fitted out with much equipment for the former. The old method of broadcasting seed was adopted. I saw that Arthur Miles, who seemed to do anything and everything, was engaged at this. And just as I had longed to put my hand on a plough, so again I felt the strongest desire to broadcast a field, or some of it, in creative contrast with broadcasting artificial. When the boss came round I asked him if I might take a turn. He was an understanding man and did not make fun of the awkward request. In fact he brought me up to the field and left me with Arthur Miles – though not going so far as to say anything to him about it. He just left me there. This made it a bit awkward. But again I overcame the resistance and he showed me how it was done. It is extremely concentrated work. You must walk straight and you must throw out the seed so as never to leave a patch uncovered. Thus, fixing your eye steadily upon an object at the end of the field, you start out, throwing the grain forward at every step. This means that the hand must work very quickly in seizing the grain from the bag or bucket slung by a strap over the shoulder, and the arm must go out evenly and rhythmically with the legs – otherwise there will be gaps and patches when the corn grows.
It was exactly this steady synchronization that I found most difficult and I did a portion of the field none too well, and made Miles none too pleased. But I did do that portion and never in my life felt b
etter employed. I was doing the oldest and most necessary work known to man. When you do it by hand there is the further attraction that not only are you doing something necessary for the life of mankind, but you are outside the Machine Age, so that even if the machines went up in smoke you would remain untouched and could continue to work across the field. And if we are moved by the poetry of tradition and the procession of time, remembering that a two-thousand-years-old Parable held up the image of the Sower at the self-same task, we shall be glad indeed, if only for a brief period in our lives, if only once, to do likewise and cast abroad these envelopes of life.
5 The Old House
Another wet day followed and I was sent to the old house to crunch potash. This chemical, lying up all winter, gets damper and damper, forming into hard lumps in the sacks. My job was to open the sacks, throw the potash on the floor. crunch it up into a fine powder and then repack it.
I carried on alone throughout the day at this, in the large old, empty house. Enormous beams, many doors, three stairways, attics, cellars – the whole empty save for the sacks of artificial, some broken chairs, one washbasin, tools and potatoes, and in an upper room an enormous bedstead fitted with mattress.
At lunch-time – or, more properly, dinner-time – I went into this upper room. The bed certainly was formidable – one of those old Victorian ‘beds like battlefields’, as George Moore described them. There I had my meal, using the mattress as table and chair. This house was tucked away in a lost corner, far from any other house, with no road or even pathway to it. A lonely mansion at the best of times; on that day, that desolate room, one window stuffed up, one broken, one filled with cardboard, the wind whistling, the rain without and the damp within, I felt discouraged and inclined towards melancholy. I lay down on the bed, using my haversack as pillow, and, curling up, placed my overcoat over my body and head. The wind rattled the panes and various doors banged, but I felt secure now and remote from the world, as if I had buried myself.
The Worm Forgives the Plough Page 2
