Hodge and His Masters eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 465 pages of information about Hodge and His Masters.

Hodge and His Masters eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 465 pages of information about Hodge and His Masters.

What had struck him most, however, in that particular district, as he traversed it on the bicycle, was the great loss of time that must result from the absence of rapid means of communication on large farms.  The distance across a large farm might, perhaps, be a mile.  Some farms were not very broad, but extended in a narrow strip for a great way.  Hours were occupied in riding round such farms, hours which might be saved by simple means.  Suppose, for example, that a gang of labourers were at work in the harvest-field, three-quarters of a mile from the farmhouse.  Now, why not have a field telegraph, like that employed in military operations?  The cable or wire was rolled on a drum like those used for watering a lawn.  All that was needed was to harness a pony, and the drum would unroll and lay the wire as it revolved.  The farmer could then sit in his office and telegraph his instructions without a moment’s delay.  He could tap the barometer, and wire to the bailiff in the field to be expeditious, for the mercury was falling.  Practically, there was no more necessity for the farmer to go outside his office than for a merchant in Mincing Lane.  The merchant did not sail in every ship whose cargo was consigned to him:  why should the farmer watch every waggon loaded?  Steam could drive the farmer’s plough, cut the chaff, pump the water, and, in short, do everything.  The field telegraph could be laid down to any required spot with the greatest ease, and thus, sitting in his office chair, the farmer could control the operations of the farm without once soiling his hands.  Mr. Phillip, as he concluded his remarks, reached his glass of claret, and thus incidentally exhibited his own hand, which was as white as a lady’s.

CHAPTER VIII

HAYMAKING.  ‘THE JUKE’S COUNTRY’

A rattling, thumping, booming noise, like the beating of their war drums by savages, comes over the hedge where the bees are busy at the bramble flowers.  The bees take no heed, they pass from flower to flower, seeking the sweet honey to store at home in the hive, as their bee ancestors did before the Roman legions marched to Cowey Stakes.  Their habits have not changed; their ‘social’ relations are the same; they have not called in the aid of machinery to enlarge their liquid, wealth, or to increase the facility of collecting it.  There is a low murmur rather than a buzz along the hedgerow; but over it the hot summer breeze brings the thumping, rattling, booming sound of hollow metal striking against the ground or in contact with other metal.  These ringing noises, which so little accord with the sweet-scented hay and green hedgerows, are caused by the careless handling of milk tins dragged hither and thither by the men who are getting the afternoon milk ready for transit to the railway station miles away.  Each tin bears a brazen badge engraved with the name of the milkman who will retail its contents in distant London.  It may be delivered to the countess in Belgravia, and reach her dainty lip in the morning chocolate, or it may be eagerly swallowed up by the half-starved children of some back court in the purlieus of the Seven Dials.

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Hodge and His Masters from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.