MAY—1840, 1851, 1857, 1858—Farmer's Calendar Excerpts

#11

"Milkmaid" by Juilen Dupre (1851 - 1910)

-1840-

“The bright, rosy morning peeps over the hills;” so, haste out to milking, my fair country girls. Some of our pretty damsels are quite too long upon the pillow. There are the daughters of old Dominie Dozy; it is next to impossible to arouse them. “Wake, Bridget, awake! Come, Dolly; the blue heifer is lowing; Jenny, Jenny, we are waiting for breakfast!” But what signifies this calling and bawling for such sleepy noodles? What! A farmer’s daughter in bed after sunrise? I tell you what, neighbor Hoe-Handle, this would not answer the purpose in your family and mine. “Up and be doing,” is the word with us, and thanks to our fathers and mothers, that they brought us up in this good old fashion, making us put it into practice.

[Thomas’s]

-1851-

Fair ones of the dairy, and all ye tidy housewives, that give honor and reputation to Yankeedom, the time draws near for you to show your prowess; yes, to exhibit to the world how important to the farmer is a good farmer’s wife. Beshrew the churlish old bachelor, who chooses to nibble his crust alone! Why, it is the very cream of the business to have a boon companion, who will look well to the dairy, and all other concernments of the housekeeping. Why, Mr. Doubty, you may about as well cut your right hand off, and done with it, as to try to be a prime husbandman without a good wife. Such is my judgment.

[Thomas’s]

-1857-

“Sweet Auburn! Loveliest village of the plain!” Now, had I the pen of Goldsmith, I would sing aloud of the joys and delights of a peasant’s life. I care not for Dr. Johnson’s praises of the city; give me even the “bogs of sweet Erin,” rather than the smoke and noise of a city! Potatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers, corn, oats, barley, &c., now claim the attention of the happy farmer. Destroy caterpillars. Set your early cabbages, and take care to hoe them about three times a week. This you may rely is of vast importance. You ought likewise to see that your early peas are hoed often. It is highly necessary that a farmer should always be stirring. Look to your sheep, and see that their wool be not lost. Keep your working oxen up to hay. Turn the spring calves to grass, but be careful to house them if it rain or is cold. Plant Indian corn in high, warm places. The latter part of this month, and all of the next, all hoed crops want attention.

[Thomas’s]

-1858-

Yes, gladsome May is here again. Who does not feel it to his finger’s ends? Up, and be doing now as busily as the bees!

[Leavitt’s]
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"Three Women Hoeing" by Edinburgh landscape painter William McTaggart

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Yes indeed, May is here again and I believe I do feel it to my finger's ends! Personally, I have hoed my early peas often this spring, and they look good, but it has been much too wet here in Central New York state to get any other planting done.

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Near as I can tell, that quoted phrase, "The bright rosy morning peeps over the hills," (1840) is from a popular song of the day. It was not, mind you,  popular on the radio or television or anything like that because such modern devices had not been invented in 1840. The phonograph came into use in the late 1870s, but in the Agrarian Nation of 1840 folks had to entertain themselves by singing their own songs.

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"Sweet Auburn! Loveliest village of the plain!" is the first line of The Deserted Village, a poem by the Irish writer, Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774). Goldsmith's poem was once more famous than it is now, and I would suppose it was well known in 19th Century New England. 

It so happens that lines from poetry are often quoted in the old farm almanacs. The almanac editors would not have quoted those poems if the readers were not familiar with them. So, if you think the old-time farmers were uncultured clods (definition 5), think again.

Not wanting to be an uncultured clod myself, I decided to read Goldsmith's The Deserted Village. It is long. It is not a breezy read. But it is well worth reading because it is entirely appropriate to what this web site is all about. The Deserted Village is a poignant celebration of agrarian culture lost.

"Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land:"

As I read the poem, and began to understand what I was reading, it occurred to me that the old farmers of New England loved this poem because they saw their Agrarian Nation as Goldsmith's "Sweet Auburn."

"A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man;
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train

Usurp the land and dispossess the swain;"

Encyclopedia Britannica says of The Deserted Village: "it idealizes a rural way of life that was being destroyed by the displacement of agrarian villagers, the greed of landlords, and economic and political change." 

I would say that economic and political change resulted from the discovery of the new worlds, increased trade, and the early rise of industrialism. In time, that industrial impulse would come to America. Thus, The Lost Village proved to be not only a poetic dirge about the loss of agrarian culture in the British Isles, but a metaphor for the loss of America's Agrarian Nation
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In the next installment of Agrarian Nation, we will take leave of poetry and look at four old farm almanac excerpts dealing with the subject of milch cows. 

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