Scant Feeding of Man or Horse Is Small Profit and Sure Loss

What is saved out of the food of cattle is a dead loss, for a horse can't work if he is not fed. If an animal won't pay for keeping he won't pay for starving. Even the land yields little if it is not nourished, and it is just the same with the poor beast. You might as well try to run a steam-engine without coals, or drive a water-mill without water, as work a horse without putting corn into him. Thomas Tusser, who wrote a book upon "Husbandry" in the olden time, said,

"Who starveth his cattle, and weareth them out
By carting and ploughing, his gain I much doubt;
But he that in labor doth use them aright
Has gain to his comfort, and cattle in plight."

Poor dumb animals cannot speak for themselves, and therefore every one who has his speech should plead for them. To keep them short of victuals is a crying shame. The one in our picture seems to be thoroughly broken in: look at his knees! His owner ought to be flogged at the cart tail. I hate cruelty, and above all things the cruelty which starves the laboring beast.

A right good man is good to all,
And stints not table, rack, or stall;
Not only cares for horse and hog,
But kindly thinks of cat and dog.

Is not a man better than a beast? Then, depend upon it, what is good for the ploughing horse is good for the ploughing boy: a belly full of plain food is a wonderful help to a laboring man. A starving workman is a dear servant. If you don't pay your men, they pay themselves, or else they shirk their work. He who labors well should be fed well, especially a ploughman.

"Let such have enow
That follow the plough."

There would be no bread if it were not for the ploughman: would you starve the man who is the very bottom and beginning of everything? John never brags, but he thinks well of his calling, and thinks well of those who pay well: as for those who grind the faces of the poor, the more John thinks of them the less he thinks of them. A man may live upon little, but Farmer Gripper thinks we can live upon nothing, which is a horse of another color. I can't make out why the land cannot afford to keep those who work on it, for it used to do so. Tom Tusser wrote three hundred years ago,

"Good ploughmen look weekly, of custom and right,
For roast meat on Sundays, and Thursdays at night.
Thus doing and keeping such custom and guise,
They call thee good huswife, they love thee likewise."

This is what he writes to the farmer's wife about the ploughmen who lived at the farm house, but he has a bit to say for the other fellows and their privileges. About the harvest supper he says,

"In harvest time, harvest folk, servants, and all,
Should make all together good cheer in the hall."

I wish they would, but then they are so apt to drink. Could we not have a feast without the beer and the headaches? This is old Tom's writing about the harvest supper, and so on,—

"For all this good feasting, yet art thou not loose,
Till ploughman thou givest his harvest home goose.
Though goose go in stubble, I pass not for that,
Let Giles have a goose, be she lean, be she fat."

I fancy I see old Gripper giving Giles a goose: he would think Giles a green goose if he were to hint at it. Gripper is a close shaver; where he grazes no goose could pick up a living after him. He does not know what his lean laborers say of him, but he might guess, for a hungry man is an angry man, and an empty belly makes no compliments. As for lazy fellows who will eat till they sweat and work till they freeze, I don't mind what short commons they get; but a real hard-working man ought to be able to get for a day's work enough to keep himself and family from hunger. If this cannot be done, something is wrong somewhere, as the man said when he sat down on a setting of eggs. I am not going to blame the farmers, or the landlords, or the Parliament men, or anybody; but the land is good, and yields plenty for man and beast, and neither horse nor man should be starved.

There is no gain in being niggardly to your cattle. I have known men buy old screws of horses and feed them badly, and yet pay more in the long run for ploughing than the owner of a good team who gave out a fair allowance. The poor things can't work if they don't eat. As I said before, I speak up for the horses because they can't speak for themselves. All they can say, however, goes to prove what I have written: ask them if they can plough well when they get bad corn, and little of it, and they answer with a neigh.

As for the men, I wish they were, all round, a more deserving set, but I am obliged to own that a many are better at grubbing than ploughing. I would say to them, "Do good work, and then ask for good wages." I am afraid that many are not worth more than they get. Our old master used to say to Crawley Jones—

"You feed so fast, and walk so very slow—
Eat with your legs, and with your grinders go."

But then, if Jones was a slow man, he certainly had slow pay. He did not see the fun of working to the tune of twenty shillings when he had only ten. If he had done more, master would have given him more, but Jones couldn't see that, and so he mouched about, doing next to nothing, and got next to nothing for it. He very seldom got a bit of meat, and there was no bone or muscle in the man. He seemed to be fed on turnip-tops, and was as dull as a dormouse in winter time, and unless you had emptied a skip of bees over him you couldn't have woke him up. They say that Johnny Raw is a stupid; he would not be half so stupid if he had more raw to put in his pot.

Though lubbers might loiter with belly too full,
We're not in that case, but our belts we must pull;
Could we manage to get a little more meat,
We could do twice as much, and think it no feat.

They call a ploughman Chaw-bacon, do they? Wouldn't he like a bit more bacon to chaw? Hundreds and thousands of hard-working men down in the shires hardly get enough fat to grease the wheels of life, and the more's the pity. As to the poor women and children, it is often short-cake with them: bread, and pull it, and little of that.

One thing, however, is as plain as a pike-staff; the laborer cannot afford to keep a public house going while he has so little for his own private house. He has not a penny to spare, I'm sure, but had need to take all home to the missus that he can make by hook or by crook. Miss Hannah More wrote two verses which every ploughman should read, and mark, and learn.

"We say the times are grievous hard,
And hard they are, 'tis true!
But, drinkers, to your wives and babes
They're harder made by you.

"The drunkard's tax is self-imposed,
Like every other sin;
The taxes altogether cost
Not half so much as gin."

Well, if after all our being sober and thrifty, we cannot get along without pinching, let us still be patient and contented. We have more blessings than we can count even now. If masters happen to be close-fisted, God is open-handed, and if the outward food be scant, the bread of heaven is plentiful. Cheer up, brother ploughman, it's better on before. There is a city where "the very streets are paved with gold exceeding clear and fine." This should make us feel like singing all the time, and help us to follow the advice of old Thomas—

"At bed, and at board, whatsoever befall,
Whatever God sendeth, be merry withal."