There is an old Kentish proverb which says,

"Between the sickle and the scythe, Whatever's born will never thrive;"

and as it was just between the hay and corn-harvest that we tried to rear our ducks and chickens, I am induced to believe that, like many other old saws, it was founded on experience. They may be reared in September, though they require great care, and must not be allowed to run on the grass, which at that season is seldom dry.

A friend once told me she reared a brood of seventeen chickens, which were hatched the last week in September; they were placed in an empty greenhouse, and were consequently kept warm and dry. March is the month for poultry; the hatches are better, and they grow much more rapidly than at any other time.

I am quite sure that a poultry-yard may be made very profitable to any one who will bestow a little trouble on it. Great care must be taken with the young chickens at night; the hen should be securely cooped with them: for want of this precaution we in one night lost eight, when they were a few days old, being, as we supposed, carried off by the cats.

The best food for ducks when first hatched is bread and milk; in a few days barley-meal, wetted with water into balls about as big as peas, should be given to them. It is usual, as soon as both ducks and chickens come out of the shell, to put a pepper-corn down their throats. I don't know that it is really of service to them, but it is a time-honored custom, and so perhaps it is as well to follow it.

As for our butter-making, it continued to prosper; we had some little trouble with it in the spring, when the weather set in suddenly very hot. It was certainly much more difficult to reduce the temperature of the cream to 55' than it was to raise it to that degree.

I often thought with vain longing of the shop in the Strand, where we used to purchase Wenham Lake Ice: how firm would the butter have come, could we have had a few lumps to put in the churn half and hour before we required to use it!

Farmers' wives tell us, that to get firm butter in very hot weather they get up at three o'clock in the morning, in order that it may be made before the sun becomes powerful. Now this is a thing that would not have suited H. or myself at all, and therefore we never mustered up courage to attempt it.

One day in March—and this is the last disaster I have to record concerning our butter—we were particularly anxious to have it good, as we expected visitors, to whom we had frequently boasted of our skill as dairywomen: the day was very warm, and the cream appeared much thicker than usual; we churned for more than an hour without its appearing to undergo any change; we frequently removed the lid to see if there was any sign of butter coming, but each time we were disheartened when we discovered it looked just the same as when placed in the churn. At last the handle went round as easily as if no cream were in it, and presently it began to run over the top of the churn. When we looked in a curious sight presented itself: the cream had risen to the top, just as milk does when it boils! We were greatly astonished. In nine months' butter-making we had seen nothing like it.

Tom, who milked the cows was supposed to know something of the art of churning; he was, therefore, called into the dairy: as soon as he saw the state of the matter he exclaimed, "Why, the cream's gone to sleep!"

"The cream gone to sleep!" What in the world could that mean? Such a propensity we had never discovered in cream before; we could gain no solution of the mystery from Tom; all he said was, that we must go on churning till it "waked up."

H. and myself had been hard at work for two hours, so willingly yielded to his request that he might be allowed to rouse the cream from its slumber. He, the cook, and housemaid, churned away by turns till seven in the evening, but the sleep of the cream remained unbroken, and as it was then considered a hopeless affair, the slothful fluid was consigned to the pig-tub.

Now we have never felt quite sure of our butter since. Every time we churn there is a lurking fear that the cream may choose to take a nap; however, it is as yet the first and last time in our experience.

I can give no advice to my readers on the subject, because I am wholly ignorant on the subject, though I have consulted every farmer's wife in the neighborhood on the matter. They all say that cream will go to sleep sometimes, though it usually wakes up after a few hours.* [I have since been told by an old woman conversant with sleepy cream, that a quart of milk nearly boiling hot will wake it up.] Perhaps, after all, we were too impatient, and should not have given in after only nine hours' churning. With this solitary exception our butter-making progressed as favorably as we could desire.

I do not quite know how to believe the stories I am told of wonderful cows which my friends are fortunate enough to possess. One gentleman has informed me that he has one which gives fifteen pounds of butter weekly. Now we have had several, but never made more on the average than eight pounds per week. I believe that a great deal depends on the manner in which they are milked, and once in the hands of a beginner in that art the cows decreased in milk so rapidly, that we did not get more than a gallon daily from both animals; after they had been three weeks under his management we changed the milker, but did not get anything like the proper quantity again till after they had calved.

I believe the usual average is one pound of butter from every ten quarts of milk. Ours used to give us thirteen or fourteen quarts each daily, and yet we never made more than eight pounds. We used about two quarts of new milk, so that if ten quarts will give a pound of butter, we did not get so much as we ought. Still we were very well satisfied with the produce we received.

There requires management with two cows, in order that one may always be in full milk when the other calves. If you rear a calf for the butcher, it will require the whole of the milk for six or seven weeks, which is about the age they are killed for fine veal. We once—it was in the winter—received $26 for one. With two cows this may usually be done, and its is more profitable than making butter. Where only one is kept, it is better to part with the calf when a few days old, and then the price is $5.

If a lady wishes her dairy to be very nicely finished, she should have all the articles she requires of glass, instead of wood and earthenware. Everything for the diary of that material can be purchased in Leicester Square, and certainly, if expense had been no object to us, we should much have preferred a glass churn, pans, &c. They have the great advantage of being kept beautifully clean with very little labor; but they are so liable to be broken, that they should never be used unless servants are very careful. A marble table is, however, in every respect better than a board to make the butter upon. It is expensive at first, but will, with ordinary care, last several generations of butter-makers.

Whilst on the subject of the dairy, I must say a few words respecting the great care required in washing the articles used in it. As soon as the butter was taken from the churn I was in the habit of half filling it with boiling water, into which I had put some lumps of soda, and then turning the handle a few times, in order that it might be well washed round. It was then left till it was convenient for "cook" to cleanse all the utensils we had used.

From some cause or other I neglected for two or three weeks to do this, and one day, when the freshmade butter was brought to table, there were complaints that it was cheesy; it certainly had a peculiar and very unpleasant taste, for which we could not account.

The next time it was made it had the same fault; and it then occurred to me that it might be the churn. I accordingly returned to my old mode of washing it, and never after was there a complaint of any unpleasant flavor in the butter.

I mention this to show the amateur dairywoman how very essential is cleanliness in every article she uses. A regular dairymaid would have known this, but a town-servant thinks that if she washes a thing it is sufficient: but more than mere washing is required; every article must be scrubbed with soap, wood-ashes, and soda, and then placed for hours in the open air.

Now glass is much easier kept sweet and clean, and for that reason is greatly to be preferred; but I am writing for those who may wish to reap profit from their "farm of four acres," and I fear little would be gained if nothing but glass were used in the dairy.

Our land turned out better the second summer than the first. We made nearly two tons and a half of hay from each acre. We were enabled to mow the whole three acres, as we had "common rights" in our neighborhood, where the cows could pasture during the spring. Had we been without this privilege we could have mown only two acres, and as hay was $21 the load, the additional acre was worth $50 to us, with the exception of $3 75 for making it. We were advised to have an after-crop, but did not; it would have made the land very poor for the next year, so that what we gained in hay we must have expended in manure.

We were well satisfied with the profit we derived from our pigs during this second six months. All the summer we kept four, at an expense of fifty-eight cents weekly, which was expended for two bushels of fine pollard (bran and meal).

We had such an abundance of vegetables from the garden and orchard, that we must have wasted cartloads, if we had not kept pigs to consume them. As soon as the hay was carried they were turned into the meadows, and suffered to remain there till they were put up to fatten; a process which pigs must go through, though ducks can dispense with it. I have already stated the expense of fattening them, and we never found it vary more than a shilling or two in a pig.

We always found for our family that a bacon pig of sixteen stone (244 pounds) was the best size, and for porkers about eight (112 pounds).

Our fruit was as plentiful as our vegetables,—indeed we might have sold the surplus for many dollars; but we soon found that to do so was to lose caste in the neighborhood. One piece of extravagance we were guilty of the first winter and spring we passed at A. The gardener had a little fire in the grapery during the severe weather, because he had placed some plants in it. We were told we could continue it till the grapes ripened for a "mere nothing." Now "mere nothings" mount up to a "considerable something." The coal and coke consumed before they were ripe cost $20. It is true we had them in July instead of September, but we should have liked them quite as well in that month.

It was a bad grape year, too,—at least with us. I don't think we cut more than twenty pounds weight. Hothouse grapes are not dear at $1 the pound; but we should have had them equally good by waiting two months later, when they would have cost us nothing.

Had we purchased the produce we received from our garden during the year, it would have been worth two guineas weekly. Our peaches, apricots, and nectarines, were abundant, and very fine. We had two splendid walnut-trees, and a mulberry-tree of immense size, which was an object of special abhorrence to "nurse," as for more than two months in the summer the children's frocks, pinners, &c., were dyed with the juice of the fruit. They could hardly pass near it in the season without some of the ripe berries falling on their heads, and it was hardly possible to prevent them escaping from her to pick them up. Mulberry-pudding made its appearance often on the nursery-table, and jars of mulberry-jam were provided to secure the same dainty through the winter.

The luxury of a good garden can hardly be appreciated till you have been in possession of one, more especially where there are many children. The way we used to preserve currants, gooseberries, plums, damsons, and, indeed, almost every description of fruit, was this: The wide-mouth bottles which are sold for the purpose were filled with fruit, six ounces of powdered loaf-sugar was shaken in among it; the bottles were then tied down as closely as possible with bladder, and placed up to the neck in a copper, or large saucepan, of cold water, which was allowed to come slowly to the boil. They remained in it till the water was quite cold, when they were taken from the water and wiped quite dry. Before placing them in the store-room the bottle was turned upside down, in order to see that they were perfectly air-tight, for on this depends the fruit keeping good. The fruit will sink down to about the middle of the bottle, and we once tried to fill them up with some from another, but opening them admitted the air, and the contents did not keep well. If properly done, they will be good at the end of a year.

If any lady undertake the management of a four-acre farm, she must expect it to occupy a great deal of her time; if she leaves it to servants, however honest, she will lose by it. It is not that things are stolen, but that they are wasted, unless the mistress herself knows what quantities of barley, oats, etc., her poultry and pigs consume; and unless she look daily into her dairy and see that the mild is well skimmed, half the cream will be thrown into the wash-tub.

A six-months' longer experience of the country only confirmed my sister and myself in the conviction that we had in every way made a most desirable change when we quitted London for our small farm; but if we had been too fine or too indolent to look after our dairy and poultry-yard, I believe that our milk, butter, eggs, poultry, and pork, would have cost us quite as much as we could have purchased them for in town.

All the good things we were daily consuming in the country would have come to us in London,

"Like angels' visits, few and far between."

I know that many of our old friends were really shocked when we told them, laughingly, of our new pursuits, and that the butter they so much praised, and the apricot-cheese they ate with so much gust, were manufactured by our own hands. We were "poor-thinged" to our faces in a very pitying manner, but we always laughed at these compassionate people, and endeavored to convince them we spoke the truth in sober earnest, when we assured them we found great amusement in our new pursuits. They shook their heads and sighed in such a manner, that we knew perfectly well that, as soon as we were out of ear-shot, they would say, "Poor things! It is very sad, but they are quite right to try and make the best of it." I believe some of them thought that it was impossible we could have "souls above butter;" for a lady who called one day, taking up one of Mudie's volumes from the table, said,—

"It is possible you care to subscribe to Mudies's?"

"And why should we not care to do so?" replied H.

"Why," was the answer, "I do not see any connection between a love of reading and a love of butter-making."

Now I do not think that either of us had any love of butter-making; and if we could have afforded to give $100 a year to a dairymaid, no doubt we should have left all to her management; but as it was we were obliged to buy it—and very bad it was in our town—or make it ourselves: nor do either my sister or myself regret our resolution to do so.

At first we were quite proud of our skill, and told every one of our success with great triumph. Now—for womanhood is weak—we are content to hear our dairymaid praised for her beautiful butter by our acquaintance, and Tom extolled for his care of the chickens. It is only our friends, among whom I reckon my readers, who know that the butter is made, and the chickens fed, by the mistresses of "the four-acre farm."

CHAPTER XV.

OUR PONY.

I have been told by several friends that, in order to render this little book complete, I should add a chapter detailing the expenses we incurred by keeping a pony and carriage. Some persons imagine that this is an article of luxury which may well be dispensed with; but, though it may not be and absolute necessary, the expense attending one is so slight, in comparison with the comfort and pleasure derived from its possession, that I believe such of my readers as may contemplate residing in the country will readily agree with me, when I have told them the amount it will cost them to keep it,—that if it is a luxury, it is one of the very cheapest in which they can indulge.

Without such a convenience a carriage must be hired every time any member of the family has occasion to go to the railway station; and besides that, it is useful for bringing home a variety of articles which in the country are frequently purchased at places five or six miles from home. Then it is a great pleasure to be able to meet your friends at the station, whenever they are kind enough to leave London for the purpose of passing a few days with you in the country.

My sister and myself contrived to extract profit as well as pleasure from our little equipage. During the summer months we frequently drove up to London; the short journey was very pleasant, and this mode of making it possessed the great advantage of costing nothing but 63 cents for the pony, and 12 cents for turnpikes. Not that we had the temerity to drive through London. We always left the pony two miles before we reached town, with strict orders to the civil ostler to whose care we confided him to great care of him, and be sure and give him a "good feed." We then proceeded on our way in a cab, which cost us no more than we should have paid for one from the station.

Where there is a gentleman in the family, a dogcart is the most convenient vehicle which can be kept; but as that would not be suitable for a lady, we contrived to make the back seat of the carriage do duty for the well of the dog-cart, and it was astonishing how many light packages we managed to "stow away" in it. I will not dilate on the pleasant drives through quiet lanes, of the delight afforded to the children when allowed to have a ride on "Bobby," nor of the great facility it gave us of being out of doors in winter, when, as was very frequently the case, the state of the roads was such as to render walking an impossibility; still, I hope I have stated sufficient to give my readers a good idea of the great pleasure they will derive from keeping a pony; and I will now, with the bills of the miller and farrier before me, proceed to show the sum for which it may be kept. Our pony cost for food, from the 4th of January to the 24th of December in the same year, $46.66. He consumed during that period five quarters of oats, at $8 the quarter, and five bushels of beans, which cost $6.66. The farrier's bill for the same time amounted to $5.91. Perhaps it will be as well to copy this account, as it will clearly show how often it is requisite to change the shoes of a horse. Of course a great deal must depend on the quantity of work he does; ours was certainly not spared, though we do not deserve the character so usually given to ladies, of being unmerciful to horses: "running them off their legs," "thinking they can never get enough out of the poor beasts," "driving them as if they thought they could go for ever," are accusations brought against the ladies of a family where horses are kept.

The following is a copy of the bill for our pony's shoes for twelve months:—

Feb. 24. Four removes $0.33 March 22. Four shoes .75 April 20. Four removes .33 May 5. Two shoes .37 1/2 June 9. Four shoes .75 July 8. Four shoes .75 Aug. 9 Four shoes .75 Sept. 1. Four shoes .75 Oct. 11. Two shoes .37 1/2 Oct. 25. Two shoes .37 1/2 Dec. 24. Two shoes .37 1/2 $5.91

Add to this the miller's bill $46.66 $52.57

and we have the whole expense of keeping a pony for one year. "Oh! but," some one may exclaim, "you have put down nothing for straw and hay, and horses require a great deal of both." Quite true; but then in the country, if you do not keep a horse, you must buy manure for your garden, and that will cost you quite as much as if you purchased straw; and as for the hay, did it not come off the "four-acre farm?"

It is one of the great advantages of the country that nothing is lost, and thus the straw which figures so largely in the bill of a London corn-chandler, and which, when converted into manure, is the perquisite of your groom, becomes in the country the means of rendering your garden productive.

Before I resided in the country the pony cost me more than four times the sum I have mentioned; the stable was apart from the house, and I knew nothing for months of the bills run up on his account. I had once a bill sent in for sugar! "Why, George, what can the pony want with sugar?"

"Why, ma'am, you said some time ago that the pony looked thin, so lately I have always mixed sugar with his corn; nothing fattens a horse like sugar."

Now what could I complain of? This man had been recommended to me as a "treasure," and one who would do his duty by the pony, which, I may mention, was a very beautiful one, and a great pet; so if George considered sugar good for him, what could I do but pay the bill, and say, "Let him have sugar, by all means?" Not that "Bobby" was a bit the fatter or better for having his corn sweetened. An intimate friend of mine, who always kept three or four horses, laughed outright when I told him that the pony had consumed such a quantity of sugar, and expressed his opinion that very little of that article had ever been in his manger. Under the same superintendence "Bobby" wore out four times the number of shoes; and as at that time I had to purchase hay and straw as well as corn, all on the same scale of magnitude, the expense of keeping the little carriage really did cost more than the convenience attending it was worth; and had not the pony been the gift of a beloved friend, we should have parted with it when we quitted London, as at that time we were ignorant how cheaply it could be maintained in the country. There we had a servant who was content with his wages, and did not seek to make them greater by combining with tradesmen to defraud his employers. If any of my readers commence keeping a pony in the country, they may rely that it need not cost them a penny more than I have put down. Of course they must have the hay from their own grounds, and neither reckon the cost of the straw nor the labor of the man who attends to the pony. Ours did all the "jobs" about the place—cleaned the knives and shoes, milked the cows, fed the pigs and poultry, helped in the gardens, and, in short, made himself "generally useful." Now, a servant who is able and willing to do all this, besides properly attending to a pony and carriage, is very difficult to be met with, but he is absolutely necessary for a place in the country where economy has to be studied.

Something must be allowed yearly for the wear and tear of carriage, harness, etc., but it need not be much. Any gentleman can easily calculate the sum which may fairly be allowed for these items; I only think it my part to show the expense attending a pony in the country; and though those who have been in the habit of keeping horses in London, either in a livery or private stable, may think it impossible to maintain one for $52.57 yearly, let them leave town for a four-acre farm, and they will find that I have spoken the truth on this point, as well as on all the other subjects of which I have given my experience in this little volume.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION.

It is with considerable diffidence the writer ventures to give the public this slight sketch of her experience in farming four acres of land.

When she finally resolved to fix her residence in the country, she was wholly ignorant how she ought to manage, so that the small quantity of land she rented might, if not a source of profit, be at least no loss.

She was told by a friend, who for a short time had tried "a little place" at Chiselhurst, that it was very possible to lose a considerable sum yearly by under taking to farm a very small quantity of land. "Be quite sure," said the friendly adviser—"and remember, I speak from experience—that whatever animals you may keep, the expense attending them will be treble the value of the produce you receive. Your cows will die, or, for want of being properly looked after, will soon cease to give any milk; your pigs will cost you more for food than will buy the pork four times over; your chickens and ducks will stray away, or be stolen; your garden-produce will, if worth anything, find its way to Covent Garden; and each quarter your bills from the seedsman and miller will amount to as much as would supply you with meat, bread, milk, butter, eggs, and poultry, in London."

Certainly this was rather a black state of things to look forward to; but the conviction was formed, after mature reflection, that a residence some miles from town was the one best suited to the writer's family. She was compelled to acknowledge to those friends who advised her to the contrary, her ignorance on most things appertaining to the mode of life she proposed to commence, but trusted to that often-talked-of commodity, common sense, to prevent her being ruined by farming four acres of land.

She thought, if she could not herself discover how to manage, she might acquire the requisite knowledge from some of the little books she had purchased on subjects connected with "rural economy." They proved, however, quite useless. They appeared to the writer to be merely compilations from larger works; and, like the actors in the barn, who played the tragedy of "Hamlet," and omitted the character of the hero, so did these books leave out the very things which, from the title-pages, the purchaser expected to find in them.

Some time after experience had shown how butter could be made successfully, a lady, who had been for years resident in the country, said, during a morning call, "My dairy-maid is gone away ill, and the cook makes the butter; but it is so bad we cannot eat it: and besides that nuisance, she has this morning given me notice to leave. She says she did not 'engage' to 'mess' about in the dairy."

"Well," said the writer, "why not make the butter yourself, till you can suit yourself with a new servant?"

"I have tried," said the visitor, "but cannot do it. My husband is very particular about the butter being good, so I was determined to see if I could not have some that he could eat; therefore I pored over Mrs. Rundle, and other books, for a whole day, but could not find how to begin. None of them told me how to make the butter, though several gave directions for potting it down when it was made. I made the boy churn for more than three hours yesterday morning, but got no butter after all. It would not come! The weather was very cold, and it occurred to the listener to ask the lady where the boy churned, and where the cream had been kept during the previous night.

"Why, in the dairy, to be sure," was the answer; "and my feet became so chilled by standing there, that I can hardly put them to the ground since. Cook could not succeed more than I did, and said, the last time she made it, it was between four and five hours before the butter came; and then, as I have told you, it was not eatable."

The writer explained to her friend that the reason why she could not get the butter, as well as why cook's was so bad, was on account of the low temperature of the cream when it was put into the churn. She then gave her plain directions how to proceed for the future, and was gratified by receiving a note from her friend, in a couple of days, containing her thanks for the "very plain directions;" and adding, "I could not have thought it was so little trouble to procure good butter, and shall for the future be independent of a saucy dairymaid."

I believe that a really clever servant will never give any one particulars respecting her work. She wraps them up in an impenetrable mystery. Like the farmers' wives, who, to our queries, gave no other answer than, "Why, that depends," they take care that no one shall be any the wiser for the questions asked.

The reader may safely follow the directions given in these pages; not one has been inserted that has not been tested by the writer. To those who are already conversant with bread-making, churning, etc., they may appear needlessly minute; but we hope the novice may, with very little trouble, become mistress of the subjects to which they refer.

Even if a lady does keep a sufficient number of servants to perform every domestic duty efficiently, still it may prove useful to be able to give instructions to one who may, from some accidental circumstance, be called on to undertake a work to which she has been unaccustomed.

A friend of the writer's, a lady of large fortune, and mistress of a very handsome establishment, said, when speaking of her dairy, "My neighborhood has the character of making very bad butter; mine is invariably good, and I always get a penny a pound more for it at the 'shop' than my neighbors. If I have occasion to change the dairymaid, and the new one sends me up bad butter, I tell her of it. If it occurs the second time, I make no more complaints; I go down the next butter-day, and make it entirely myself, having her at my side the whole time. I find I never have to complain again. She sees how it is made, and she is compelled to own it is good. I believe that a servant who is worth keeping will follow any directions, and take any amount of trouble, rather than see 'missus' a second time enter the kitchen or dairy to do her work."

Perhaps the allusion this lady made to the "shop" may puzzle the London reader, but in country places, where more butter is made in a gentleman's family than is required for the consumption of the household, it is sent to—what is frequently—the "shop" of the place, and sold for a penny per pound less than the price for which it is retailed by the shopkeeper. The value of the butter is set off against tea, sugar, cheese, and various other articles required in the family in which the butter is made.

When the writer purchased a third cow, it was in anticipation of sending any surplus butter to "shop," and receiving groceries in exchange, nor has she been disappointed.

Every month's additional experience strengthens her conviction of the advantages to be derived from living in the country; and she takes farewell of her readers, in the hope that she has succeeded in conving them that a "farm of four acres" may be made a source of health, profit, and amusement, though many of their "town" friends may threaten them with ruin, should they be rash enough to disregard their advice to take a house in a "nice quiet street," leading into one of the squares.

THE END