Continuing the Article which was published in the Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin in 1949, where author George Potter recounted his meeting with Juan Greene of Kilkea who discoursed eloquently on farming in South Kildare.
“The farm is run on a five year rotation plan, and the purpose all through is fertilizing. Fertilizing is the secret of good tillage, and we work at it all the time. Let me explain and then later I’ll show you the fields himselves. We sow a field to hay and then plow in after grass, that is, rye grass and clover ploughed in as green manure. The second crops is oats and to that we apply artificial fertilizer. Next for sugar beets we use heavy farmyard dunging and artificial. The fourth, for peas, we use potash manure only. Finally the pea ground is sown with mustard seed and is plowed in for wheat or barley and under-sown with rye grass and clover.
“We could not run this tillage farm without cattle. They are absolutely essential for their manure. We buy from 400 to 500 cattle in October from the adjoining grasslands in North Kildare, Leix, Kilkenny or from Westmeath or from Tipperary. These cattle are stall fed under cover during Winter and as we sell them we replace them . Eight hundred cattle will pass through our barns in Winter until they are disposed of in the spring. We are not cattle farmers, understand, and we buy and sell irrespective of profit. What we want them is for manure. They are sold to cattle buyers, shipped to Dublin and then to England on the hoof. The poorer ones that we cannot dispose of we turn out to graze in the Summer. It’s a constant process of replenishing cattle.
“There are sixty permanent farm labourers working for us and during the peak that number will be doubled, and we hire any number of casual labourers. Farm labour is paid £3=2=6 for a fifty hour week. Our annual payroll for farm labor runs to between £15,000 and £16,000. Yes, they are unionized. They live away from the farm in their own homes built by the County Council; and they are good looking houses. The farm labourers are easy going people, and the great difficulty is to get them to speed up their pace of work. The steward (farm manager) tries every sort of persuasion but they are geared to that pace - and that’s that. With more effort they could make better wages.
“We could mechanize and reduce the number in help but that would create a social problem for the whole area.
“Imagine what a disaster it would be to throw, say, 50 of our labourers out of work because of machinery. Even that raises a problem within the farm. The men who run the machines have to be skilled and they have to be specialized to repair the tractors and therefore they get more money and that creates dissatisfaction among the unskilled help who are getting less.
“Mechanization will make farm work more attractive and take the heavy burden of brute work off the shoulders of the farmers. Ireland. remember, is a small agricultural country. Fifty per cent of the people around here live off the farms. The problem, remains of mechanizing for greater efficiency without upsetting the social pattern. It will have to be done gradually.
“There is a general grumbling of dissatisfaction among farmers and farm help. They see the difference between the £3=2=6 for farm pay and for 50 hours and the £5 for work for 48 hours in industry. They are out in all kinds of weather and those in industry are covered. The people in plants have weekends off; and now we simply cannot get a farm laborer to work weekends, no matter how badly we need him. Farm labor gets scarcer every year.
“The race of small propertied farmers feel that they are being put on by the government. Agrarian policy and city-town policy are coming into open conflict. The rates (taxes) are a very heavy burden on the small farmer. The increasing demands of social security in the cities and towns, mostly for unemployment payments and old - age benefits, make the farmers feel that the cities and towns are living off them and that they are paying the bills and not getting any benefits for themselves. There is a feeling in the country that there is no need of unemployment if only the people will consent to work”.
Mr. Green praised the work of Muintir Na Tire in teaching the farmers self - reliance and co - operation for rural development and a more attractive social life. He spoke of the drabness and isolation of the farm villages and the dreadful monotony and boredom of social life.
“In this district, for instance,” he said “there is one bus in the morning into town and one at night. This sort of service does not work against emigration of the restless and dissatisfied. Emigration is taking the best; the unambitious remain.
“Now, if you wish, I’ll show you the farm. We call the road around the farm the Burma Road. You’ll understand why.”
It took some two hours just for a sightseeing tour around the Greene farm. The narrow road was rather joggy, but he farm itself was a delight to the eye; field lay out in order, well kept, with the satisfactory air of well being, and farm buildings well appointed, clean and in apple - pie repair. Walls and hedges separated one field from another, oats from barley and wheat from sugar beets. In the midst of green field one caught sight of the gold of a field sown to mustard, a combination of utility and loveliness. Standing on a bridge Mr. Greene pointed out each field on the large farm and what it was growing.
Three rivers ran through the land and supply all the water it needs. Small groves of trees here and there break up the pattern of the fields.
Mr. Greene took me to the top of a hill and pointed out another large farm in the distance - the Wright farm - where pedigree bulls are raised for Argentine.
“From this hill” he said, “you can see seven countries of Ireland - Leix, Carlow, Kildare, Wicklow, Waterford, Kilkenny and off there in the haze the Dublin mountains”.
The author concluded with the wish that he might see something of the future of rural Ireland in the well run Greene Farm of 1949. The Fifty years which have since passed has seen Irish Agriculture develop into a multi billion pound business where farm machinery has replaced farm labourers.
On Wednesday, 8th September at 8.00 p.m., I will give a talk in the Heritage Centre entitled “Heroes or Scoundrels - some reflections on Athy and men and women of the past”.
Showing posts with label Juan Greene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juan Greene. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 1999
Thursday, August 5, 1999
George Potters 1949 Report of Athy and Juan Greene
In the summer of 1949 George Potter, an American journalist employed by the Providence Journal & Evening Bulletin paid an extended visit to Ireland. He visited what he later described as “all parts of Ireland” and wrote a number of articles which were published in his newspaper. Intended to give his American readers a picture of the people, life and culture of Ireland of the day the articles read fifty years later continue to provide us with many interesting insights. One of the articles written by Potter referred to his visit to Athy and reads :-
“In Athy the busy little center of this tillage area with a population of some 3000, I was introduced by a friend, who had accompanied me from Dublin, to Matt and Sidney Minch, of the well known maltser family whose output is consumed entirely by the mammoth vats of Guinness & Co., of Dublin, the world’s largest brewery, makers of the famous stout.
In Matt Minch’s office, surrounded by samples of grains in saucers, I commented on the busy town and the number of trucks, tractors and automobiles in the main street. I remarked further that I had rarely come across a Kildare man in the United States.
`Kildare,’ Mr. Minch explained, is a comparatively prosperous region and has a fairly consistent ready market for the tillage crops. People who have a reasonable amount of prosperity and can see ahead with some degree of surety for the future do not emigrate.
Besides, we have two new industries in the town. One, about 10 years old, makes asbestos cement and employs 200 people. The second, just started, makes wall boards from straw pulp and employs 100 people. Both are backed mainly by Irish capital. These industries take up the farm youngsters who otherwise might be restless to emigrate and flee the land. The wages in these industries average £5 a week and being higher than farm wages they offer inducements to leave the land without leaving Ireland. They have other attractions. The workers are under cover and not subject to all kinds of weather. The hours are fixed and there are unions. All these contribute to a fair standard of living. If the small towns in Ireland could have such small industries in connection with farming and have power from the Shannon scheme as we have, the emigration picture might not look so black.
The oldest industry here is malting and it is so ordered as to give the region a balance. Malting is a seasonal industry, and most of the work is done in the Winter when things are slack on the farms. That means that the people we employ in that season can go out on the farms in the Summer haymaking and harvesting. This way they manage to keep working all year round.
Yes, mechanization goes on steadily. The area is heavily mechanized in comparison to other areas in Ireland, but nowhere near the degree of America. Even now we are introducing the Massey Harris Canadian type combined harvester, and the donkey of Kerry and the horse are gradually being replaced.
But we Irish will never give up our love of horses. Right beyond here is the Curragh where they breed the finest horses in the world. Here in South Kildare the English have bred their great cavalry horses since the time of Napoleon and now we’re breeding stakes winners in Ireland and England - and in America, too.
Sidney Minch interrupted to say that he was going to take me to his home for a bite to eat and then go on to the green farm. Mr. Minch, an affable man, drove me to his pleasant country house on an Island, with drawbridge and all, in the River Barrow and the `bite to eat’ turned into one of the sizeable meals I had in Ireland.
During the drive out, he told me that the Athy Dramatic Society, an amateur group, had won the All-Ireland drama contest with the play, `The Righteous Are Bold,’ and he complained that the local library stocked up too much with fiction and not enough with serious works. He pointed out tillage farms on the way and explained that the average farm in the area was 100 acres.”
The Green’s like the Minch’s, have long been in South Kildare, and they are close social and business intimates. The elder Green has divided
the farm with his two sons but it is run as a single enterprise. In addition, the Green’s manage the estate of the Duke of Leinster. Most of this area once belonged to the Leinsters, which is the famous Anglo-Norman family of the Fitzgeralds, so prominent in Irish history, and whose Kilkea Castle, now occupied by the Earl of Kildare, son of the Duke, can be seen sheltered in a grove of trees on a ride around the Green farm. This section is also the ancestral home of the late Sir Ernest Shackleton, the polar explorer; and Edmund Burke’s early education was in near-by Ballitore, a village founded by Quakers.
Juan Green, a pleasant and interesting young Anglo-Irishman, bound up in modern farming, graciously placed himself at my service. He was born in the Argentine and had practised medicine until a siege of sickness and an inbred love of the country called him back to his father’s farm. (Incidentally, the so-called Anglo-Irish prefer to be called Irish). In the large living room and library, Mr. Green under questioning talked easily and intelligently of large-scale Irish farming and of rural life generally.
The major crops on this farm, he explained, are barley, oats wheat, peas, sugar beets, belladonna and tobacco. We have a guaranteed price for beets, wheat, tobacco of quality and belladonna and have no trouble in disposing of our other crops by contract with private firms.
There is a beet sugar factory nearby, the first in Ireland, and it handles all the beets we grow. Ireland is now self-sustaining in sugar. The peas go to a large house in Dublin - Batchelor’s - and become canned, frozen, garden or package peas. All our barley we sell to our friend here, Sidney Minch, for malt. The belladonna is contracted for by a London medical house. The wheat goes to the neighbouring millers in Carlow. The hay and oats are for the race horses in the Curragh stables. Tobacco is a government - sponsored crop, since 1934, and is not a popular crop with farmers. It’s not self - sustaining and I think that within five years it will be out”.
….. TO BE CONTINUED
“In Athy the busy little center of this tillage area with a population of some 3000, I was introduced by a friend, who had accompanied me from Dublin, to Matt and Sidney Minch, of the well known maltser family whose output is consumed entirely by the mammoth vats of Guinness & Co., of Dublin, the world’s largest brewery, makers of the famous stout.
In Matt Minch’s office, surrounded by samples of grains in saucers, I commented on the busy town and the number of trucks, tractors and automobiles in the main street. I remarked further that I had rarely come across a Kildare man in the United States.
`Kildare,’ Mr. Minch explained, is a comparatively prosperous region and has a fairly consistent ready market for the tillage crops. People who have a reasonable amount of prosperity and can see ahead with some degree of surety for the future do not emigrate.
Besides, we have two new industries in the town. One, about 10 years old, makes asbestos cement and employs 200 people. The second, just started, makes wall boards from straw pulp and employs 100 people. Both are backed mainly by Irish capital. These industries take up the farm youngsters who otherwise might be restless to emigrate and flee the land. The wages in these industries average £5 a week and being higher than farm wages they offer inducements to leave the land without leaving Ireland. They have other attractions. The workers are under cover and not subject to all kinds of weather. The hours are fixed and there are unions. All these contribute to a fair standard of living. If the small towns in Ireland could have such small industries in connection with farming and have power from the Shannon scheme as we have, the emigration picture might not look so black.
The oldest industry here is malting and it is so ordered as to give the region a balance. Malting is a seasonal industry, and most of the work is done in the Winter when things are slack on the farms. That means that the people we employ in that season can go out on the farms in the Summer haymaking and harvesting. This way they manage to keep working all year round.
Yes, mechanization goes on steadily. The area is heavily mechanized in comparison to other areas in Ireland, but nowhere near the degree of America. Even now we are introducing the Massey Harris Canadian type combined harvester, and the donkey of Kerry and the horse are gradually being replaced.
But we Irish will never give up our love of horses. Right beyond here is the Curragh where they breed the finest horses in the world. Here in South Kildare the English have bred their great cavalry horses since the time of Napoleon and now we’re breeding stakes winners in Ireland and England - and in America, too.
Sidney Minch interrupted to say that he was going to take me to his home for a bite to eat and then go on to the green farm. Mr. Minch, an affable man, drove me to his pleasant country house on an Island, with drawbridge and all, in the River Barrow and the `bite to eat’ turned into one of the sizeable meals I had in Ireland.
During the drive out, he told me that the Athy Dramatic Society, an amateur group, had won the All-Ireland drama contest with the play, `The Righteous Are Bold,’ and he complained that the local library stocked up too much with fiction and not enough with serious works. He pointed out tillage farms on the way and explained that the average farm in the area was 100 acres.”
The Green’s like the Minch’s, have long been in South Kildare, and they are close social and business intimates. The elder Green has divided
the farm with his two sons but it is run as a single enterprise. In addition, the Green’s manage the estate of the Duke of Leinster. Most of this area once belonged to the Leinsters, which is the famous Anglo-Norman family of the Fitzgeralds, so prominent in Irish history, and whose Kilkea Castle, now occupied by the Earl of Kildare, son of the Duke, can be seen sheltered in a grove of trees on a ride around the Green farm. This section is also the ancestral home of the late Sir Ernest Shackleton, the polar explorer; and Edmund Burke’s early education was in near-by Ballitore, a village founded by Quakers.
Juan Green, a pleasant and interesting young Anglo-Irishman, bound up in modern farming, graciously placed himself at my service. He was born in the Argentine and had practised medicine until a siege of sickness and an inbred love of the country called him back to his father’s farm. (Incidentally, the so-called Anglo-Irish prefer to be called Irish). In the large living room and library, Mr. Green under questioning talked easily and intelligently of large-scale Irish farming and of rural life generally.
The major crops on this farm, he explained, are barley, oats wheat, peas, sugar beets, belladonna and tobacco. We have a guaranteed price for beets, wheat, tobacco of quality and belladonna and have no trouble in disposing of our other crops by contract with private firms.
There is a beet sugar factory nearby, the first in Ireland, and it handles all the beets we grow. Ireland is now self-sustaining in sugar. The peas go to a large house in Dublin - Batchelor’s - and become canned, frozen, garden or package peas. All our barley we sell to our friend here, Sidney Minch, for malt. The belladonna is contracted for by a London medical house. The wheat goes to the neighbouring millers in Carlow. The hay and oats are for the race horses in the Curragh stables. Tobacco is a government - sponsored crop, since 1934, and is not a popular crop with farmers. It’s not self - sustaining and I think that within five years it will be out”.
….. TO BE CONTINUED
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