by A G Street
In my own case I have chosen milk-production on the open-air system, allied to the retailing of the product. I cannot recommend it as a pleasing thing. It might truthfully be described as a miracle form of existence. For my manifold sins I am now the slave of empty bottles. What a life! And not empty bottles with a glorious past behind them, but empty milk bottles. Can one imagine a more dismal fate? I am the servant of milk bottles all day long. I fill them, deliver them, book them, wash them, sterilize them, and sometimes, it is true, smash them.
In addition to my own milk I sell a certain amount of Grade A Tuberculin Tested milk, which I fetch daily from a neighbouring farm. Each night, in company with dozens of empty bottles, I take the road. They are confined to wire crates so that they shall be unable to attack me, their slave. But they clatter and babble incessantly. The lights of the car seem to illumine a wet misty tube along which I drive, surrounded by shrieking bottles. I am alone in the world in a moving Tower of Babel, driving through a damp and dirty Channel Tunnel. Where are the County Councillors, and where the Roads and Bridges Committee? At every pot-hole and bump the incessant scream is changed to the clash of cymbals. I cannot hear myself think. I just drive on and on through this tube of never-ending cacophony, pursued by a pack of brittle demons in full cry. It is an unsubsidized Grand Opera and I am alone in the auditorium, alone with bottles, bottles rampant and clamouring.
On the return journey their clamour is muted. They are full, replete, gorged, satiated. This repletion subdues their screams to a dull gurgling and clinking. How like the human race! But methinks I prefer them in their empty resonant condition. Now they are filled not only with milk, but with an overweening conceit. They do not deign to converse with a poor mortal such as I, but they whisper amongst themselves incessantly. They now wear a head-dress which bears the approval of the Ministry of Health. Who would not be conceited wearing such a crown? It makes me feel most humble, for the only trappings bearing the Government’s stamp which I am ever likely to wear will, most certainly, be adorned with broad arrows. But I detest conceit, so on my return I plunge these bottles into cold storage. That takes them down a peg or two.
However, I am still a slave of bottles, for my next job is to add up the number of bottles full and bottles empty, which have enslaved me during the day. And when the final task is done I have my supper, and then, and not till then, I become the master of one bottle, which is not a milk bottle. Dexterously I draw the cork. Carefully and slowly I pour the contents into my glass. Reverently I hold it to the light to gauge its colour and condition. Then with a grave but genial nod, as if to say ‘All’s right with the world,’ I drink a silent toast to milkmen, great and small.
It is early days yet to say whether this daily rut of mine is the right one or not, but I think that I might almost say, after supper anyway, that I seem to see a faint sign of daylight coming.
The old ‘Farmer’s Glory’ is gone, never to return, but is this faint flicker that I see after supper a prelude to some slight return of ‘Farmer’s Glory’ which shall burn surely and steadily, if not with its old brilliance, for many years to come? Who knows? Certainly not I, but I feel justified in hoping, and that surely is something in these dark and troublous times.
July 1931.
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
It has been suggested to me that having attempted in the foregoing book to paint a true picture of farming life in southern England during the past twenty-five years, I should in this chapter try to sum up the agricultural position as it exists to-day. This is a dangerous ground. In a story one can let one’s fancy have a certain amount of rein, embroidery is permissible, and erasure is tolerated, provided that the broad outline remains correct.
But for a tenant farmer to write his own personal views concerning the present deplorable state of British agriculture, and possibly to suggest remedies, is to invite criticism, censure and disapproval from all quarters. The land of this country is so varied in character, that conditions are totally different, not only as between county and county, or village and village, but even between neighbouring farms. A tenant farmer, therefore, usually has only intimate knowledge of his own immediate district. Still, there are certain features of the present situation which apply to the whole country, and, in my opinion require the same treatment, so I am rash enough to make an attempt.
English farming has never been solely a business proposition until the present time. In early days the barons held land for power. In later years and right up to the outbreak of the war in 1914, the aristocracy of England held land because of the political and social power which a landlord position gave them, and also because of the pleasures and sports which accompanied its ownership. And that time, in a minor degree, the large tenant farmer rented land for similar reasons, especially the one of sport. Neither the ownership nor the renting of agricultural land was entirely a matter of business. Sport, politics, social considerations, and even religion were much more important features of the rural world than the profit and loss accounts of the actual farming.
The war has changed all that.
To-day the ownership of a rural estate confers few advantages on its possessor. A little social position possibly still lingers, but the old-time benefits are no more. Political power thereby in country districts is a thing of the past. The sporting rights and the stately homes of England are being let to wealthy Americans. The letting of the farms to tenants has become a cold-blooded business proposition only.
And, if that is the position of the rural landlord of a large estate to-day, a similar change has taken place in that of the tenant farmer and owner-occupier. No longer is farming a pleasant, friendly, spacious occupation. No longer can the farmer continue to farm as in the days of his ancestors, in the sure and certain knowledge that with average luck a pleasant jolly life will be his portion, also that, although he will never amass great wealth, he will never know the pinch of poverty and the fear of bankruptcy. The sense of secure well-being is gone. A farm must now pay the interest on the capital involved in it, plus a living to the farmer, in the same way as any other business.
Probably one of the hardest things for farmers to realize to-day that they are considered unimportant people by the majority of the community. When the townsman is hungry the food producer is a very important person, but to-day the consuming public are being fed by foreign countries very cheaply.
As a result of this the farmer has no pride in his occupation. The zest has gone out of farming. For any farmer to go round his fields to-day and view his crops brings him no pleasure. The larger and better the field of wheat, the more useless the whole business appears. He yearns to escape from it, but in most cases he cannot do so: he is caught in a financial cleft stick, and cannot get away. He sends his sons into the police force, into banks, into the Civil Service, anywhere rather than put them into farming. He is hurt and bewildered, and in this frame of mind he snaps at all and sundry, at officials who are sent to worry him by successive governments, at his workmen, and at his family. You may depise him for this, but it is understandable. It is not pleasant for a man to discover that he is engaged in an occupation for which his country has neither use nor interest.
Of course, this business of regarding the other fellow as being of no consequence is not one-sided. Farmers as a class are also rather apt to consider themselves as the sole mainstay of the country, and to regard the town dweller as an unnecessary nuisance.
When travelling by train, on entering one of our large cities, I am always impressed with the endless rows and rows of houses, each with its wireless pole, each with its back yard, each with its brave attempt at some form of garden, and each inhabited by a town household. What does the farmer care about these people’s lives and problems? He cares very little, if at all. What do these town workers care about the worries of the British farmer? The answer is precisely the same. They are intensely interested in the price and quality of their food, but hardly at all in the question of from whe
nce it is produced.
And who can blame them? Certainly not the British farmer, for he takes precisely the same view with regard to his purchases, whatever they may be. He cannot supply the consuming public with grain as cheaply as they can buy elsewhere, but he hopes that they will pay him his price, because, forsooth, he is a British farmer! Now what does he do when his own brother, say, offers him feeding stuffs at a higher price than another trader who is no relation? It is conceivable that he may purchase one lot from his brother on the grounds that blood is thicker than water, but does he continue to do so? No, he does exactly what the consuming public do with regard to their food purchases, he buys in the cheapest market.
But in spite of the fact that the farmer to-day is an unwanted individual, he needs to get a living, and that living has, perforce, to come from the buyers of farming products, in other words from the British consumer. Make no mistake about this, it is their money which the farmer wants, and must have, if he is to carry on.
Now in order to obtain anyone’s money legally it is necessary to sell them something which they wish to have, either service, knowledge, or goods. The farmer, obviously, must sell goods to the consumer, and the popular idea seems to be that he should sell him wheat.
This idea appears to me to be rather absurd, as wheat is the one commodity produced on the farm which the consumer of food in this country does not want. The unpalatable fact must be admitted that for bread-making, as the public taste goes, we can import a better wheat than we can grow. It is no good saying that the consumer ought to prefer bread made from English wheat. He definitely does not. I know that, as a farmer, I ought to buy English bacon, but I do not do so, because I prefer the flavour of the Danish curing. You may call me a traitor to my calling, if you like, but there it is. In this instance, taste, not price, is the deciding factor, but in almost every case it is on one or both of these two considerations that the purchaser of any article decides. That the buyer’s taste may be considered a bad one according to certain standards is immaterial. The fact that it is his taste is the important point.
Another fallacy is to talk about the cost of production in relation to the subsequent sale of the article produced. The consumer definitely is not interested in this, neither when he happens to want the article nor when he does not want it. Does a lady worry over the cost of producing a particular hat in a shop window, when she has decided that it is just the one she wants? No, she wants it, and that usually is the reason which decides her purchase.
The best thing is obviously to sell the consumer something which he desires for as high a price as he will pay to satisfy that desire. He does not want the farmer’s wheat, but he does want to camp on his land. Charge him for the privilege. He wishes to sit on his own camp stool in a farmer’s pasture, and paint a picture. Charge him. Don’t worry about the cost of production. He may wish to bathe, to picnic, to play rounders, or to stroll over a field and listen to the song of the lark. Charge him for so doing. He may resent the charge, but if he wants anything badly enough he will pay for it.
Ah, but that is not farming, I hear you say. Granted, but it is something which can be sold to bring in a little profit to the farmer. Wheat-growing may be farming, but does not bring in any profit? The consumer must have milk, but milk on a farm is valueless to him. Put it in a bottle, deliver it to his doorstep, perhaps even open one of his windows which he will leave unlatched for the purpose, and place the bottle of milk between his aspidistra and his geranium, being particularly careful not to wake him up in so doing, and he will pay you. The actual milk represents the smallest part of his purchase; the service, the convenience, and, I think, the not waking him up, count far more.
But many farmers consider that these sort of things are beneath their dignity. They want to farm in the lordly independent style of the days gone by. To-day’s prices for grain do not enable them to do so, and they hope that Government aid will be forthcoming to make it possible. What farmers are trying to do, apparently, is to persuade some political party to compel the consuming public either to agree to enhanced bread prices, or to pay the fanner a subsidy or dole from the exchequer. Again it should be noted that one cannot get away from the fact that it is the consumer’s money they want.
I am not going into the argument as to whether either or both of these things are just and fair or not. As a farmer I am much more interested in the probability of their happening than in question of fairness. I am convinced that they are not going to happen, and I cannot see that for the farmer to go whimpering to the Government for them is at all dignified.
But nobody seems to be able to get away from wheat as the main theme, when agricultural problems are being discussed. All the various proposals under discussion, no matter to what party programme they belong, are concerned with enabling the British farmer to grow wheat. It seems absurd. It cannot be grown in this country economically, the consumer prefers the imported article, our climate is not suited to its cultivation, and, at the present time, while home-grown grain is only 10·7 per cent of our agricultural produce, wheat represents but a bare 4·3 per cent of our output.
The future prosperity of British farming depends not on government aid in the shape of doles, but chiefly on the ability of the farmer to purchase low-priced imported grain and feeding stuffs for his stock. An honest referendum of farmers to-day would prove this. The dairyman, the stock-raiser, the poultry farmer, the pig-keeper, and the producer of beef or mutton should surely vote for low-priced feeding stuffs. Of course, many of these would not do so if they thought there was a chance of grain-growing becoming profitable once again, because this method of farming is so much more pleasurable to the farmer. I, for one, would much prefer to farm in the style of twenty years ago. But I cannot see that it is likely to happen, neither from an increase in the world’s price for grain, nor from any political intervention whereby the community will pay good money in order that I shall have a pleasant occupation.
What, then, should the British farmer do to be saved? The present economic situation is beating him, politicians neither can nor will help him, and the consuming public does not care what happens to him. Some folk talk a lot of the sympathy of the public. If there be such a thing, which I doubt, very certainly the farmer has not got it. His only course is to try to force a living out of the public by his own efforts, thereby obtaining in addition their respect, which is of more value than their sympathy. The British consumer is the British farmer’s only possible customer, and customers’ wishes must be studied.
Now what are the products of British farming, which the consuming public appreciate and prefer to the imported variety? Briefly they are English meat, English dairy produce, and English eggs. These home products are of better quality than their foreign counterpart, and this is the only sound avenue of approach, whether the farmer wishes to get a living unaided or whether he desires to obtain any public interest and assistance in his present plight. The consumer will not pay the farmer more money for home-produced wheat than for imported, but he does and will continue to pay more money for those home products which suit his taste.
Now all these products of British farming, which are superior in quality to the imported variety, are primarily the products of grass farming, and depend largely on cheap imported grain and feeding stuffs. Therefore, generally speaking, the land of England must be put down to grass, if farming is to pay its way. Of course, this idea is anathema to the politicians, to the sportsmen, and also to a large proportion of those immediately connected with agriculture. These folk continue to raise the old cry of wheat-growing, but in their inmost hearts they know that it is economically unsound and unsuited to our weather.
But is the idea of Britain becoming primarily a grass farming country altogether a bad one? Surely it would be using our land in the manner best suited to its climatic conditions, as well as growing those things which the consumer prefers. Generally speaking, for the past hundred years grain-growing has only paid the British farmer when some abnormal
condition of things has obtained, such as war or the failure of a large foreign crop. The English climate is far from ideal for grain-growing. It is only on the rare occasions when the price of grain shows a large enough margin over the cost of production to cover the risk of a bad wet harvest, that grain-growing in this country can be considered a justifiable business proposition at all. Many of the old farm agreements have a clause which fines the tenant heavily should he plough any of the existing grass land on his farm, as by so doing he impairs the value of the farm.
But while so much is talked about wheat in these days, the fact that our land and climate are almost ideal for grass farming is rarely mentioned. There is a very small acreage of agricultural land in the whole world so well suited for this purpose as the British Isles. Ireland and the south-west of England have a grazing season of almost the whole year, while the remainder of our country has six or seven months. What other country, save perhaps New Zealand, which is far away from our market, can equal this? Surely the British farmer should exploit the natural advantages of his soil and climate rather than persist in wheat-growing, a branch of farming in which so many other countries beat him, not only in the price at which they can sell wheat but also in the quality of it.
The chief argument against this will doubtless be to point to the over-production of milk in excess of liquid requirements at the present time. The Danish farmer does not worry about over-production in this direction. He produces as much as he is able. The surplus to his country’s liquid requirements is made into butter and cheese, and the skim milk, whey, and other by-products of their manufacture are returned to the farmer and fed to pigs. The dairy products thus made and also the bacon thus produced, he sells chiefly to us. In this respect cheap imported grain is one of his chief assets.