Farming (1850)

Post date: Apr 19, 2012 5:36:52 PM

The following is a very long letter to the London Daily News of 18 September 1850. It is not in the best condition and there are a number of places where the text is not decipherable and hence the question marks. It is not all about Wateringbury but, because it seems an excellent description of farming generally in the area by a knowledgeable outsider, it is given in full. The writer describes himself as 'A Midland Counties Farmer' but also has developed political and aesthetic views:

THE AGRICULTURAL DISTRICTS

To the Editor of the Daily News,

Marden, Kent, Sept 1850

Sir, on the west side of the Medway, which for fertility of soil and beauty of situation cannot be surpassed in this fertile and beautiful county. The soil consists of deep sandy loam lying on the ragstone, easy of cultivation and admirably suited for the growth of hops, fruits and corn. This land lets for three pounds and upward per acre as farming-land, a considerable portion of it consisting of hop garden, cherry orchard, and plantations of filberts and Spanish nuts. Nothing can exceed the neatness of the cultivation of this land. The hedges are all kept clipped in the way we usually find them kept only in nursery gardens and round many of the hop gardens quick or whitethorn hedges, growing to the height of eighteen or twenty feet, have been so clipped and trained as to offer an almost impenetrable shield against the west winds, which are frequently most injurious to the hops. Nor is it the west wind only that is considered mischievous for I observed many hop gardens sheltered on other sides by temporary screens formed either of hop-poles fixed so close together as to form a kind of wooden wall, or of wattled hurdles raised five or six feet from the ground, and tied to poles. In some cases such a shelter is formed by means of hops planted thickly in a line on the edge of the plantation and trained on high poles stuck very near together. Susceptibility to atmospheric changes and impressions seems to be the principal cause of peril to the hop crop.

The village of Wateringbury is extremely pretty, consisting of a great many genteel country houses of various ???? but all laid out with taste, and most of them having gardens, orchards and paddocks attached. Most of these houses² were built by the late Alderman Lucas to whom nearly all the parish belonged. His grandson¹ now enjoys the estate. These residences are occupied by private families at high rents³. I am often surprised that the owners of property in agreeable districts do not either erect or grant outbuilding leases for the erection of small houses as will suit persons of moderate incomes, say from £600 to £1,000 per annum. There are few investments that would pay a better interest for nothing is more wanted at present than moderate sized but respectable country houses. The obstacle to such improvements now more than ever needed now all parts of the country have been rendered accessible by means of railways. I believe to be found in the restricted interests and encumbered condition of our great landowners who have acquired territories they can neither use beneficially themselves or permit others to improve. Wherever a country district is much improved, it is when it comes into the hands of a commercial man, as in the case of the late Alderman Lucas. Go where I may, I find the system of territorial aggrandisement, which is the policy of aristocratic legislature and the arm our semi-feudal law of real property to promote, operating as "a cold shade" over enterprise and improvement whether agricultural or otherwise in rural districts.

From the cricket ground of the King's Head⁴, one of the cleanest and most comfortable of village inns is a panoramic view, which is at this season strikingly beautiful. Sloping towards the Medway on both sides are gentle hills covered with hop gardens and other highly-cultivated ground and rich pastures on which nature and man's industry have combined to produce a scene of rural wealth and abundance. Nearly opposite you see Bowhill, the farm of Mr Elvy, one of the most ardent protectionists of this country, and who formed I believe one of the members of the Protection Society, at the Crown and Anchor, who talked so loudly of resisting the 'oppression of cheap food'. I found Mr. Elvy to bear the character of a good farmer, and that he is carrying on his business with as much ????? as when protected against foreign competition. Indeed several intelligent faming men stated to me that they thought the farmers had been doing more since the repeal of the corn laws than they had done before in the way of improvement and they all agreed that the farming labourers had greatly benefited by moderate prices.

From Barming through Teston to Yalding lies the Barham Court estate, formerly the property of the Earl of Gainsborough and his place of residence. It consists of about 2,000 acres of land, producing a rent of £5,000 a year. A few years since it was purchased by Mr. Pemberton Leigh, long and well known at the Chancery bar as Mr. Pemberton. The property was bought with money directed by the will of the late Sir Robert Leigh to be laid out for land, and Mr. Pemberton Leigh has a life's interest in the property, which will afterwards devolve on a natural child of Sir Robert's who is now an infant. Mr Cutbush, whose farm I mentioned in my last letter, is a tenant of Mr. Pemberton Leigh's and looking at the outlay he makes I was surprised to find him a yearly tenant. In some districts the cultivation of hops is supposed to cause the other portions of the farm to be neglected, but here, I think the effect is directly the contrary, for the clean and high culture indispensable for hops seems to be carried into the management of other crops. That, at all events, is the case with the best farmers.

Thus, on Mr. Cutbush's farm, though a portion of it consists of very fine land, there is a part on the hill towards Malling which was formerly heath, and where the soil is very shallow and stony, yet on this land by dint of manure and tillage, a capital crop of swedes is now growing. And on the lower part of the farm, towards the Medway, the soil is stiff and somewhat tenacious, and is said at one time to have been foul and difficult to manage. Now, however, nothing can exceed the cleanliness of the culture and the stacks of wheat, which stand in the fields where grown tell of successful management. Here I find a general belief that the wheat will not yield well in proportion to the straw, but the quantity of the straw is admitted to be very large. I did not meet with anyone who had ascertained the actual produce by thrashing. Hop-picking forms too busy a season here for anything else to be attended to at present. In this district there is nothing like a general rotation of crops. Some of the best farmers grow wheat in alternate years with intermediate green crops, principally tares and clover. The tares are usually carried home for soiling, and then the land having been manured, either with yard dung or artificial manure, is sown with white turnips and occasionally with swedes. These are fed off on the land with sheep fed fat with oilcake⁵. By November or December the land is sown with wheat. Five quarters and upwards of wheat is commonly grown on soil, by no means of much natural fertility, under such management. When swedes are grown, a portion of the crop is taken off for the use of cattle in yards.

The hop gardens are kept constantly horse-hoed, and in many of them I noticed that rape or white mustard had been grown, and was growing rapidly under the kindly shelter of the hops. This is fed off with sheep in October and November, and thus affords an additional dressing to the hop ground. The treading of the ground has I have no doubt a most beneficial effect on the hop plant, but the labourers who dig over these grounds in winter complain that their work becomes very much greater from the firmness that sheep have given to the ground. The sheltered situation and southern aspect of this district are greatly in favour of of such a system of farming by means of double green crops. In colder districts swedes must generally be sown in mid July to ensure a good crop. In Mid Kent the latter end of June is early enough for sowing swedes. This system of high farming is of comparatively recent date, its rise being pretty much coincident with the belief that the corn laws could not long be maintained. Since 1840 improvement has made great progress in Mid Kent and it is allowed by the farmers that more has been done to increase the fertility of the soil within these last ten or fifteen years than during the previous thirty. In that part of this district which approaches the weald the ??? becomes ???, and draining is in many places an essential preliminary to improvement. Such is the case with much of the land in Hunton, and here draining has been extensively and effectively done. The large proprietors in some instances ???? the clearing of hedge rows and the removal of ???? ??? from their tenant farms ???? proprietors and especially such of them ??????????????????

Yet in this locality woodland is of greater value than in any other part of England; and many of the chalk hills and shallow heaths have been planted with ash, chestnut, and red willow for hop poles. On such land the fall of wood at ten or twelve years' growth often realises twice as much as the value of the fee simple of the land. I am told, that when properly managed , the wood of these plantations will sell from £50 to £60 per acre every 10 or 12 years. Large plantations of larch are also grown for hop- poles, and are used in some of the most highly cultivated plantations. I saw a hop garden at Wateringbury belonging to Mr. Levey [sic, but?Leney], the larch poles of which were 20 feet high, and the hops were clustered most luxuriantly to the very top. Such high polling, however, will only succeed when the land is is more than usually manured, as otherwise it is apt to a weaken the bines and lessen the crop. At Malling heath, and on similar land at Teston, on Mr. Pemberton Leigh's estate, I saw large plantations of thriving cheshnut wood, growing where, from the shallowness of the soil, the original value of the land must have been very small indeed.

The expenditure for manures and oilcake in this district is very considerable. Hops exhaust the soil, and require and receive an endless supply of manure; and besides rags, mill waste, rape dust, guano, bones, and the like, cattle are fattened in great numbers on oilcake, hay, and turnips. Thus Mr. Cutbush, on 350 acres of land, fattens every winter 100 beasts, of which about 35 are of the large red Sussex breed, about an equal number of Welsh cattle, and the remainder short-horns, or such as pass for short-horns in this district. This is conducted at great cost, for all the beasts are bought just when they are most expensive, and the system of oil cake feeding is the most costly that can be adopted. Few farmers in Mid-Kent breed stock, either cattle or sheep, and they are of course entirely dependent on other districts for their supplies of stock. The Sussex and Welsh seem to be the favourite breeds of cattle, and a the Kent or Marsh sheep is almost universally used. This is a large white-faced sheep, with long wool, chiefly bred in the marsh districts of this county and Sussex, which at two years old come oat at 12 stone (8lbs. to the stone) each and upwards. A comparatively small number of farmers use South Down sheep and half-breds between South Down and Kents. A few persons have introduced short horn cattle⁶, which are peculiarly adapted to the wants of the district. Mr. Robert Golding, of Hunton, has a small herd of the very best blood, and his present bull is equal in form, colour, and pedigree to anything I have seen in the breeding districts. Mr. Tassell, of Malling, has also some short horns, and Lord Torrington⁷, before his departure for Ceylon, had a superior and somewhat numerous herd.

And Lord Torrington was also an improver and farmer of much spirit, his farm at Yotes Court, Mereworth, having been one of the agricultural notorieties of the district. It is now I understand occupied by a tenant, but very much the same system of high faming his lordship introduced has been continued. It is a common notion that farmers do not avail themselves of new and improved modes of culture which may have been introduced into their districts, and as regards individual farmers the imputation is not without foundation; but I have observed that wheresoever the new methods will bear the test of local experience, and do not require such total change of system or so large outlays in fixed capital as may be inconsistent with the position and ordinary means of tenant farmers, there is no indisposition on the part of the farmers as a body to adopt them. That Lord Torrington's tenant follows up his lordship's plans is proof that after the way has been cleared by the landlord tenants can farm as well as landowners. Indeed, as a rule, they farm better. When Lord Torrington's farm came into his own possession it was in bad condition and thoroughly exhausted. He grubbed trees and hedgerows, drained where draining was required, and erected a large homestead suitable to the system of husbandry intended to be pursued. His farm is 500 acres, of which 62 acres are hops, 20 fruit, 18 meadow, and 236 arable. The course of cropping adopted on the arable land was-

1. Turnips sown with manure after rye or tares (sown the pre ceding year), cut for soiling; the turnips folded off by sheep fed with cake;

2. Barley and seeds;

3. Seeds, first crop mown, the second folded off;

4. Wheat;

5. Beans or peas manured;

6. Wheat.

An immense cattle lodge is built for fifty three bullocks and 9 calves, which is 90 feet in length by 54 wide; the height of the walls is 11 feet, and to the top of the roof, which consists of one span, 26feet. There are six rows of mangers, to which the beasts trough and cistern. The ventilation is good, and the trough and cistern. The ventilation is good, and the temperature may be properly regulated at all seasons of the year. Joining the lodge are steaming, turnip, and oil cake rooms, with straw, barn, and chaff house. one operation, cutting the straw, &c., into chaff, and one operation, cutting the straw, &c., into chaff, and horse power, instead of steam, is used; a deficiency which, now his lordship is likely to be relieved from the cares of colonial government, will probably be remedied. All the rest of the buildings are convenient and well arranged, and the erroneous plan of large barns for storing corn in the straw is avoided. I understand this set of buildings cost £2,270, a larger sum than appears to me to have been necessary, and which would probably now be built for considerably less money.

On this farm some of the meadows are irrigated by catchwork, and Mr. Golding has adopted the same system on his meadows at Hunton; in both grass. The rotations used by the larger and better farmers, so far as they adhere to any, and where the alternate wheat crop I have mentioned is not attained, do not differ much from the above course adopted on Lord Torrington's farm. Beans are sometimes grown after barley in the third year instead of clover, and clover in the fifth year in the place of peas or beans, the seeds being sown with the previous wheat crop. On land of an inferior kind, a five field course is not unusual,

1. turnips,

2. barley,

3. clover or trefoil,

4. wheat,

5. oats.

This, however, is sometimes thought to bring too frequent repetition of the clover crop. To remedy this, half the barley field only is sown with clover, and the other half is sown with tares as soon as the in wheat and half oats, and in the fifth, half oats and; in wheat and half oats, and in the fifth, half oats and half peas. This brings the clover round only once in ten years. The plough generally used is, the heavy Kentish turn wrist, which looks clumsy but appears to do its work effectively.

The district of Mid Kent which lies south of Maidstone supplies, it is said, nearly two-thirds of the home-grown fruit sent to Covent Garden Market. Barming, East and West Farleigh, the Suttons, Loose, Boughton, and Linton, are celebrated, for the production of fruit. Apple and filbert plantations are frequently raised at the same time as hop gardens, by which means at the end of 14 or 15 years, when the. hops are taken up, full bearing fruit trees are obtained without any loss of time. At the end of about 25 years, the filbert trees are removed to make way for the fruit frees, and then the land is laid down to permanent pasture. Sixty apple trees to the acre are generally planted. Cherries, too, are much cultivated, as are also gooseberries, rapberries, and currants.

The slope of the ragstone hill, looking over the weald, and where there is a narrow belt of land running along the escarpment of the ragstone, the debris of the green sand connecting it with the weald clay be low, constitutes a tract of land, which though heavy and adhesive is very productive in hops, fruit and grain. All this tract requires draining, and much of it has been well drained. Throughout the district I have been describing, the most fertile portion of Mid Kent, many of the hop. gardens are sadly affected both by the red and white mould. In Wateringbury, Teston, Mereworth, and the immediate neighbourhood, I noticed a very large proportion of the hops turned quite brown, like an autumn leaf, and the leaves of the plant in many cases have the same sickly white spread over the surface as we see on a mildewed swede leaf. The "Golding" hops are chiefly affected, but the "grape" hops were not entirely free from the disease. Where the land is stronger, as at Hunton, there is less disease and taking Mid Kent throughout, there will undoubtedly be a large crop.

Throughout Mid-Kent the farms are not large, many being from 20 to 100 acres; and there are numerous Kentish yeomen who own the land they occupy. In the Parish of Hunton, for instance, there are fourteen occupiers of farms, of whom eleven are the owners as well ass occupiers of the land they cultivate. A gentleman from Manchester of the name of Bannerman, has recently purchased a property at Hunton, which he is improving by draining, building etc., with a spirit characteristic of the county from which he comes. He has also built some good cottages and a school house. Here, at Marden, I am again on the weald clay, and find the aspect of the husbandry much altered for the worse.

In the hop districts, and indeed throughout Kent , the wages of agricultural labourers are high, 11s. and 12s. per week being the usual rate by the day, while the peculiar culture of the district affords employment by the piece, at which higher wages are earned; and a certain amount of skilled labour is required, for which a good price is paid. The labourers are generally sober and well conducted. Their cottages are better than in most rural districts, and have invariably good gardens. Most of them keep a pig or two. One very intelligent labourer with whom I conversed told me he rents a quarter of an acre shallow land, which when he first took it , was thought not to produce anything, at the rate of £6 per acre, and that its produce in vegetables -potatoes of late having been nearly abandoned- enabled him to keep and fat off three pigs every year. The fruit trees of the cottagers also afford them in some seasons a good bit of money. I was told that one man, who has taken a larger piece of ground with his cottage on Mr. Pemberton Leigh's estate than usual, frequently makes as much as £15 a year from his land, in addition to his wages, being in constant work. Mr. Leigh is said to promote the comfort and improvement of the cottagers on his estate by keeping their cottages in good order, and letting them good gardens on reasonable terms; but there are some proprietors in this district who let allotment gardens to the labourers, and impose absurd conditions that they shall not grow fruit! The prosperity of the labourers depends very much upon the hops, which afford so much constant employment through-out the year. At hop-picking some of the most active families earn considerable sums.

A MIDLAND COUNTIES FARMER.

Editor's Notes:

1. Samuel Lucas succeeded his grandfather, Alderman Matthias Lucas, in 1848.

2. The Red House, The Beck, The Thatched House and The Limes were all built by Matthias Lucas.

3. in 1876 it is known that the Beck was rented at £85 p.a. (see Death of Miss Paterson)

4. The King's Head was at the Crossroads in Wateringbury (see Wateringbury Hero)

5. Oil cake was made from rapeseed or linseed, the nearest plant being on the Medway at Tutsham, West Farleigh.

6. See Wateringbury to become household word for shorthorns (1868)

7. See Wateringbury nursery-maid found dead (1841).