Elsewhere in this archive there are articles based on Rugby Advertiser features created in the early 20th century that record interviews with local people with extensive experience of farming life during the 19th Century. The interview with Thomas Dumbleton can be found here, and the one with John Brierly here.
The article below, written in 1921, is not based on an a directly local person, as it is the recollections of a Monks Kirby farmer and his early years over the border in Leicestershire during much of the nineteenth century, but it has been reproduced here to complement the other two articles and provide an insight into farming life in the slightly wider local area. The farmer himself was not named in the article – and the author of the article used a pseudonym too.
The subject of our sketch this week prefers to remain anonymous: suffice it to say he is one of the best known farmers in the Rugby district, and one of the oldest members of Monks Kirby Farmers’ Club, which society he joined a little over half a century ago. When I called upon him a few weeks ago he favoured me with a hearty welcome, and and on learning my errand he remarked: “I have long thought about writing an article for your paper (he has been a reader of the Advertiser for very many years) about ‘Farming in Leicestershire sixty-five years ago,’ and I would much prefer to write it out than to trust to memory to tell you now.” To this offer I gladly assented, and the result is the following article, which will doubtless prove very interesting to agriculturists and townsmen alike.
I have been asked to give my experience of farming. Well, I hardly know how to begin. I will start at the beginning of the year, January. a time when there was not much going on. I was brought up on a farm just under 200 acres, with between 70 and180 arable. Threshing was the chief thing, as we threshed all by horsepower and then had to winnow it afterwards. We used to hire other threshers, and fetch it from the last place it had been at work. We could put five horses to the machine, but we generally worked it with four. It was rather a dreary job driving all day, in the cold weather, especially if it was wet, and we often threshed when it rained as we had three hay barns that we used to put the corn in. The horses went round in a circle. The driver sat in the middle with a long whip, and a spindle went through the barn wall to the drum inside the barn. We had also to draw the stubble home for litter, which had been what they called “hagged up” with the scythe into cocks, but I shall say more about the stubble when I get to the harvest
February was not a very busy month. We got the winter ploughing finished, which we did with four horses in length on the strong land, and then got breaking up done. Ours was a cheesemaking farm, and the cows would begin to calve towards the end of the month. We reared nearly all the calves, and they were always reared on skim milk and carrots and hay. My father would always have about an acre of carrots and save them for the calves and the work horses in the spring. The horses always had a scuttle full of carrots among the four given them at serving up time.
In March we began to get busy with the cows calving, sheep lambing, and the sowing. We kept all Leicester sheep, and I hardly ever saw a black-faced sheep as a boy. We had very few couples of lambs with the white-faced Leicester ewes. I may say we used very little cake, but we fed a few barren cows off it. We generally depended on generally depended on hay, swedes, and some barley meal.
April was a busy time. We then began cheese-making, which was all crushed by hand with a pole and weights, which continually had to be shifted. We had got the corn all sown, and began to get ready for swedes and cabbage. We did not grow any mangles then; they were almost unknown. We generally grew about one or t wo acres of potatoes, and we thought an extra good price was 5/- per bushel.
May was not a particularly busy month. The fallows had to be worked and cleaned in the fine weather. and the cows were giving their full milk. We generally washed the sheep about the 14th. and sheared them at the end of the month. Shearing day was a red-letter day for us boys. My mother used to make thrimity, which was wheat soaked for about a week. Raisins were then mixed with it and it was made like rice pudding; and very good it was.
In June we were still working at the fallows. My father did not care to sow swedes till the middle of June, but you can’t get them all in at once when there he are two fields to row with roots. The cows were generally milking well up to the 24th of the month, then they always began to bate in their milk, and we generally got a heifer or two to come in to keep the cheese uр. During this month we had the saddlers come for a day or two to overhaul all the tackle and well oil it, and we generally fetched a few loads of lime, as we could spare the horses. Ours was rather late land. We did not begin hay making till the month was out.
As soon as July came in we began to get ready for haymaking. The clover and hay was all mown by the scythe; we had no mowing machines then. Three men used to soon get it mown at about 3/6 per acre and two quarts of ale and two quarts of small beer. They used to start at five o’clock and keep on till about nine at night. We never bought any thatching cord. Old Jonathan, the ricker, used to put two or three forkfuls of the coarsest hay on one side in a corner to spin the hay bands with. I think it can be done almost as quick as winding the thatching cord on to pegs, and it can be done when it rains ready for thatching. I may say I have never bought any thatching cord myself. We had no horse rake or tedding machine All was done by hand. The raking was done with heel rakes with the rakers following the waggons while they were being loaded. There were ten of us in the family – nine boys and one girl – and all of us who were at home got to work as soon as we could handle a fork or drag a rake. If the weather was fine we soon got the hay in for we made long days. If the stuff was fit we kept on as long as we could see.
As soon as the hay was carried and thatched the corn was about fit to cut, and this, too, was all cut by hand, generally in August. The oats and barley was all mown loose, none was tied up then; and the wheat was all reaped with the sickle. I have not seen one for many years now. There was a family of shoemakers who were capital reapers, and some framework knitters who lived in the village, and these people did all the reaping. It was reaped about 14 inches the from ground, and the average price was about 10/- per acre with six quarts of beer to the acre. I may say here we always brewed our own beer. We had four or five big barrels in the cellar, and used to brew and fill them up twice a year, in March and October and very good beer it was. We also used to bake our own bread, and we sent our own wheat to the mill to be ground. I think sometimes we used to get the harvest quicker and better than we do now, with all the machinery we have. I remember several times we finished by Hinckley August Fair, the 26th of August, and we seldom get through as early nowadays.
If we finished harvest first in the village – and we always tried to – Old Jonathan, the man that set the ricks, used to get on the horses’ block, the others standing round, and give three mighty whoops. Then the others shouted “Harvest Home” as loud as they could. Within a day or two we had the harvest supper. All the tradesmen that had helped in the harvest were invited, and we had a jolly time, I can tell you. One other thing my mother always had done, and that was to have the geese plucked alive in July or August. Some people would call it cruelty, but it was no such thing. Particular notice was taken when the geese were ready to moult. The geese were driven into a clean place, and old Ann Haycock would come and catch them one by one, have a seat, and turn them on her knees and stroke the breast feathers the wrong way, and they would nearly all come off. They were the best feathers for bed making. Of course the wing feathers were not touched. Then, too, when we weaned the lambs, we always brought the ewes up the next day and milked them, and generally got a bucketful or two of milk, which went in the cheese pan and made it much bigger the next day. We did not always finish harvest in August, but sometimes it dragged on a good deal longer; but as soon as it was finished we got the scuffler to work on the oat brusher; with a good scuffle and four horses double and doing it both ways work on the oat brusher; with a good scuffle and four horses double and doing it both ways we made a good job of it if the weather was suitable. We used to make up a scratch team sometimes to carry wheat while the men were mowing the oats and barley; it only took about half the carrying when it was reaped, and we put it into the big barns, so there was no ricking to do then. We threshed the wheat at the barns first, and when the barley and oats were threshed we put the straw in the barns and it kept dry and sweet for the cattle in the yards.
We were pretty busy in September getting the oat brushes cleaned and ready for wheat sowing. Towards the end of the month the Village Wake was held. Everybody expected two or three days holiday, and some had all the week. My father was very fond of seeing a bit of coursing, and always kept a greyhound. With the butcher, who kept a brace of greyhounds, he would go all over the parish for twо or three courses. My father always rode a cob about 14 hands, and he could get about any- where. He would get off at a fence, and the pony would follow him over anywhere if he hooked his stick in the reins. There used to be a bit of squabbling sometimes during Wake week. The people concerned turned out on to what they called the Village Green and “had it out.” Then somebody would run for the village constable, who was called the old Hosur, but he was never in a very big hurry to go and part them. He generally had his shoes to lace up or some little jobs to do. When they had had a few rounds they did not take half so much parting, and they were always better friends afterwards. During August and September we used to sell the shearhogs as they got fat; we took them to Leicester Market. There were no auctions at market then, and the markets were much earlier. We generally got to Leicester with them as soon as it was light so we had to start early, as we had 11 miles to go.
In October we got all the wheat in, and my father was always very particular in having the furrows drawn and a trench cut along the bottom of the field to carry off the top water. I think if more of that was done now there would be better crops, but the difficulty is getting over the high lands with the reaping machines. We used, during this month, to be drawing out cabbage for the cows, but my mother never liked the cows to have cabbage. She always said it made the cheese heave, and I believe it did. We also used to be drawing cabbage to the lambs, which were generally put on the land that was to be broken up for oats, we did not give the lambs any corn or cake, but as soon as the cabbage was finished, which my father said ought all to be eaten before Christmas, we used to start on the common turnips. We generally had very good crops of white turnips; they were pulled and stacked in heaps with the tops outside a week or two before we wanted them in case of a frost preventing us pulling them up.
In November the cheese- making was finished and the cows all dried off and sent up to the barnyards to have straw and swedes till they came down again in March. We used to have little cribs made with thorns and three or four stakes made in different parts of the yards, to put the swedes in whole, so that they did not roll about the yard while the cows were eating them. The cows used to winter very well in that manner. Old Jonathan then used to take his scythe and bag the stubble. He would get a little cock on his left foot and chop at it with the scythe backwards and forwards and across the land till he had got a big circle, and leave it on the ridge of the land and then start to make another. It was surprising how quick he could get over a field. Then when there was a dry day or two we used to draw it down home and stack it close to where we wanted it for litter. There was plenty to do for the horses now, as they had to do all the threshing and take the corn to market, besides having the winter ploughing to do. We generally had a bit of draining that wanted doing. The main drains were mostly made with stones drawn from the quarry at Stony Stanton. It was quite an art to put in a good stone main drain. I never did any myself, but I have helped to do a good bit of turf drawing that was laid into the stone drains. Then, too, we sometimes had a bit of mud wall that had been knocked down to repair. Old Jonathan used to do that with one of us boys to serve him.
The routine in December was much the same as in November. The cattle had to be foddered twice a day at the barns, which were away from home, and it took some time to go round to all of them. We kept three regular men and old Joe Wood, who owned the threshing machine, used to summer with us. Prices were very low, but we managed to scratch along somehow. I don’t know how we used to do without the cake that now costs such a lot of money. I never remember changing a man while my father was alive. Old Joe, the threshing machine man, used to tell us boys some funny tales. He lived nearly opposite our home, and he had a very nice garden that he took a great pride in. One evening a stranger came along and said: “My man, you have a nice garden; what good potatoes you have. What sort are they? I can see old Joe now with a twinkle in his eye, his big, bushy black eyebrows and black beard going grey. He said: “We call them Conquer Alls. They come in a fortnight before the first earlies. They grow beans all the way up the stalk and a piece of bacon on the top.” The stranger said: “Here, my man, you have gone one, but this time here is a treat for you. Get a pint when you go up town.” No man liked a pint better than old Joe did.
My father was born in 1795. He used to us boys about his young days, how difficult it was to get about if it was too far to walk. He said his father had to have a leg taken off. He had been a very active man before that. He heard of a man in Yorkshire who made cork legs, so he rode an old blood mare that he had up into Yorkshire. When he got there the stump had swollen so much with riding that he could not have it fitted, so he stayed there about three weeks. When he came back he stopped at a house he had stopped at when going up. The landlord looked very hard at him and then said:” There was a man stayed here about a month ago. I would have bet anything you had been the same man, but he had only one leg and you have two.” I have played as a boy with the old cork leg up in the lumber room at the old house. There was also the old spinning wheel that his sisters used to spin the flax with, and the old pillion that my grandfather and grandmother used to ride to market on, both on the same horse one behind the other. My father used to tell us about growing the flax on some land that they owned called “The Bogs,” but I forget the process it went through We as boys learned to do most things on a farm, and it has come in very useful, for I find that a good many of the young men don’t know how to do the jobs they are set to, and some of the old ones are rather wooden at it.