: In Pastures Green by McArthur Peter - Farm life

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IN PASTURES GREEN

IN PASTURES GREEN

BY PETER McARTHUR

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO ALL CITY MEN WHO ARE TALKING OF GOING BACK TO THE LAND. IF EACH ONE WHO DOES NOT GO BUYS A COPY I SHALL BE ENTIRELY SATISFIED

Five years ago I landed on this farm with no assets but a love of nature, a sense of humour, and a deep-rooted conviction that because I had been born and brought up on a farm I could make a living for myself and family from the land. When I took stock to-day I found that I have on hand enough produce to keep man and beast in perfect comfort for at least a year--until another harvest--and that is not a small matter at a time when our world is in ruins. When you understand my purpose you will absolve me from any suspicion of boasting when I tell you what I have on the farm. I have four milch cows, two heifers, a steer that is fattening for winter beef, and three calves; over twenty tons of hay; stacks of mixed oats and barley that if threshed would probably yield from two to three hundred bushels; a field of corn that will probably yield five hundred bushels; a well-loaded orchard and a plentiful supply of home-preserved fruit; a good patch of potatoes, and a garden with a winter's supply of such staple vegetables as celery, tomatoes, cabbage, beets, carrots, and onions. I also have an interest in a flock of poultry that insures a plentiful supply of fresh eggs at all times, as well as fat hens for the pot, and just now plump broilers are practising crowing all over the place. I also have ducks, turkeys, and guinea-fowl to provide for feast days that may be allowed to come oftener than they ever came in the city. The expenditure of less than would provide us with supplies of flour, sugar, tea, salt, and other necessaries that would enable us to live in comfort for a year, even if we were entirely cut off from the rest of the world.

Just what the farm has meant to me in the past five years I cannot tell, for things did not work out as I had planned. Instead of applying myself wholly to farming, like Zangwill "I returned to my inky vomit," and depended on my pen for a living. While doing this I farmed in "a rambling, desultory way," and had more fun with my farming operations than an active pup ever had with an old shoe. I did what I liked, and did it as I liked. At no time did I attempt to farm for profit. Everything was raised for our own use, and if there was a surplus of anything it was sold. No attempt was made to run a model farm--I was simply a poor farmer of the kind that make a bare living from the land. While doing this I kept up a constant roar about my farm work. I issued more bulletins than the Department of Agriculture, and I am afraid they were more widely read. This was good business from the point of view of a writer, but I am afraid that some who missed the burlesquing tone of many articles got obsessed with the idea that I was trying to farm scientifically and to show how farming should be done. Real farmers, according to their various natures, viewed my work with pity, contempt, ridicule, loathing, malevolence, mendacity, loquacity, jackassity, and every other capacity that people develop. Lecturers for the farmers' institutes made it a point to call on me when they were in the neighbourhood, and after the first shock was over proceeded to gather specimens of noxious weeds that they found it hard to get elsewhere. Government scientists came out of their way to see me, and gazed with awe at the neglected farm from which I had raised such a crop--of newspaper articles. Then they took out their cyanide bottles and began to collect rare specimens of bugs and pests, for I had all of them. Touring automobilists stopped to make a call, and when they went away I could hear them laughing as far off as the second culvert on the concession line. Nevertheless and notwithstanding I never described any farm work that I did not do and no incident was recorded that did not happen. If you have a false idea of my farming it is your own fault. At all times I told the truth, merely garnishing it with humour, poetry, and philosophy. And to-day the result of my farm work is the most satisfactory asset I have. In the days of the patriarchs a man with more than a year's supply of provisions would be regarded as a plutocrat. In the awakening that has been caused by the war I shall be surprised if there are not many people in our cities who will think that the patriarchal view was right.

During the years that I have been writing from the country I have received many hundreds, possibly thousands, of letters, and I was glad that not one of them was from some one who had been induced by me to leave the city and try farming. To-day I feel differently about the matter. My experience has shown me that although attempts to farm for profit would result in failure for most city people, it is quite possible for a city man to farm for a living. Without any definite purpose to that end I find myself with a year's living in hand, and know that, with good health, I can accomplish that much year after year. At this time, with the business of the world more completely disorganised than most people imagine, I do not hesitate to advise every one who can possibly go back to the land to go. If I had my way there would not be a vacant farmhouse in all Canada before the snow flies. Men who are out of work and have some resources would find it cheaper to spend the idle winter on a farm, and they could be ready by spring to begin to make their living from the soil. At the present time our cities have many victims of the war who are as blameless as the victims of a great fire or any similar disaster. They must be cared for, and our government would be making no mistake in voting an appropriation for the purchase of a million bags of flour for the relief of distress at home. It will be many years before the business of the world can be resumed in the volume of past years, and those who are in authority can do nothing better than get the unemployed back on the land, where they can earn their own food, clothing, and shelter. This suggests that the land problem will soon be one of the most pressing in Canada. How are people to get back on the land? My friends of the Single Tax Association need not write to me to explain how this is to be accomplished. I admit all their conclusions, though as a weak human being I resent the perfection of their logic. Nothing in my experience has ever happened logically. If they will stop antagonising people with their perfect theory they may see their dreams fulfilled much sooner than they expect. The nationalisation of land is immeasurably nearer than any one supposes, and it will be brought about by the blundering logic of events. The people must get back on the land, must! must! must! The work of education undertaken by Henry George and his disciples is now practically complete. The time has come for action. People must have access to the land--to the one source of production. If the people of the cities turn towards the land, where they can provide for themselves, it will not be long before as much justice as is humanly possible will be accorded to them. Land-hunger will force a solution of the land problem. The time for dissertations on abstract justice is past. It is to stimulate the land-hunger that I have made bold to trouble readers of this column with so frank a statement of my personal affairs at the present time. If you are looking ahead with terror to the long winter, you should make up your mind that before another winter comes you will be as well provided for as I am, with the fruits of your own labour on the land. "Back to the land" should become a slogan of power. I trust that those who are in authority, and who will have the task of caring for our victims of the war, will give it their earnest attention.

IN PASTURES GREEN

JANUARY

"That hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance and proven?al song and sunburnt mirth."

Now notice how prosaically the Canadian farmer undertakes the work. After the women folks have been nagging him for a couple of weeks he begins to feel apple-hungry himself, and some fine morning he takes the long-handled shovel and an old axe and proceeds to open the pit. The snow is first carefully shovelled away from the little treasure-house of autumn fruitfulness and then the covering of frozen earth is chopped away. This uncovers the protecting layer of straw, which is removed, laying bare the apples. What a gush of perfume burdens the frosty air! Spies, Baldwins, Russets, and Pippins give their savour aright, and if a man had a touch of poetry in his soul he would begin at once to fashion lyrics. But there is no poetry. He simply remarks to himself that they have kept well, fills a bag, stuffs back the straw and piles on the earth and snow to keep out the frost. He then carries the bag to the kitchen and announces that he expects to have "apple-sass" for dinner. Possibly he wipes an apple on his sleeve and eats it while going to the barn to finish his chores, but on the whole he treats the event as if it were an ordinary part of the day's work.

Although our Canadian apples are good at all times, they are now at their best. There is a flavour to a winter-ripened apple that surpasses praise. It has a fullness and tang that provoke the appetite more than it satisfies. A winter evening spent around a roaring fire with a plateful of well-polished apples within reach, and old friends to talk with, is something to cheer even the soul of a pessimist. As for the children, their delight is twofold when the apple-pit has been opened. Not only do they gorge themselves, but they dream of the affluence they will enjoy by bartering apples at school. The school price of apples varies, but yesterday a sound, rosy Spy was disposed of for two empty rifle cartridges , the stub of a lead-pencil, and a copper harness rivet without a washer. From this you can figure out how much boy bric-a-brac a bushel would buy. It is possible that it was by just such bartering as this that some of our financial magnates developed their wonderful business sagacity. Perhaps it was by carrying the best apples to the teacher that they learned the first principles of lobbying and the value of standing in with the powers that be. It does not seem at all unreasonable to suppose that the boy who learns at school how to dispose of his apples most profitably will later pick plums and cut melons. Our educational system may have sides to it that are not recognised by the Education Department.

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