which has been going on
in agriculture, has gone far to sweep away these more pleasant and
home-like features of the farm. It becomes daily more and more like a
mere official residence, so to speak. The peculiar home-like aspect of a
farmhouse is gradually disappearing.

The daily life of the middle-class dairy farmer begins at five in the
morning. Rising about that hour, his first duty is to see that the men
have all appeared, and that they are engaged in milking the cows. He
breakfasts at six, or half-past, and the whole family have finished
breakfast before seven. By this time the day-labourers have come (the
milkers are usually hired by the year), and the master has to go out and
put them on to their jobs. Meantime the dairy is a scene of work and
bustle; cheesemaking being in full swing. This is at least
superintended, if not partly performed, by the mistress of the house. At
larger farms it is the bailiff who rises early and sees that the
labourers are properly employed; and the cheesemaking is entrusted to a
dairymaid hired at high wages, who often combines with that duty the
office of general housekeeper. It was once the practice to rise even
earlier than five, but there are not many farmers who do so now. On the
arable farm, which is generally much larger, the master has almost
always got a bailiff, or head-carter, whom he can trust to see the men
set to work. The master is therefore not obliged to come down so soon,
except at important seasons. But the ordinary dairy-farm is not large
enough to support a bailiff, and the master has to rise himself. The
fresh morning air and the exercise give the farmer a tremendous appetite
for breakfast. The usual staple food consists of thick rashers of bacon
only just "done," so as to retain most of the fat, the surplus of which
is carefully caught on slices of bread. The town rasher is crisp,
curled, and brown, without a symptom of fat or grease. The farmer's
early rasher is to a town eye but half-done, bubbling with grease, and
laid on thick slices of bread, also saturated with the gravy. Sometimes
cold bacon is preferred, but it is almost always very fat. With this he
drinks a pint or so of fairly strong beer, and afterwards has a hunch of
bread and butter and a cup or two of tea. He is then well fortified for
the labour of the morning. This is the common breakfast of the
working-farmer, who is as much a labouring man as any cottager on his
farm, and requires a quantity