CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION.

It is with considerable diffidence the writer ventures to give the public this slight sketch of her experience in farming four acres of land.

When she finally resolved to fix her residence in the country, she was wholly ignorant how she ought to manage, so that the small quantity of land she rented might, if not a source of profit, be at least no loss.

She was told by a friend, who for a short time had tried “a little place” at Chiselhurst, that it was very possible to lose a considerable sum yearly by under taking to farm a very small quantity of land.  “Be quite sure,” said the friendly adviser—­“and remember, I speak from experience—­that whatever animals you may keep, the expense attending them will be treble the value of the produce you receive.  Your cows will die, or, for want of being properly looked after, will soon cease to give any milk; your pigs will cost you more for food than will buy the pork four times over; your chickens and ducks will stray away, or be stolen; your garden-produce will, if worth anything, find its way to Covent Garden; and each quarter your bills from the seedsman and miller will amount to as much as would supply you with meat, bread, milk, butter, eggs, and poultry, in London.”

Certainly this was rather a black state of things to look forward to; but the conviction was formed, after mature reflection, that a residence some miles from town was the one best suited to the writer’s family.  She was compelled to acknowledge to those friends who advised her to the contrary, her ignorance on most things appertaining to the mode of life she proposed to commence, but trusted to that often-talked-of commodity, common sense, to prevent her being ruined by farming four acres of land.

She thought, if she could not herself discover how to manage, she might acquire the requisite knowledge from some of the little books she had purchased on subjects connected with “rural economy.”  They proved, however, quite useless.  They appeared to the writer to be merely compilations from larger works; and, like the actors in the barn, who played the tragedy of “Hamlet,” and omitted the character of the hero, so did these books leave out the very things which, from the title-pages, the purchaser expected to find in them.

Some time after experience had shown how butter could be made successfully, a lady, who had been for years resident in the country, said, during a morning call, “My dairy-maid is gone away ill, and the cook makes the butter; but it is so bad we cannot eat it:  and besides that nuisance, she has this morning given me notice to leave.  She says she did not ‘engage’ to ‘mess’ about in the dairy.”

“Well,” said the writer, “why not make the butter yourself, till you can suit yourself with a new servant?”