have to employ in haymaking are a very rough lot indeed. The old bailiff who looked after this farm for many years declares that when they paid the men after harvest they used to have two policemen to keep the peace, and I have seen as many as thirty or forty empty beer barrels on the wharf here after harvest time.
In 1896 when I had an enormous crop of grass and could not get men at any price to make it, he engaged a gang of gas-stokers who agreed to make it and stack it at so much per acre. They insisted on having a whole cask of beer carted daily to the field, and by four or five o’clock were often so fuddled that they could not or would not work any more, and treated with s corn our endeavours to ease the heavy work of stacking this long hay by the use of an elevator. As they were earning five or six shillings a day without it and wanted to make the work last as long as possible, it was useless to fight against custom and there was every prospect of a row if I persisted, my bailiff and I had to grin and bear the insolence of these fellows; but I resolved that if I could not get men who were more inclined to work properly than the casual labourers of these parts seemed to be, I would do without them and turn the place into a grazing farm.
January 14th (1900). At home again and had a walk round Rapsgate farm which I have had in hand since Lady-day last owing to the bank¬ ruptcy of a tenant who came from the north of England with good cre¬ dentials as a man of ability and means. I had previously occupied this farm for fourteen years and got it into good condition, though it was in a fearful state of neglect and foulness after the terrible and never-to-be- forgotten season of 1879. Both my father and I had spent a good deal of money on this farm, which, though at a high elevation and somewhat late, is level and contains a large proportion of old pasture, well watered by springs, and capable of growing good lambs and young cattle, I was induced to let it partly by a desire to reduce my holding, and partly by the friction and trouble which was brought about by the violent political agitation from which we suffered for several years but which now happily seems to have died away. The tenant, who at first seemed likely to do well and told his north-country friends that he had got a good holding at a fair rent, soon began, however, to neglect his work, and particularly his stock, and after two years I found that he was pressed by creditors. I therefore gave him two years’ notice to leave, and, though at the expiration of his five years 5 tenancy I had lost no rent, I had an infinity of trouble and expense, and now have to do at my own cost all the things which he ought to have done and again put the farm into a condition fit to let, or occupy it myself. I am not yet sure whether I shall do so, for this reason, that though an owner cannot expect to manage a farm so economically as a working farmer, cannot drive hard bargains with his men, screw the last bit of work out of his horses, and generally act as a man must do who has to get a living out of a farm in these times, and though there is a certain amount of risk and a good deal of personal superintendence required, yet on the other hand you cannot expect first-rate tenants on second-rate land even if you let it for nothing, and you have the chance of making your rent and perhaps a little over in good
years, whilst in bad years you may just as well lose directly what you
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