Landlubber

“ I spend about an hour getting in fuel. I have a woodyard on the hillside yonder. Nature has kindly felled and seasoned there a few scrub oaks for my use. I drag down a few branches. The land here is free—very free. No fences, no boundary lines, no gates, no proprietors. It’s a pretty flat when the sun shines. A dark background of mountain, in front a river, with its curving and varied outline of tule and bank up and down stream, and close about the oaks are so scattered as to give one the impression of a park and an old mansion hidden somewhere in the background. ”

“ Under a tortoise sky this time, a dome of large close patches of lead and white, we swung down-mountain to move into certain paddocks a drove of cattle which had come all the way from Keaau by the sea. To an American, the word paddock sounds so futile to designate the seemingly immeasurable acres between fences or gates. Moment by moment I marveled at the variety of that sage-green obliquity. Large areas are so rich and friable that it must have puzzled the owner where, in some practically desirable spot, as PuuOO, to find a place firm enough to bear a house. ”

“ Only the dwelling-house, with its shingled roof, faces the road; its various outbuildings lie back of it, around an open square, and the pastures and fields extend up the steep hill-side to the beech wood, whose brown buds are glistening with the morning dew.
It is still early in the morning; no sound is heard in the farm-yard, save the noisy splashing of the broad rivulet from the spring. A roof extends far over the water, for in the winter the cattle are brought there to drink. Near by are heaps of paving stones, with which a new drain is to be built through the yard. ”

“ A lawn leading up to a house, even though not beautiful or well kept, adds dignity and character to a place out of all proportion to its waste or expense. I know of nothing that would add so much to the beautification of the country-side as a building line prohibiting houses and barns within a hundred yards of a public road. A staring, glaring farm-house, flanked by a red barn and a pigsty, all crowding the public road as hard as the path-master will permit, is incongruous and unsightly. With all outdoors to choose from, why ape the crowded city streets? ”

“ In their little inclosures they grow turnips, barley, wheat, and a little hemp." Mr Styleman also assigned to the poor of the whole parish, "100 acres of common in one inclosure for cutting turf; each house under 40s. a year rent has a right to cut 3000 flag (turf) , a quantity sufficient for the winter's firing." This was in lieu of the old practice of cutting whins for firing over the whole extent of open fields—a practice "destructive of much land." ”

“ Now the spring has dried up, the water from the deforested hills comes rushing to the lowlands until the streams overflow their banks, and these and other changed conditions indicate that the future farmsteads should be erected on higher land, on the slopes of the hills. From the one extreme we have gone, in some cases, to the other, and the home has been built on the very apex of some lofty hill. ”

“ Through the wooded land the soil appeared to be simply a tangle of fallen and decayed tree-trunks grown over with thick moss of another variety, in which you sank ankle deep, while dark perilous looking holes yawned on every side, making you feel that if once you went in you might never appear again. Sometimes our way led along a fine bear trail on a sandy terrace where the wood growth was small and scattered, and where the walking was smooth, and even as that of a city street, but much softer and pleasanter. ”

“ I climbed up the river wall to the high, sandy terrace above. This great wall of packed boulders is one of the most characteristic features of the lower river. It is thrown up by the action of ice in the spring floods, and varies all the way from twenty feet at its beginning to fifty and sixty feet farther down. One of the remarkable things about it is that the largest boulders lie at the top, some of them so huge as to weigh tons. On the terrace, moss berries and blue berries were so thick as to make walking slippery. The river grows more magnificent all the time. ”

“ The man lay in the dry grass of a tiny glade that ran down to the tree-fringed bank of the stream. On either side of the glade was a fence, of the old stake-and-rider type, though little of it was to be seen, so thickly was it overgrown by wild blackberry bushes, scrubby oaks and young madrono trees. In the rear, a gate through a low paling fence led to a snug, squat bungalow, built in the California Spanish style and seeming to have been compounded directly from the landscape of which it was so justly a part. ”

“ Here the channel is broad and sandy; about seven miles below the last camp it is joined by a smaller watercourse from the north-west named by me Raff Creek. The country we saw from our path was mostly good. It consists of well-grassed, thinly-wooded flats, separated from each other by belts of Port Curtis sandalwood, bauhinia, and other small trees, and at other places by low ridges with triodia. The country in the immediate neighbourhood consists of low ridges of poor soil with numerous rocky gullies. These ridges are chiefly wooded with ironbak and grassed with triodia. ”

“ In arbitrary lands some lords claim all the timber; others only the oak; others the oak and yew; others oak and white thorn; and so on. In some the tenant is bound to plant two trees of the same kind for every one he fells; but tenants have a right to timber for repairs, rebuilding, or implements, though they must not cut down without license. Many lands are bound to carry their grain to the manorial mill to be ground and multured; but this custom has fallen into disuse. Most lords retain the minerals and game if they enfranchise the soil, as many have done. ”

“ I should have no enclosure, apart from yards, under a hundred acres, and the fencing, which is an expensive item these days, must be of post and rails. The contour of the ground should vary, and the soil must not be too rich. Hill and dale, upland and meadow, river flats, an occasional swamp, are each of them desirable commodities in the way of land, to be made use of in due season. The feet of the youngsters are fashioned by the country they run on. ”

“ Double yards are desirable where space can be given for them; they allow a rotation of green crops, which cleanses and sweetens the ground, and converts the excrement which would become a source of danger into a valuable food crop. The shape of the fields, the slope of the land, and the location of other farm buildings will have much to do with the shape of the yards [Pg 5] and mode of access to the poultry buildings. Generally the yards should be long and narrow, so as to make cultivation easy. ”

“ The lawn is muddy, and as, walking in single file, we cross on planks, the liquid ground sloshes beneath our feet. As we approach what seems to be the stable of a farm, those in front walk slower, and even slower descend into the earth. Poole and I follow them down a flight of rough stone steps, and seeing two uprights of stout logs standing as a doorway and, level with my head as I descend, a roof of tree trunks and dirt, I whisper, "Bombproof." ”

“ This land evidently retains the moisture better than that of the country down the river. At 2.40 came south-east and by east one and three-quarter miles over level, well-grassed, and thinly-wooded land, with the exception of a sandhill wooded with bauhinia. At 3.45 came south one and a half miles over poor sandy land, badly grassed and thickly wooded. At 4.15 came south-west and by south one and a half miles over level country covered with roley-poley, pigweed, saltbush, and young grass, and wooded with box and western-wood acacia to water, and encamped. Distance eighteen and a quarter miles. ”

“ Were there twenty tenants and as many fields, each tenant would think himself unjustly treated unless he had a proportionate share in each. This causes treble labour, and as they are perpetually crossing each other, they must be in a state of constant quarrelling and bad neighbourhood. In order to prevent any of the soil being carried to the adjoining ridge, each individual makes his own ridge as high as possible, which renders the furrow quite bare, so that it produces no crop, while the accumulated soil in the middle of the ridge is never stirred deeper than the plough. ”

“ Now it was obvious that an inn, a blacksmith's forge, and a few shops and cottages would soon spring up round the ford, especially as the gravel patch was better to live on than the clay round about, and so we readily understood why our village had been built where it was and not a mile up or down the stream. Almost any river will show the same things: on the Lea near Harpenden we found the river flowed quickly at the ford (Fig. 58) , where there was a hard, stony bottom and no mud: whilst above and below the ford the bottom was muddy and the stream flowed more slowly. ”

“ It is mere rushy land, not worth ten shillings an acre, and of no account to a rich man, but to the half-starved peasant of these parts even that much grass is a perfect treasure-trove.
'Under these circumstances the tenants of the two nearest cabins on either side of the field have been accustomed by tacit agreement to look upon this strip as their own property. Each took the county line as the boundary or marin of his claim, and each mowed his own half. But the one that came first generally encroached a little, and stole as much of his neighbor's grass as he thought he could with safety. ”

“ The road has a further advantage that would be great whatever its position, but on this ridge is incalculable. It is bordered, not by a hedge, but by uneven and in places bushy wastes, often as wide as a field. The wastes, of course, are divided from the cultivated slopes below by hedges, but either these are low, as on the right, or they are irregularly expanded into thickets of yew and blackthorn, and even into beech plantations, as on the left. Whoever cares to rides or walks here instead of on the dust. ”

“ Now, as you know, by far the greater part of the land is well cultivated and thickly covered with habitations. The old roads were everywhere enclosed between high hedges, on which were planted rows of elms; and the same kind of hedge divided the fields and tenements. Every house, too, in those days had its orchard, cider being then universally drunk; and the hill-sides and cliffs were covered with furze brakes, as in all country houses they baked their own bread and required the furze for fuel. ”

“ At other towns on the way we ran well up into the fields, and landed passengers or freight on stray sand-spits, or hillocks, from which they could get off again on the other side by small boats. We passed scores of deserted houses, their windows open, the water swashing over their door-sills; gardens with only tops of bushes in sight, one with red roses swaying back and forth, limp and helpless on the tide. It seemed strange that men would build houses and make farms in a place where they are each year liable to be driven out by such freshets. ”

“ As to the extent, number, and situation of terraces, this point is determined by the conditions of the house and site. Terraces come naturally if the house be on an eminence, but even in cases where the ground recedes only to a slight extent, the surface of a second terrace may be lowered by increasing the fall of the slope till sufficient earth is provided for the requisite filling. The surplus earth dug out in forming the foundations and cellars of the house, or rubbish from an old building, will help to make up the terrace levels and save the cost of wheeling and carting the rubbish away. ”

“ It is easily seen why our ancestors in the wooded districts fenced the farm into small fields. In some cases the surface stones were so numerous on the land that the larger ones had to be removed to make way for the plow. Naturally they were used for constructing fences, for the most economical way to get rid of these too numerous stones was to make fences of them. The haul was short and the fences could be increased in width and height until storage room was provided for all the rocks which the farmer cared to remove. So here, too, the temptation was great to fence the farm into small fields. ”

“ In reclaiming moor-land the tenants divide the ground into narrow strips of five feet wide or thereby. These strips, called lazy-beds (Feannagan, from feann, to scarify) , the tenants allot among themselves according to their shares or crofts. The people mutually encourage one another to plant as much of this ground as possible. In this manner much waste ground is reclaimed and enhanced in value, the ground hitherto the home of the stonechat, grouse, snipe and sundew, is made to yield luxuriant crops of potatoes, corn, hay and grass. ”

“ Bursting through the bushes fringing it, I proceeded a little way in, until I came to a deep, dry ditch marking its margin, and fairly effectively concealed by bushes. I had the fir woods on my left; on my right was a patch of land bounded by a wire fence and grown over by small firs and thornless furze. A little farther up, some of the furze had been cut and was lying on the ground. An examination of the stumps showed them black and weathered; there was no sign [Pg 66] of recent work. Beyond the wire fence, and across a plowed field, a farm lay more than half concealed in its orchard. ”