This I hasten to add is not just because they are free but because they are no longer available. Most have sat on a dusty university shelf for decades and they date from the 18th and 19th centuries.
So google book downloads have allowed me to trawl the reports of the Poor Law Commisioners from the late 1830s into the ‘40s, obscure guides on employing servants and the wonderful book The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens.
So google book downloads have allowed me to trawl the reports of the Poor Law Commisioners from the late 1830s into the ‘40s, obscure guides on employing servants and the wonderful book The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens.
It was written in 1844, and ran to countless editions. It was the manual for anyone wanting to be a farmer. Everything is here from what crops to plant and when to how to make a well, as well as sound advice on hiring labourers, the construction of a water meadow, and the best location for the milk house and cheese room. I learned which materials were best for building a farm house and how much I could expect to pay for materials, as well as the most up to date scientific information on planting wurzels.
It was a practical book and so “the cost of digging a well in clay, eight feet in diameter and sixteen deep and building a ring three feet in diameter with dry rubble masonry is only L5 [£5] exclusive of carriage and the cost of pumps.”
He calculated that that two brood sows could produce 40 pigs between them and that retaining six for home use the remaining 34 could easily be sold at market. So many of the smaller farmers and market gardeners in the township might well keep at least one sow and use it to supplement their income. Nor should we forget that these animals were destined for the table and so the slaughter of pigs was best done around Martinmas in early November because “the flesh in the warm months is not sufficiently firm and is then liable to be fly born before it is cured” and doing so in early November had the added advantage that cured hams would be ready for Christmas.
To read Stephens is to step back into the world that was Chorlton in the 1850s and for that alone it is worth making the effort to get a copy.
This review was first posted in full on Friends of Chorlton Meadows http://friendsofchorltonmeadows.blogspot.com/
Picture; cows on Chorlton meadows from the collection of David Dishop
It was a practical book and so “the cost of digging a well in clay, eight feet in diameter and sixteen deep and building a ring three feet in diameter with dry rubble masonry is only L5 [£5] exclusive of carriage and the cost of pumps.”
He calculated that that two brood sows could produce 40 pigs between them and that retaining six for home use the remaining 34 could easily be sold at market. So many of the smaller farmers and market gardeners in the township might well keep at least one sow and use it to supplement their income. Nor should we forget that these animals were destined for the table and so the slaughter of pigs was best done around Martinmas in early November because “the flesh in the warm months is not sufficiently firm and is then liable to be fly born before it is cured” and doing so in early November had the added advantage that cured hams would be ready for Christmas.
To read Stephens is to step back into the world that was Chorlton in the 1850s and for that alone it is worth making the effort to get a copy.
This review was first posted in full on Friends of Chorlton Meadows http://friendsofchorltonmeadows.blogspot.com/
Picture; cows on Chorlton meadows from the collection of David Dishop
No comments:
Post a Comment