FARIN, or Ferm, (Firma), in Law, signifies a little country meillage or district, containing house or land, with other conveniences; hired, or taken by lease, either in writing, or parole, under a certain yearly rent. See Lease.
This in divers parts is differently termed: in the north, it is a tack; in Lancashire, fermetolt; in Essex, a wike, &c.
In the corrupted Latin, firma signified a place inclosed or shut in: whence, in some provinces, Menage observe, FARM
observes, they call cloferie, or clofure, what in others they call a farm. Add, that we find locare ad firmam, to signify to let to farm; probably on account of the fure hold the tenant here has in comparison of tenants at will.
Spelman and Skinner, however, choose to derive the word farm from the Saxon fearne, or feorme, that is, victus, "provision;" by reason the country people and tenants anciently paid their rents in victuals and other necessaries, which were afterwards converted into the payment of a sum of money. Whence a farm was originally a place that furnished its landlord with provisions. And among the Normans they still distinguished between farms that pay in kind, i.e., provisions, and those which pay in money; calling the former simply ferme, and the latter blanche ferme, "white farm."
Spelman shows, that the word firma, anciently signified not only what we now call a farm, but also a feast or entertainment, which the farmer gave the proprietor or landlord, for a certain number of days, and at a certain rate, for the lands he held of him. Thus fearne in the laws of King Canute is rendered by Mr Lambard, victus; and thus we read of reddere firmum unum noctis, and reidebat unum diem de firma; which denote provision for a night and day, the rents about the time of the conquest being all paid in provisions; which custom is said to have been first altered under King Henry I. We also say to farm duties, imposts, &c.
Culture of a FARM. See AGRICULTURE.
Farm, as connected with gardening, and susceptible of embellishment. See GARDENING.
In speculation, it might have been expected that the first essays of improvement should have been on a farm, to make it both advantageous and delightful; but the fact was otherwise; a small plot was appropriated to pleasure, the rest was reserved for profit only. And this may, perhaps, have been a principal cause of the vicious taste which long prevailed in gardens. It was imagined that a spot set apart from the rest should not be like them: the conceit introduced deviations from nature, which were afterwards carried to such an excess, that hardly any objects truly rural were left within the enclosure, and the view of those without was generally excluded. The first step, therefore, towards a reformation, was by opening the garden to the country, and that immediately led to assimilating them; but still the idea of a spot appropriated to pleasure only prevailed, and one of the latest improvements has been to blend the useful with the agreeable; even the ornamental farm was prior in time to the more rural; and we have at last returned to simplicity by force of refinement.
1. The ideas of pastoral poetry seem now to be the standard of that simplicity; and a place conformable to them is deemed a farm in its utmost purity. An allusion to them evidently enters into the design of the Leafores (A), where they appear so lovely as to endear the memory of their author; and justify the reputation of Mr Shentone, who inhabited, made, and celebrated the place: it is a perfect picture of his mind, simple, elegant, and amiable; and will always suggest a doubt, whether the spot inspired his verse, or whether, in the scenes which he formed, he only realized the pastoral images which abounded in his songs. The whole is in the same taste, yet full of variety; and, except in two or three trifles, every part is rural and natural. It is literally a grazing farm lying round the house; and a walk, as unaffected and as unadorned as a common field-path, is conducted through the several enclosures. But for a detail of the plan and scenery, as illustrative of the present subject, the reader is referred to the particular description of the Leafores published by the late Mr Dodley. We shall only take notice of one or two circumstances independent on the general delineation.
The art with which the divisions between the fields are diversified is one of them. Even the hedges are distinguished from each other: a common quickset fence is in one place the separation: in another, it is a lofty hedge-row, thick from the top to the bottom; in a third, it is a continued range of trees, with all their stems clear, and the light appearing in the intervals between their boughs, and the bushes beneath them; in others, these lines of trees are broken, a few groups only being left at different distances; and sometimes a wood, a grove, a coppice, or a thicket, is the apparent boundary, and by them both the shape and the style of the enclosures are varied.
The inscriptions, which abound in the place, are another striking peculiarity: they are well known and justly admired; and the elegance of the poetry, and the aptness of the quotations, atone for their length and their number. But, in general, inscriptions please no more than once: the utmost they can pretend to, except when their allusions are emblematical, is to point out the beauties, or describe the effects, of the spots they belong to; but those beauties and those effects must be very faint, which stand in need of the afflatus. Inscriptions, however, to commemorate a departed friend, are evidently exempt from the censure; the monuments would be unintelligible without them; and an urn, in a lonely grove, or in the midst of a field, is a favourite embellishment at the Leafores: they are indeed among the principal ornaments of the place; for the buildings are mostly mere seats, or little root-houses; a ruin of a priory is the largest, and that has no peculiar beauty to recommend it: but a multiplicity of objects are unnecessary in the farm; the country it commands is full of them; and every natural advantage of the place within itself has been discovered, applied, contrasted, and carried to the utmost perfection, in the purest taste, and with inexhaustible fancy.
Among the ideas of pastoral poetry which are here introduced, its mythology is not omitted: but the allusions are both to ancient and to modern fables; sometimes to the fairies; and sometimes to the naiads and muses. The objects also are borrowed partly from the scenes which this country exhibited some centuries ago, and partly from those of Arcadia: the priory,
(A) In Shropshire, between Birmingham and Stourbridge. priory, and a Gothic seat, still more particularly characterized by an inscription in obsolete language and the black letter, belong to the one; the urns, Virgil's obelisk, and a rustic temple of Pan, to the other. All these allusions and objects are indeed equally rural; but the images in an English and classical eclogue are not the same; each species is a distinct imitative character. Either is proper; either will raise the farm it is applied to above the ordinary level; and within the compass of the same place both may be introduced; but they should be separate: when they are mixed, they counteract one another; and no representation is produced of the times and countries they refer to. A certain district should therefore be allotted to each, that all the fields which belong to the respective characters may lie together, and the corresponding ideas be preserved for a continuance.
2. In such an assortment, the more open and polished scenes will generally be given to the Arcadian shepherd; and those in a lower degree of cultivation, will be thought more conformable to the manners of the ancient British yeomanry. We do not conceive that the country in their time was entirely cleared, or distinctly divided; the fields were surrounded by woods, not by hedges; and if a considerable tract of improved land lay together, it still was not separated into a number of inclosures. The subjects, therefore, proper to receive this character, are those in which cultivation seems to have encroached on the wild, not to have subdued it; as the bottom of a valley in corn, while the sides are still overgrown with wood; and the outline of that wood indented by the tillage creeping more or less up the hill. But a glade of grass, thus circumfused, does not peculiarly belong to the species; that may occur in a park or pastoral farm; in this, the pastures should rather border on a waste or common: if large, they may be broken by straggling bushes, thickets, or coppices; and the scattered trees should be befit with brambles and briars. All these are circumstances which improve the beauty of the place; yet appear to be only remains of the wild, not intended for embellishment. Such interruptions must, however, be less frequent in the arable parts of the farm; but there the opening may be divided into several lands, distinguished, as in common fields, only by different sorts of grain. These will sufficiently break the sameness of the space; and the tillage does not furnish a more pleasing scene, than such a space so broken, if the extent be moderate, and the boundary beautiful.
As much wood is essential to the character, a spot may easily be found, where turrets rising above the covert, or some arches seen within it, may have the resemblance of a castle or an abbey. The partial concealment is almost necessary to both; for to accord with the age, the buildings must seem to be entire; the ruins of them belong to later days: the disguise is, however, advantageous to them as objects; none can be imagined more picturesque, than a tower boomed in trees, or a cluster appearing between the stems and the branches. But the superstitions of the times furnish other objects which are more within compass: hermitages were then real; solitary chapels were common; many of the springs of the country being deemed holy wells, were distinguished by little Gothic domes built over them; and every hamlet had its crofs, even
this, when perfect, set on a little rustic pillar, and that raised upon a base of circular steps, may in some scenes be considerable: if a situation can be found for a Maypole, whence it would not obtrude itself on every view, that also might not be improper; and an ancient church, however unwelcome it may be when it breaks into the design of a park or a garden, in such a farm as this would be a fortunate accident: nor would the old yew in the church-yard be indifferent; it would be a memorial of the times when it was useful.
Many other objects, significant of the manners of our ancestors, might perhaps, upon recollection, occur; but these are amply sufficient for a place of considerable extent; and cottages must abound in every age and every country; they may therefore be introduced in different forms and positions. Large pieces of water are also particularly proper; and all the varieties of rills are consistent with every species of farm. From the concurrence of so many agreeable circumstances in this, be the force or the effect of the character what it may, a number of pleasing scenes may be exhibited either in a walk or riding, to be contrasted to those which in another part of the place may be formed on Arcadian ideas; or even to be substituted in their stead, if they are omitted.
3. A part may also be free from either of these imitative characters, and laid out in a common simple farm. Some of the greatest beauties of nature are to be found in the fields, and attend an ordinary state of cultivation: wood and water may there be exhibited in several forms and dispositions; we may enlarge or divide the inclosures; and give them such shapes and boundaries as we please; every one may be an agreeable spot; together, they may compose beautiful views; the arable, the pasture, and the mead, may succeed one another; and now and then a little wild may be intermixed without impropriety; every beauty, in short, which is not unusual in an inclosed country, whether it arises from neglect or improvement, is here in its place.
The buildings, also, which are frequent in such a country, are often beautiful objects; the church and the mansion are considerable: the farm-yard itself, if an advantageous situation be chosen for it; if the ricks, and the barns, and the out-houses, are ranged with any design to form them into groups, and if they are properly blended with trees; may be made a picturesque composition. Many of them may be detached from the group, and dispersed about the grounds: the dove-cot, or the dairy, may be separated from the rest; they may be elegant in their forms, and placed wherever they will have the best effect. A common barn, accompanied by a clump, is sometimes pleasing at a distance; a Dutch barn is so when near; and a hay-stack is generally an agreeable circumstance in any position. Each of these may be single; and besides these, all kinds of cottages are proper. Among so many buildings, some may be converted to other purposes than their construction denotes; and, whatever be their exterior, may within be made agreeable retreats, for refreshment, indulgence, or shelter.
With such opportunities of improvements, even to decoration within itself, and with advantages of prospect into the country about it, a simple farm may undoubtedly be delightful. It will be particularly acceptable ceptable to the owner, if it be close to his park or his garden; the objects which constantly remind him of his rank, impose a kind of constraint; and he feels himself relieved, by retiring sometimes from the splendor of a seat into the simplicity of a farm: it is more than a variety of scene; it is a temporary change of situation in life, which has all the charms of novelty, ease, and tranquility, to recommend it. A place, therefore, can hardly be deemed perfect, which is not provided with such a retreat. But if it be the whole of the place, it seems inadequate to the mansion: a visitor is disappointed; the master is dissatisfied; he is not sufficiently distinguished from his tenants; he misses the appendages incidental to his seat and his fortune; and is hurt at the similarity of his grounds with the country about them. A pastoral or an ancient farm is a little above the common level; but even these, if brought close up to the door, set the house in a field, where it always appears to be neglected and naked. Some degree of polish and ornament is expected in its immediate environs; and a garden, though it be but a small one, should be interposed between the mansion and any species of farm.
4. A sense of the propriety of such improvements about a seat, joined to a taste for the more simple delights of the country, probably suggested the idea of an ornamental farm, as the means of bringing every rural circumstance within the verge of a garden. This idea has been partially executed very often; but nowhere, perhaps, so completely, and to such an extent, as at Woburn farm, (near Weybridge in Surrey). The place contains 150 acres: of which near 35 are adorned to the highest degree; of the rest, about two-thirds are in pasture, and the remainder is in tillage. The decorations are, however, communicated to every part: for they are disposed along the sides of a walk, which, with its appendages, forms a broad belt round the grazing-grounds; and is continued, though on a more contracted scale, through the arable. This walk is properly garden; all within it is farm; the whole lies on the two sides of a hill, and on a flat at the foot of it: the flat is divided into corn fields; the pastures occupy the hill; they are surrounded by the walk, and crossed by a communication carried along the brow, which is also richly dressed, and which divides them into two lawns, each completely encompassed with garden.
These are in themselves delightful; the ground in both lies beautifully: they are diversified with clumps and single trees; and the buildings in the walk seem to belong to them. On the top of the hill is a large octagon structure; and, not far from it, the ruin of a chapel. To one of the lawns the ruin appears, on the brow of a gentle ascent, backed and grouped with wood; from the other is seen the octagon, upon the edge of a steep fall, and by the side of a pretty grove, which hangs down the declivity. The lawn is further embellished by a neat Gothic building; the former by the house, and the lodge at the entrance; and in both, other objects of less consequence, little seats, alcoves, and bridges, continually occur.
The buildings are not, however, the only ornaments of the walk; it is shut out from the country, for a considerable length of the way, by a thick and lofty hedge-row, which is enriched with woodbine, jessamine, and every odoriferous plant whose tendrils will entwine with the thicket. A path, generally of sand or gravel, is conducted in a waving line, sometimes close under the hedge, sometimes at a little distance from it; and the turf on either hand is diversified with little groups of shrubs, of firs, or the smaller trees, and often with beds of flowers: these are rather too profusely sown, and hurt the eye by their little-neatness; but then they replenish the air with their perfumes, and every gale is full of fragrance. In some parts, however, the decoration is more chaste; and the walk is carried between larger clumps of evergreens, thickets of deciduous shrubs, or still more considerably open plantations. In one place it is entirely simple, without any appendages, any gravel, or any sunk fence to separate it from the lawn; and is distinguished only by the richness of its verdure, and the nicety of its preservation. In the arable part it is also of greenward, following the direction of the hedges about the several inclosures: these hedges are sometimes thickened with flowering shrubs; and in every corner or vacant space, is a rosety, a close or an open clump, or a bed of flowers: but if the parterre has been rifled for the embellishment of the fields, the country has on the other hand been searched for plants new in a garden; and the shrubs and the flowers which used to be deemed peculiar to the one, have been liberally transferred to the other; while their number seems multiplied by their arrangement in so many and such different dispositions. A more moderate use of them would, however, have been better; and the variety more pleasing, had it been less licentious.
But the excess is only in the borders of the walk; the scenes through which it leads are truly elegant, everywhere rich, and always agreeable. A peculiar cheerfulness overspreads both the lawns, arising from the number and the splendor of the objects with which they abound, the lightness of the buildings, the inequalities of the ground, and the varieties of the plantations. The clumps and the groves, though separately small, are often massed by the perspective, and gathered into considerable groups, which are beautiful in their forms, their tints, and their positions. The brow of the hill commands two lovely prospects: the one gay and extensive, over a fertile plain, watered by the Thames, and broken by St Anne's Hill and Windsor Castle; a large mead, of the most luxuriant verdure, lies just below the eye, spreading to the banks of the river; and beyond it the country is full of farms, villas, and villages, and every mark of opulence and cultivation. The other view is more wooded: the steeples of a church, or the turrets of a seat, sometimes rise above the trees; and the bold arch of Walton bridge is there a conspicuous object, equally singular and noble. The inclosures on the flat are more retired and quiet; each is confined within itself; and altogether they form an agreeable contrast to the open exposure above them.
With the beauties which enliven a garden are everywhere intermixed many properties of a farm: both the lawns are pastured; and the lowings of the herds, the bleating of the sheep, and the tinklings of the bell-wringer, resound through all the plantations: even the clucking of poultry is not omitted; for a menagerie of a very simple design is placed near the Gothic building; a small ferpentine river is provided for the water-fowl; while the others stray among the flowering shrubs on the banks, or straggle about the neighbouring lawn: and the corn fields are the subjects of every rural employment which arable land from seed-time to harvest can furnish. But though so many of the circumstances occur, the simplicity of a farm is wanting; that idea is lost in such a profusion of ornament; a rusticity of character cannot be preserved amidst all the elegant decorations which may be lavished on a garden.