ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | MAY 3, 1924 | CANADIAN COUNTRYMAN
Plowing is the first thing farmers do when preparing for the crop. And I have always said that you are half done when you have a field that is well plowed. On the other hand, the field that is merely rooted around a bit, then sown in the same manner, is never done. The well-plowed field will produce you a good crop, while the poorly-plowed or rooted field will grow you a lot of weeds with which to wrestle and yield poor returns.
Suppose we take a drive around the country. As we go along we see a man plowing in the distance. We can tell by the way the team is walking, also from the manner in which the man walks, that he is doing good work. When we get there and see his work it is well done, just as we had expected. Not only that, but it is readily observed that he is taking considerable pleasure in doing it. For the man who really knows how there is more pleasure in plowing than any job on top of the earth. The man who can plow must have a head on him and there must be something in that head. But let us start on our journey again.
After some time we see, away ahead of us, a man doing something with a plow. We can tell by the way he and his team are walking that he is making a poor ob, so when we stop to see his work, it is just what we expected to find: it is no good. Moreover, this man is getting no pleasure at all out of his work. In the first place his horses look as if there were no currycomb or brush around the place. Judging the man by his work, you say to yourself that he has no head on him, or else it is hollow. This man is turning over twice as much land as the other man we saw, but the first is doing more than double for his boss than the rooter is doing for his.
I would like to advise farmers to plow less and do it better. In this way they will grow more bushels of grain off fewer acres. As well, there will not be so much sow thistle and every other kind of thistle that ever grew. You know, Mr. Editor, there is not much made out of thistles and weeds to help pay the high taxes we hear farmers chewing about.
Last fall I went to a plowing match, just before the taxes had to be paid, and when you saw a group together discussing everything under the sun they always had a round out of the high taxes and shortage of help. I always used to think that a plowing match was a good thing to teach farmers to plow. That match made me change my mind. I was never so disgusted in my life.
When they had gotten their lands finished, there were six or seven teams drew up straight for some stakes marking off ground that had not been used. They received orders to unharness their horses. After they had done as they were told, the whistle blew and the men got busy and harnessed their horses. By the time they were ready to start both the men and horses were rattled. We made enquiries about this competition. They had to plow six rounds inside of 30 minutes. If you had never seen men make fools of themselves and that man’s field, you would have seen it there. They were just rooting, and he should have ordered them off the field.
Looking around to see who had down the whistle, I observe two men in charge. Judging them by their looks, you would have said they had gotten astray. They did not look like farmers. Their vests did not hang on them, having enough below the set to keep it straight.
When I hear farmers chewing about high taxes, I tell them that as long as they are going to be made fools of by high-paid gentlemen, which they have to pay for themselves, they should quit their squealing and pay their high taxes.
In conclusion, let me repeat that there is more pleasure plowing when you know how than any other calling this side of the River Jordan.
Farmer John – Wellington County