Gazing across, we try and take in the total situation, and we think it fair to ask – Is this fact a little thing, or is it a big thing? In the old, far away days, the whole village came out to take part in the haymaking and harvest. Bit by bit as wages went up and machinery came in, the villagers had to stay at home. Today the process nears completion, when the labourers themselves, the rick-makers, the thatchers, the general workers will stand afar off while Vera Panchonko alone performs, receiving the applause of the State and the Badge of Honour.
Does this constitute a problem? Hardly, in the eyes of the world, for it is not a utilitarian problem. It is a human concern. And though we are all human, and all seek happiness, we only regard problems in the light of utilitarianism, and to attempt otherwise is a battle lost in advance. The human problem here is simply that harvesting is one of the few really satisfying tasks in the world; it is a shared effort, communal work without being stressed as such, and enjoyed even though this may not be admitted. If it is knocked out, the agricultural profession will suffer on the human side. Gradually each man will come to work more and more on his own, neither able nor willing to take part at this, that, and the other tasks in company. There is something gloomy, to me, in the project.
Yet, eager to stick to the realities that will not be altered by such opinions, we must carry our inquiry further and ask again – Where are we then with our problem? And the answer is that, assuming the advent of the combine on a big scale, we see labour-saving carried a long step forward. So the real problem now turns out to be – leisure. We have reached the Leisure State. But the moment we say that, we know that it is purely theoretical, a mere theorem, no more connected with the given situation than a conclusion by Euclid (who died mad). For we have done nothing to increase leisure while increasing the saving of labour. Some of the workers are simply exchanged for metal, while those who are not exchanged continue to work, as I have remarked in relation to the machine-milker, for exactly the same hours as before. I do not complain of this. I make no tirade against it. It is so much in the nature of things. To adjust matters of this kind, entangled as we all are in a thousand economic wires, will be frightfully difficult – on a par with establishing Justice herself in our midst. That’s the first point. But there is a still more unfortunate one. It is, quite simply – that no one wants the Leisure State. All we want is work that suits us. Some of us have this. Nearly all farmers have it, and some labourers. These do not mind how long they work. The others want less long hours. But the idea of much leisure is something from which everyone turns in dismay. You can never make that a goal! We are quite unfit for it mentally. This was not always so everywhere. It was not so in the island of Typee before the West found and corrupted it. It is so here. We cannot bear idleness, we cannot fill that empty cup with happiness. Owing to the failure of intellectual leadership, the breakdown of religion, and the short-cuts to culture, our minds are now for the most part demoralized; in any true sense we know nothing, we understand nothing, we study nothing, we see nothing, we listen to nothing, we are incapable of reflection. Hence the hardest toil is a welcome refuge from the horror and tedium of leisure. We loathe a long holiday. We cannot endure pleasure for more than half an hour. Even picnics drive us mad. Agricultural labourers die six months after retiring. Unemployed middle-class people die slowly all their lives. Thus conditioned, where shall we find the will to create the Leisure State?
So, without less gloom than before, we turn again and look at the combine. It is splendid. But only from a utilitarian point of view; only for the employers of labour, for a few labourers, and for Vera Panchonko who harvests two hundred and sixty acres in five days.
44 Last Days of Harvest
Meanwhile we assembled on the field in order to cut and carry the remaining fifty acres. At 9 a.m. some clouds gathered in the distance. They spread; they came towards us; the entire sky blackened and it began to rain. There was no break to be seen in the sky anywhere, nor likelihood of one. We had come too late. All was lost. Several thousand pounds’ worth would go up in smoke, so late was the hour, so lowly drooping were the ears – down nearly to the very ground. After one hour it cleared up completely and did not rain any more for a week. Worth mentioning, I think. It was like a human touch from above: a decision and then a withdrawal. Good luck like this is forgotten sooner than the bad.
I caught a chill just before we reached this last lap, and so had to do this final business for a week in that condition. Between 2 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. I knew exactly what constituted Paradise and could name its precise geographical position. It consisted in lying down in a sunny windless nook at the side of a copse which impinged upon this field. Unfortunately this knowledge was useless to me, since I couldn’t go there.
Putting about twelve acres into each rick, we built four, and I began to feel that I knew what a barley sheaf looked like and could do without seeing another for some time. It was evening again when we were finishing and I had a good view of the big field. In the refreshing, sharp, evening air of autumn I compared the change that had taken place since the spring when I had been there drilling at the beginning of my experience at this farm. It seemed a long time ago since I had stood there feeding the oncoming drills, and I remembered how I had grappled with the horses and wagons and taken off the gate-post, and had had no time for dinner, and how ’E had laughed when I had spoken about the ‘little pills of comfort’. How different the scene now, and how much I had experienced since then!
We began to get near the last sheaf. Finally we came to it and pitched it up (we were not using the elevator here), though it nearly fell down again. And as we approached this last sheaf, was there any sense of a grand climax? And when it was pitched up, did someone say – ‘Ah, that’s the one we’ve been looking for all this time?’ And did ’E say cheerio and give thanks to all and sundry? No. It might have been the first sheaf.
45 Beginning with the Plough
The following day was our new year. We must hurry up now and get things ready for the next harvest.
There remained of course the harvesting of the root crops, swedes, mangolds (we didn’t grow any sugar-beet), and above all potatoes. These are steady autumn and winter jobs; in the south of England it is often December before all the potatoes are up.
But my eye was on the plough. I was determined to get that into my hands now. And I did. There was an eleven-acre field of stubble, bounded on one side by a hundred-acre stretch of down which was about to be ploughed up by Harold; and on the other by that field of kale where I had enjoyed working after haymaking – to which ’E now sent me with a tractor and a three-furrow plough. It was set properly for me in advance, for I could not possibly do this myself. And without further instructions I set out with it to that far field, along the out-of-the-way lanes and through the gates, feeling pleased with life – for the plough fascinates me.
I reached my field and set to work. I had taken care to acquaint myself with the general practice in operation, and hoped it would work out for me. First I went round the field marking out a headland ten feet from the hedge, for without a headland you cannot have room to turn at the end of each row. Then I struck out a line across the field about twenty yards from the headland. It was an oblong field with a rise in the middle so that only the top half of the hedge was visible from one end. To assist my preliminary strikings-out I took a stick and put a white envelope on to it, went to the middle of the field, took a careful twenty paces out from the side and stuck in my stick, then went on to the end and hung a handkerchief high in the hedge after another careful measurement. This striking-out is an important business, for if your line wobbles or has a bad kink in it, you will find it hard not to continue along the same pattern subsequently. So I set the radiator-cap straight towards my flags and tried to keep it there as I advanced. It didn’t keep straight, and when I got to the end I expected to find my line very bad. But to my surprise it wasn’t too bad at all. How about the second striking-out when a parallel line is essen
tial if there is to be neat workmanship? Again not bad. Indeed I was luckier in these first attempts than in some subsequent ones. All the same it was an error to have put up that guiding-stick in the middle. You need two sticks, Harold pointed out to me later, but not one in the middle – that is only a hindrance. You want one in the hedge and one just a few yards in front of it. Then if you keep those two, the one covering the other, in your eye from the far end, you can get a better line, and are much less likely to curve out or in as you go along.
This done it was only a question of going up and down my lines until I had come near to filling my parallelogram. Since the plough throws the turf over in one direction only you can’t avoid working continually inwards on your figure; so when it became too narrow to turn in, I struck out a new line at another parallel of twenty paces, thus being able to go along the narrow lane in one direction only, while using my new line as the other route.
So much for the question of movement. At first I fumbled the question of depth. I went much too shallow. Then I went too deep and broke a share – that is, the end piece which does the spade-work. But I didn’t notice this till I had reached the bottom and hitched up. Luckily I had some extra shares with me – the kind that only need a piece of wood for a pin, plus a bit of cloth to stabilize it. When I broke another I spotted it before I finished the line, being very anxious about the possible wearing out of the stump. It was curious, this share-breaking, for I was not going really very deep at all, and in fact, later, I had to go less deep than ’E told me to, if I was to preserve my shares. It was not particularly stony ground; but I gathered that there are shares and shares, some given to breaking, some hardly ever breaking.
Apart from this I did not come to grief over anything, and began to feel in command of the situation. But I wondered how the closing up of my first parallelogram would work out. When it became a very narrow lane I saw how far from perfect my striking-out had been. There was a bulge in the middle of the field, and so I found myself finishing the other part before I had finished the middle. The next one was better, but there was room for improvement. My aim was the unbroken single trough which you see running down at given distances across all well-ploughed fields. At dinner-time, at every dinner-time, I walked to another higher field opposite and looked across to examine the work in progress. It looked grand! The troughs didn’t seem at all too bad from there, while the furrows, though inclined to curve at the ends, presented a slice of ploughed land which looked on a par with other ploughed fields. I hoped that I wasn’t kidding myself about this and that my turn-over was good enough – for I had by no means buried all the stubble completely. There was much green on top of the brown. It was not a clean turn-over. This plough had been left out in all weathers and had not been greased. Thus when I started, the blades were very rusty, and the earth stuck to them. This naturally militates against a clean overturn by the turn-furrow. So I got down at the end of every row and knocked away the clinging earth with a spade and then finished off with a long thin steel knife belonging to Victorian days. (By the way, this was the first time I had used a spade since working on a farm – fitting reply to friends who ask perfunctorily, ‘How do you like digging?’) It was a long time before the soil ceased to cling to my turn-furrows. But at last they began to brighten, then to shine, and at last to blaze like silver when on rising from the earth they caught the sun. When I knocked off for dinner I liked to have the plough in such a position that I could see it glittering in that way.
Soon ’E paid a visit and strode across with his famous strides to the portion that I had done. He had a good look at it, up and down, then said – ‘That’s good enough for I.’ I tried not to look too surprised and pleased. He explained that he didn’t want the weeds completely buried, because the couch and charlock could not then be so easily harrowed out.
My furrows were inclined to curve at the end for a very simple reason. When you reach the end of the line you must turn the tractor of course, and turn it quickly in order to avoid running into the hedge or getting so close to it that one wheel gets stuck. But just when this turning is necessary you must reach back and pull the rope that connects with the hitching-up apparatus which lifts the blades clear of the earth – and this latter must not be done until you have really reached the end of the line. But there is a strong tendency to start turning the wheel of the tractor too soon, and so you get your curve. Yet this can be overcome by going slow and not getting flustered. The moment I most enjoyed was when, after having swung round from the hedge and got the tractor’s right wheel into the groove for going up the next line, I pulled the rope again so that the blades crashed down into the soil once more and immediately that solid substance turned into three fluid waves of earth that rose and fell, and having fallen, lay still again. It is most unfortunate that one is placed in front of the plough with a tractor, for one needs to watch the work for utilitarian reasons and wants to watch it for aesthetic ones. And if you do this for too long at a time while only the left hand guides the tractor a crook or a bad curve is the result. I did my best to mend such curves by treatment each time I reached the place, but though the spot looked obvious from the distance it disappeared as I approached it, of course. On some occasions I threw down a handkerchief to mark it. I should add that in this matter a certain amount depends upon the tractor. A really steady one, not too ancient, will go along with its right wheel in the furrow without need of a guiding hand (especially uphill). Thus I often observed Harold walking behind or beside his plough, while the tractor quietly went ahead by itself. A cheering spectacle, I always felt. Man is often the slave of machines, as also of cows and of sheep. But not here.
It might be asked why there is so much fuss made about a straight furrow. Apart from the initial necessity to strike out as straight as possible and make your parallelogram true, why should it matter if lines curve slightly here and there, or even bulge badly at places, seeing that the furrows will presently be knocked to pieces under the harrow? If you ask a farmer this question he will give utilitarian answers: it makes for better harrowing or it saves time. True enough, no doubt; but I think the real reason is aesthetic. It is the tribute that Agriculture pays to Art. It is felt that there is virtue in a straight line, not to be found in one that wobbles even slightly. This calls for concentration and skill. Where there is skill there is art. Where there is art there is passion for the absolute. The straight furrow is the labourer’s acknowledgement in the validity of art for art’s sake.
46 Horse-Ploughing
These were the days! Now I never looked forward to dinner hour nor to knocking off in the evening. (Later, when ploughing in December, I was downright annoyed the way it got dark so soon, and I went on until I couldn’t see what I was doing.) I recalled a remark made to me by Morgan at my first farm, when he was engaged in ploughing a pleasant six-acre field. ‘I would rather be doing this than anything,’ he said. ‘I’d rather do this than go to any cinema.’ Morgan was not an intellectual, not a man of ideas; he was a very level-headed, unpoetical sort of chap. He was just making a statement. There are some writers today who, with the cause of agriculture deeply at heart and worried by the very real problem of mechanization, tend to refer to tractor-drivers with a scarcely veiled sneer. Soulless fellows merely ‘fiddling about with machines’ seems to be their idea of such men. A justified view in some cases. I know a fair number of agricultural workers: for as a member of the Home Guard I met a lot more than those on this farm; some delightful men, but also, I admit, some tractor-drivers who were absolute louts who didn’t see an inch further than their nuts and screws. But it is wrong to sneer at tractor-drivers as a body on that account. Anyway, it is not the tractor that is wrong. It is all a question of the attitude of mind brought to the work – it is the attitude of mind every time! The tractor-plough is a superb instrument to look at when stationary, and to manage when in action.
Yet at this very point I want to say a word about horse-ploughing. I have had experience of it also. At thi
s stage in my narrative I cannot infringe upon the unity of place and time which I have imposed upon myself, by introducing any lengthy account of an experience elsewhere. But, with the reader’s permission, I may say here that I have acted as horse-ploughman elsewhere for a season from September to December, which days were the happiest in my life. If I were asked the straight question whether I would prefer to plough, always, with horse or tractor, I might find it difficult to answer, since I very much enjoy working with a tractor and a three-furrow plough. Yet nothing can really compare with the simple, strenuous horse-work. For one thing there is no other physical work to compare with it: there is not a game in the world that can make you feel half so good. And, fascinating as the machine work is, you do not hold the plough. But it is just this grasping of the handles of the plough, both arms stretched out fully and often putting out full strength, that somehow is the very top-notch of satisfaction. Ah, I say, even as I write these lines, give me the plough-handles that I may grip them and strike out across the field! release me from this chair! (for it is so much easier to do a thing than write about it, so much easier to perform than to reveal). And to be able to see your work directly in front of you all the time, to watch your wave rise up and fall to silence in your wake – this you cannot get the other way. But again I say, it is the grasping of the handles for which there is no substitute, no compensation. Then your feet are upon the earth, your hands upon the plough. You seem to be holding more than the plough, and treading across more than this one field: you are holding together the life of mankind, you are walking through the fields of time. This work has always been done. Whatever happens this can be done. Machine-power may fail for fuel. This power will never fail. In the day of calamity, in the day of battle, all men must cease from work and rise to slay. All save the ploughman on the fields of Normandy. When D-Day came and battle raged upon the beaches; when the sky was filled with fighters and the land was lashed with fire, that Nameless Man took out his plough and did his work and turned his furrow in the midst of all. And when the brief hurricane of mortal men had passed, he was still there.
The Worm Forgives the Plough Page 22
