Morton's Hand Books of the Farm. 
 
 N°:IX. 
 
 La b u k 
 
 BY 
 
 J. C. Morton 
 
 Vinton & Co.. Ltd., 9, New Bridge Street, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 PROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 1891 
 
 •mm 
 
 AP47U m^ 
 
 ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY 
 New York State Colleges 
 
 OF 
 
 Agriculture and Home Economics 
 
 AT 
 
 Cornell University 
 
Cornell University Library 
 HD 1534.M88 
 
 Labour. 
 
 3 1924 014 486 132 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014486132 
 
HANDBOOK OF THE FAEM SEEIES. 
 
 Edited bt J. CHALMERS MORTON, 
 
 EDITOR OF THE " AaMODLTUBAL OTCLOPaJDIA ; " THE "AQKICTOLTURAL GAZETTE;" 
 
 THE " FABMER'B OAIiEHllAIl ; " THE " FARMER'S ALHANAO ,- " " HANDBOOK OF 
 
 THE DAIRY ; " " FARM liABODBEB," ETC. 
 
Morton's Handbooks of the Farm. 
 
 No. IX. 
 
 LABOUR. 
 
 BT 
 
 JOHN CHALMEE8 MOETON. 
 
 LONDON ; 
 VINTON & CO., Ltd., 9, NEW BBIDGE STEEET, E.O. 
 
The present Volume is one of a series discussing the Oultiva- 
 uon of the Farm, its Live Stock, and its Cultivated Plants, 
 Farm and Estate Equipment, Dairying, and Farm Labour, the 
 Chemistry of Agriculture, and the Processes of Animal and 
 Vegetable Life. Among the writers who aave been engaged on 
 them are Messrs. T. Bowick, W. Bubness, G. Muhbat, the late 
 W. T. Oabeington, the Rev. G- Gilbert, Messrs. James Lono, 
 J. Hill, Sandbes Spencer, and J. C. Morton, Professors (J. 
 T. Brown, J. Wortlbt-Axb, and J. Soott, the late Professor 
 James Buokman, Dr. Maxwell T. Masters, F.B.S., and Mr. 
 R. Warinqton, F.R.S., F.C.S. 
 
PEEFACE, 
 
 The following pages are virtually a new editiou 
 of a work on tlie same subject — ^published, first by 
 Messrs. Longman, twenty years ago, and afterwards 
 by Messrs. CasseU & Co. — which was founded on 
 two paj)ers : the one read before the Society of Arts, ■ 
 on "The Forces used in Agriculture," — the other 
 published in the Journal of the Koyal Agricultural 
 Society of England, on " The Cost of Horse Power." 
 The former discussed the economy of steam, water, 
 horse and hand-power on the farm ; the latter was 
 an elaborate study of all the elements on which the 
 value and the cost of the horse-labour of the farm 
 depend. And to these a quantity of detailed 
 calculation was added on the labour-cost of the 
 several crops of the farm. 
 
 The whole has now been carefully reconsidered 
 and much of it re-written, so that it may be a? 
 
VI I PREFACE. 
 
 true of the present date as it was when it originally 
 appeared ; and it is believed that its addition to the 
 Handbooks of the Farm which have already been 
 published, is necessary to the completeness of the 
 series. 
 
 It will be found that the latest census and 
 statistical returns have been used in the first 
 chapter which relates to the statistics of the 
 subject ; and we gladly acknowledge that for both 
 the tabular statements under this head, and the 
 comments on them, the reader is indebted to 
 Mr. Noel A. Humphries, of the General Register 
 Office, Somerset House. 
 
 J. C. M. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I 'HA p. 
 
 I. — kSTATISl'ICS 
 
 II. ^StEAM — WaI'B B — W (NU 
 
 III. — HOESB-POWEE . 
 
 IV. — The Labottrbr . 
 V. — Cost of Farm Operations 
 VI. — Calendar of Farm Laboitr 
 
 PAQE 
 
 1 
 22 
 
 is 
 n 
 
 97 
 137 
 
 INDEX 
 
 149 
 
LABOUE ON THE FARM, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 STATISTICS. 
 
 Labour on Light Soils. — On Medium Soils. — On Stifl Soils. — On Dairy 
 Farms. — National Statistics of Agricultural Labour. 
 
 It is proposed in this chapter, in the first place, to specify 
 the quantity of hand, horse, and steam power actually 
 employed on a number of known farms, selected so as to 
 be characteristic, as far as possible, of different soils and 
 different styles of management ; then to compare and 
 contrast these instances, so as to determine how much 
 horse and hand labour is employed per acre in good and 
 average agriculture ; and, lastly, to give such tables from 
 the latest returns of the population and their occupations 
 as may throw light upon the whole amount of farm labour 
 in the country. 
 
 Iiabonr on Light Soils. — I give two instances: — (1.) 
 My first is that of an extremely light- soil farm reclaimed from 
 Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. It varies from a 
 mere sand to a gravelly sand, in many places containing 
 boulders. Its character is indicated by the fact that a 
 
2 LABOTJB ON THE FARM. 
 
 day's ploughing is equ-al to one acre in the case of the 
 deepest work, and 1^ or even two acres in that of light 
 fallow ploughing — the average ploughing of all sorts being 
 about IJ acres daily, done in eight or nine hours — two 
 horses to a team. The extent of the land under cultiva- 
 tion is 930 acres, all arable ; 350 acres are in grain crops ; 
 350 are in one and two years' clover ; twenty acres are in 
 pulse crops; and 210 acres are in fallow crops, as turnip, 
 mangold-wurzel, &c. Twenty horses suffice for the 
 cultivation of the land, being one pair to every ninety 
 acres ; or, deducting the acreage in clover, one pair for 
 every fifty-six acres of land actually under the plough. 
 Steam power has latterly been employed, not ' only for 
 threshing out the corn, but for cultivation. The following 
 figures, however, refer to the labour of the farm under horse 
 cultivation. 
 
 The average number of persons constantly employed has 
 been twenty-four men and eighteen boys. This, however, 
 includes a foreman and a wheelwright. In July and 
 August extra hands ^re engaged in singling turnips and in 
 weeding. The wages paid during a selected year, deduct- 
 ing the wheelwright, were £1,245 12s. 2d. ; in the follow- 
 ing year, the wages paid were £1,147 8s. lid. The extra 
 harvest wages paid amounted, in the two years, to 
 £156 17s. Id., and £216 13s. 3d. respectively. The 
 average sum annually paid for hand labour amounted thus 
 to £1,383 5s. lid., or as nearly as possible, 30s. per acre. 
 
 (2.) My next instance is of comparatively light fen land, 
 in the county of Cambridge. The following are the par- 
 ticulars given me of a farm near Chatteris. The soil is very 
 light and non-adhesive ; a character, however, which it is 
 gradually losing by lapse of time, for many fen farmers 
 
STATISTICS. 3 
 
 break up a good deal of their clean fallow lands with four 
 or six horses to a large plough, bringing up the subsoil, 
 which is clay, and mixing it up with the top soil. They 
 then plough from ten to fourteen inches deep; but the 
 usual depth of ploughing is, for wheat, five or six inches ; 
 and on the higher lands they cultivate from six to eight 
 or nine inches deep. Two horses easily plough five roods 
 a day on the fen ; on the high lands early in the season 
 two horses will plough from three to four roods per day ; 
 but in winter and spring, when the land gets wet and 
 sticks a good deal, they usually plough with three horses 
 at length, to avoid treading ; and they plough three roods 
 daily. 
 
 The farm consisted of 900 acres of plough land and 120 
 acres of pasture ; 450 acres were in grain crops ; 150 in 
 clover ; 65 in pulse (beans, peas, &c.) ; and 235 in fallow 
 crops (turnips, mangolds, rape). The horses numbered 
 twenty-nine — a pair for every sixty-two acres of arable 
 land, or, taking clovers out, one pair for every fifty-two 
 acres of actually ploughed land. The hands regularly 
 employed were about thirty men throughout the year, be- 
 sides women and boys, of whom there are fewer now than 
 used formerly to be available. Of this number, -six men 
 during winter, not so many in summer, were employed at 
 piecework. Extra hands were employed during harvest time, 
 but at no other period. The wages paid amount to £1,660 
 a year ; and it is to be taken into account, as affecting the 
 amount of labour, that forty acres of potatoes were grown 
 as one of the fallow crops, and that weeding on fen lands is 
 an expensive item. This amount, deducting 5s. an acre for 
 the pastures, is 34s. per acre over the whole of the arable 
 land, or 41s. 6d. per acre over the land actually ploughed. 
 
 b2 
 
4 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 The use of steam powef on these farms had been confined 
 to the work of threshing out the grain. 
 
 Labour on Medium Soils. — (1.) My first instance is 
 that of a small farm, wholly arable, in Gloucestershire. It 
 consists of 260 acres of a soil varying from a light and 
 shallow stony brash over limestone rock to a somewhat 
 clayey loam. There is a fixed steam-engine of about six- 
 horse power, by which all the threshing is done, and seven 
 horses did all the horse work of the farm during the time 
 I knew it ; and as all the root crops were carried home, 
 and only one-eighth part of the arable land was in clover, 
 the labour of cultivation was very heavy. It was, indeed, 
 equal to seventy-four acres of arable land, or about sixty- four 
 acres, deducting the portion in clover, to each pair. I 
 have the labour account of this farm for three years, during 
 which the wages had averaged about i!700, varying from 
 M9 and £10 a-week during winter, to £14 and £15 during 
 spring and summer, and £20 to £40 during harvest. Ten 
 men during winter, and thirteen or fourteen in summer, 
 with as many as fourteen or fifteen women and boys during 
 the spring and summer season, and three or four during 
 winter, were constantly employed. The wages were to a 
 great extent paid by the piece : as much as £200 out of 
 £700 were thus paid. On the whole it amounted to nearly 
 54s. per acre, one of the largest expenditures in ordinary 
 arable farming which I have known. (2.) The following 
 particulars relate to a first-class arable farm in East 
 Lothian: — Its 650 acres employed twenty-one work horses 
 or one pair for every sixty-two acres, which, deducting 120 
 acres of clover, is equal to one for about every fifty acres of 
 land actually under the plough. No fewer than eighty acres 
 
STATISTICS. 
 
 each year in potatoes no doubt had considerable influence 
 on the manual labour bill. Eeaping machines enabled the 
 tenant to dispense with the labour of thirty or forty people 
 during harvest time. The labour of this farm must cost 
 at least ^1,200 a-year, or nearly 40s. per acre. (3.) On a 
 farm in Oxfordshire of 300 acres, 100 of which are meadow 
 and the remainder gravel, clay, and clay loam, twenty-five 
 acres being in clover, seven horses were employed, being a 
 pair for every fifty-seven acres of arable, or for every fifty 
 of ploughed land. Fourteen men, five boys, and four 
 women, were employed throughout the year. All the farm 
 work, harvest included, was done by the regular hands, the 
 land being of such various character as to bring the harvest 
 in at various periods so as to be easily manageable. The 
 labour bill here must be at least £450 a-year ; or, deduct- 
 ing 5s. an acre for th^ pastures, upwards of 40s. an acre. 
 (4.) Of two large farms near Lechlade, Wiltshire, I had 
 particulars of the labour annually employed. They included 
 no less than 2,000 acres of arable land, and 430 of pasture ; 
 and the following were the hands employed in July and in 
 November respectively : — 
 
 Men and Lads with Teams 
 
 Do. do. „ Sheep 
 
 Do. do. „ Cattle 
 
 Do. Labourers 
 
 Women 
 
 July. 
 
 Novemter. 
 
 51 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 53 
 
 61 
 
 40 
 14 
 11 
 45 
 
 25 
 
 This will represent an average employment of 95 men, 
 20 boys, and 40 women throughout the year. The labour 
 bill cannot fall short of ^£3,200 a year, or 32s. an acre on 
 the arable land. 
 
6 lABOUE ON THE FARM. 
 
 The horses employed on these farms, previous to the 
 adoption of steam power for cultivation, were forty- three in 
 number, with seven teams of oxen. If these oxen be put, 
 as equal to thirteen horsep, we shall have twenty-eight pairs 
 to 2,000 acres of arable land, one to every 71 acres, 
 or thereabouts ; or, deducting about 500 acres of clover and 
 some fern, a pair to every fifty-three acres of actually 
 ploughed land. 
 
 I^abonr on Stiff Soils. — (1.) On a farm of 590 acres 
 of arable land, sixty-five acres of water meadow, and 160 
 acres of down-land, in Wiltshire, the labour bill amounted 
 to about £1,170 a year, which, deducting for pasture-land, 
 was about 38s. an acre. This paid for thirty-one men, 
 seventeen boys, and fourteen women and girls. Of the 
 590 arable acres, 120 were in clover or other artificial 
 grass ; 120 in roots or other summer and autumn food ; 
 and 350 acres in corn, including turnip seed. (2.) On a 
 clay land farm of 520 acres arable, and 200 acres pasture, 
 there were employed, with slight variations, thirty men, 
 seven women, and twelve boys, throughout the year, with 
 seventy additional men for three weeks during harvest 
 time. Twenty-four horses were employed, which was a pair 
 for every forty-three acres of the arable land, until steam 
 power was employed in cultivation. Since then, one' 
 third (eight) less are needed from the termination of 
 wheat sowing till the commencement of harvest ; but the 
 other part of the year (i.e. during harvest and during 
 autumn cultivation, of which, even with the aid of steam 
 enough cannot be done) gives work for as many horses as 
 ever ; so the difficulty was met in this way — four horses 
 were parted with, and from the others four to six colts 
 
STATISTICS. 7 
 
 were annuaHy bred, the foals are weaned early, the mares 
 being brought to work again just when they are wanted. 
 The labour of the farm, calculated at ordinary wages, must 
 cost £1,200 a year, which, after deducting for the pasture- 
 land, is at least £2 4s. per acre. 
 
 The Lalionr on Dairy Farms may be represented 
 by examples in Cheshire : — (1.) Mr. John Lea, of Staple- 
 ford Hall, near Tarvin, occupies 288 acres, of which 104 
 are arable — for the most part light land. The horse work 
 is done by six horses, and the hand labour is done by two 
 cowmen, receiving £18 a-piece and their board, two 
 carters, receiving £15 a-piece and their board, two other 
 men at 15s. per week, one old man at 12s. a week ; also 
 one dairy-woman at £16, two girls at £10 and £4, two boys 
 at £9 and £8 respectively, all these being boarded in the 
 house. And besides this, there is an extra expenditure of 
 £17 10s. during the hay-harvest, £10 9s. 6d. during the 
 corn-harvest, and £30 during the potato-harvest ; and, 
 making a fair allowance for the cost of boarding so many 
 in the house, it appears that the total labour-bill comes to 
 about £410, or close on 32s. an acre, which seems to 
 be a heavy cost, considering the proportion of the grass- 
 land. 
 
 (2.) Mr. Thomas Parton, of Chorlton Farm, near Crewe, 
 occupies 166 acres, half arable. The ploughed fields are a 
 light soil, the pastures heavy. The farm is worked by four 
 horses; and the following is a list of the labourers 
 employed : — One waggoner, receiving 15s. a week, with £1 
 at harvest-time ; one man at £24 a year, living and board- 
 ing in the farm-house ; three boys at £5 to £15 a year 
 also boarding in the house ; and three girls at £12, £10, 
 
8 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 and £5 respectively, who also live in the house. Other 
 labour, some of it occasional, amounted in 1884 to £48 
 15s. ; and there was £6 18s. extra spent on the potato 
 harvest. The wages paid amount to £162 13s., and adding 
 board and cottage hire together, it is probable this repre- 
 sents an outlay of £240 per annum, or about 29s. an acre. 
 
 (3.) Mr. Fearnall, of Royton, near Wrexham, holds 342 
 acres, of which 55 acres of light land are arable. The 
 labour of the farm is done by three horses ; and there are 
 three colts, two nags, and a pony besides. No fewer than 
 six men and boys are boarded in the house. There are 
 also two girls ; and the son and daughter who help. The 
 money payment for wages comes to only £163, but board 
 added would probably amount to £300 in all, the labour of 
 the family not included. 
 
 (4.) Mr. Robinson, at Lea Green, Church MinshuU, has 
 250 acres in occupation, of which less than 80 are arable. 
 This is worked by five horses, two of them brood mares. 
 The hand-labour of the farm is done by one cowman, two 
 carters, and two labourers ; and of these — ^two men, besides 
 two dairy-women, and one girl and a boy, are boarded in 
 the house. The money-wages include £15 extra payment 
 during hay-harvest, £18 during potato -harvest, and £19 
 during corn-harvest, and amount in all to £200 ; and if the 
 cost of boarding servants in the house be added, it is pro- 
 bable that the whole expenditure on labour is £300 a year, 
 or 24s. an acre. It will be observed that the labour on 
 these farms is a great deal more than 5s. an acre for the 
 pasture land, with the work of the arable land added to 
 it. This arises from the expenditure in the dairy, or con- 
 nected with it ; and in the first of our cases, that of Staple- 
 ford Hall, also to some extent from the cost of garden work. 
 
STATISTICS. 
 
 9 
 
 There is a garden nearly 3 acres in extent, which yields a 
 produce of £100 a year, not to be obtained without expen- 
 sive labour. 
 
 Average Quantity of Labour Employed.— Let us in 
 
 the first place tabulate the results already obtained. 
 
 
 
 Extent in Acrea. 
 
 . 
 
 Hand 
 
 s 
 
 
 Acres to each 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wages 
 
 per 
 Acre of 
 
 
 No. 
 
 
 Arable. 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ■d 
 
 i. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 IS 
 
 AraWe, 
 deducting 
 
 3t) 
 
 Inl 
 
 Is, 
 
 =f rr 
 
 
 ti 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 > 
 
 & 
 
 
 U 
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
 6s. for 
 Pasture. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 EhO 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 
 
 M^ 
 
 \l 
 
 210 
 
 350 
 
 350 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 28 
 
 — 
 
 22 
 
 1383 
 
 30 
 
 90 
 
 66 
 
 20 
 
 235 
 
 515 
 
 160 
 
 120 
 
 29 
 
 30 
 
 12 
 
 15 
 
 1660 
 
 34 
 
 62 
 
 52 
 
 16 
 
 
 c 
 
 70 
 
 160 
 
 30 
 
 — 
 
 7 
 
 12 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 700' 
 
 54 
 
 74 
 
 64 
 
 20 
 
 ||2 
 
 ]' 
 
 430 
 
 120 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 26 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 1200? 
 
 40 
 
 62 
 
 30 
 
 16? 
 
 H* 
 
 (^ 
 
 SO 
 
 125 
 
 25 
 
 100 
 
 7 
 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 450? 
 
 40 
 
 57 
 
 30 
 
 14 
 
 
 w 
 
 566 
 
 946 
 
 492 
 
 430 
 
 56 
 
 95 
 
 40 
 
 20 
 
 3200? 
 
 32 
 
 71 
 
 53 
 
 10 
 
 lis 
 
 j' 
 
 120 
 
 350 
 
 120 
 
 225 
 
 28 
 
 31 
 
 14 
 
 17 
 
 1170 
 
 38 
 
 42 
 
 33 
 
 9 
 
 M°° 
 
 i^ 
 
 120 
 
 280 
 
 120 
 
 200 
 
 20 34 
 
 7 
 
 12 
 
 1200? 
 
 44 
 
 52* 
 
 40 
 
 12 
 
 The reader may be left to extract for himself what 
 information the table can convey. It will, however, be right 
 to say, that our first instance of a medium-soil farm must 
 be considered as altogether exceptional ; a very unusual 
 proportion of the land was in laborious fallow crop, and 
 not only was the quantity of hand labour unusually large, 
 but the quantity of horse labour was unusually small. The 
 horse labour of these farms amounts, on the average, to one 
 pair for every sixty-five acres of arable land, or for every 
 forty-nine acres of actually ploughed land. It will be found 
 * On this farm much of the cultivation has heen done by the Steam Plough. 
 
10 
 
 LABOim ON THE FARM. 
 
 that, deducting 5s. an acre for the area in pasture, the 
 wages paid over the whole area are equal to about 35s. per 
 acre of arable land. 
 
 It must be remembered by any who would apply these 
 results over any great extent of country, in order to ascer- 
 tain the quantity of our agricultural labour, that the farms 
 quoted are much above the average, as regards the enter- 
 prise and wealth of their occupants; and, therefore, no 
 doubt in some cases much above the average as regards the 
 force employed in their cultivation. 
 
 We give also the circumstances of the four dairy farms, 
 already referred to, as nearly as we can in the same tabulaif 
 as has been adopted above. 
 
 
 
 ■a 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 Extent in 
 
 M 
 
 Hand Laeoub. 
 
 
 Acres pkk 
 
 1 
 
 Acres. 
 
 1 
 
 
 Wages 
 
 Paie of Hobses. 
 
 
 
 ^ . 
 
 
 
 U 
 
 §■ 
 
 B 
 
 i;B 
 
 per 
 Acre. 
 
 
 
 
 Arable. 
 
 Pasture. 
 
 W 
 
 M 
 
 ^ 
 
 g3 
 
 
 Arable. 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 104 
 
 184 
 
 6 
 
 7- 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 32 
 
 35 
 
 96 
 
 2 
 
 82 
 
 84 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 6 
 
 29 
 
 41 
 
 ' 83 
 
 3 
 
 55 
 
 286 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 17 6 
 
 36 
 
 228 
 
 i 
 
 78 
 
 172 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 24 
 
 31 
 
 100 
 
 It must be taken into the account in all these instances, 
 and especially in one or two of them, that the labour of the 
 farm, including that of the dairy, is often to a considerable 
 extent done by the farmer's own family, and some of it thus 
 does not come into the account of wages paid. This is espe- 
 cially the case in Mr. Fearnall's case (3), of which, as well 
 as of the others, a further account will be found in the 
 Journal of the Royal Agricultwral Society of England, vol. 
 xxii., Second Series. 
 
STATISTICS. 
 
 11 
 
 Ifational Statistics of Agricnltnial Occnpatiou. — 
 
 For the following paragraph and tables, I am indebted to 
 Mr. Noel A. Humphreys, of the General Eegister Office, 
 Somerset House. 
 
 The census statistics for 1881, show that the entire 
 enumerated population of England and Wales, in that year 
 numbered 25,974,439 persons, of whom 12,639,902 were 
 males, and 13,334,537 were females. The occupation 
 tables in the census report show that 1,214,453 males, and 
 64,171 females, in all 1,278,624 persons were returned as 
 engaged in agriculture. In the following table are given 
 in detail the numbers returned under the several headings 
 of the classification of occupations in the agyioultural class 
 adopted for the purpose of the census report. 
 
 Table I. — Persons enoagbd in Aoeiculttteb, 1881. 
 
 Persons. 
 
 Males. 
 
 Females. 
 
 Persons engaged in Agriculture . . 
 
 I. In Fields and Pastv/res. 
 Farmer Grazier . . . . 
 Farmer's, Grazier's Son, &e. 
 
 Farm Bailiff 
 
 Agricultural Labourer, &c. . . . 
 
 Shepherd 
 
 Land Drainage Service . . . 
 Agricultural Machine — Proprietor, 
 
 Attendant 
 
 Agricultural Student PupU . 
 Others 
 
 II. In Woods. 
 Woodman 
 
 III. — In Gardens. 
 Nurseryman, Seedsman, Florist 
 Gardener (not domestic) . . . 
 
 1,278,624 
 
 223,943 
 75,197 
 19,377 
 
 847,954 
 
 22,844 
 
 1,695 
 
 4,260 
 728 
 838 
 
 8,151 
 
 7,755 
 66,882 
 
 1,214,453 
 
 203,329 
 
 75,197 
 
 19,377 
 
 807,608 
 
 22,844 
 
 1,695 
 
 4,222 
 728 
 763 
 
 8,151 
 
 7,021 
 63,518 
 
 64,171 
 20,614 
 40,346 
 
 38 
 75 
 
 734 
 
12 • LABOUR OU THE FARM 
 
 The census report tells us that after due allowance for 
 certain differences hetween the systems of occupational 
 classification used in 1871 and in 1881, the total numher 
 of persons engaged in the cultivation of farm lands, in- 
 cluding woods and gardens, showed in 1881 a decline 
 of 9*3 per cent, from the numher in 1871, although the 
 entire population had increased hy 14'4 per cent.* 
 
 It will he interesting, with the help of the census report, 
 to analyse this decline between 1871 and 1881 in the 
 numbers engaged ia agriculture. To begin with the 
 number of farmers and graziers, which was 249,907 in 1871, 
 and had fallen to 223,943 in 1881, a decrease which was 
 equal to 10'4 per cent. It appears that in 1871 " retired 
 farmers " were counted as farmers, which was not the case 
 in 1881 ; by careful examination, however, it was found 
 that the extreme effect of this change of system was two per 
 cent., there can therefore be no doubt about the actuality of 
 a very considerable decline in the number of farmers. 
 These figures probably point to two facts ; (1) the aggre- 
 gation of farms into fewer holdings, and (2) the sur- 
 rendering of farms by tenant farmers, and their cultivation 
 by the owner or his bailiff. The census report throws no 
 light upon the first of these suggested explanations of the 
 recent decline in the number of farmers, as no figures are 
 
 * In an elaborate and laborious paper recently read before the Statistical 
 Society on the " Occupations of the People," Mr. Oharles Booth attempts 
 to estimate, upon bases that are not altogether satisfactory, the niimbei-s 
 and proportions of the English population dependent upon different 
 classes of occupation at each of the last five censuses. He estimates that the 
 proportion of the population dependent upon agriculture in all its branches 
 was 24-3 per cent, in 1841, 237 in 1851, 20-9 in 1861, 16-5 in 1871, and 
 that in 1881 it had further declined to 13'2 per cent., or Uttle more than 
 half the proportion in 1841. 
 
STATISTICS. 13 
 
 given bearing upon the sizes of farm-holdings. As regards 
 the second suggested cause, however, this receives some 
 corroboration from the marked increase in the number of 
 farm bailiffs, which did not exceed 16,476 in 1871, but had 
 risen to 19,377 in 1881, showing an increase nearly equal 
 to 18 per cent. 
 
 In dealing with the enumerated numbers of agricultural 
 labourers, it should always be borne in mind that in the 
 census schedules there is considerable confusion between 
 agricultural and other kinds of labourers. More than half 
 a million persons were returned under the heading " general 
 labourer" at each of the last two censuses in 1871 and 1881. 
 A large number of these were described in the schedules 
 simply as labourer, and of these an unknown number were 
 probably agricultural labourers. In the census report for 
 1881, however, we are told that the attention of the census 
 enumerators was especially called to the importance of a 
 definite description in the schedule of the kind of labour 
 in which persons were employed, and that on this 
 account it is fair to assume that the return of the agri- 
 cultural labourers was more complete in 1881, than at any 
 previous census, and that at any rate they were fully as 
 complete in 1881 as in 1871. Now it appears from the 
 returns that the number of agricultural labourers, indoor 
 servants, and shepherds, including those described simply 
 as cottagers, enumerated in 1871 was 981,988, or after 
 correction for the retired or superanuated labourers then 
 included, they may be taken as 962,348, whereas in 1881, 
 they had dechned.to 870,798. This decline was equal to 
 nearly ten per cent., whereas, as before stated the popu- 
 lation had increased in the ten years by more than 14 per 
 cent. It may be noted, moreover, that the enumerated 
 
14 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 numbers of sons, grandsons, brothers, and nephews of 
 farmers, returned as living with farmers, without any 
 stated definite occupation, who may be assumed to have 
 been engaged in farm work, had also declined from 76,466 
 in 1871, to 75,197 in 1881. 
 
 In seeking an explanation for this marked decline in the 
 number of agricultural labourers, it is pointed out that it 
 cannot be attributed to a decrease in the amount of land 
 under cultivation, as the agricultural returns show that the 
 total number of acres of arable and pasture land in 1881 
 exceeded that in 1871 by 1,126,423, or 4-28 per cent. It 
 appears, however, that during this period of ten years, the 
 amount of arable land showed a decline of very nearly a 
 million acres, while the amount of land under permanent 
 pasture had increased by more than two million acres. 
 The extent of the influence of this reduction of arable land, 
 (coincidently with more than twice the amount of increase 
 of permanent pasture) upon the amount of labour em- 
 ployed in the cultivation of land remains, however, an open 
 question. 
 
 As having a probable, and at any rate a possible bearing 
 upon the decline in the number of agricultural labourers, 
 the increase in the number of persons returned as employed 
 in connection with agricultural machinery calls for notice. 
 The number of such persons, including those said to be 
 proprietors of, as well as the attendants upon, agricultural 
 machines, which was but 2,160 in 1871, had become 
 4,260 in 1881 : that is, had more than doubled, indicating 
 a considerable substitution of machine for hand labour. 
 
 There are, therefore, two suggestions in part explanation 
 of the marked decline in the number of agricultural 
 labourers^ notwithstanding the increase of total land under 
 
STATISTICS. 15 
 
 cultivation, between 1871 and 1881 ; (1) the increase of 
 permanent pasture at the expense of arable land, and (2) 
 the increasing substitution of machine for hand labour. 
 In connection with these two suggestions, the census report 
 points out that in 1871 the proportion of enumerated 
 agricultural labourers of all classes was equal to 3 "95 to 
 each 100 acres of land-under cultivation ; in 1881 this pro- 
 portion had declined to 3"45, the decrease being equal to 
 rather more than one labourer to each 800 acres. 
 
 The number of persons described as woodmen, which 
 had been 8,907 in 1S61 and 7,855 in 1871, had increased 
 again in 1881 to 8,151. There is probably some confusion 
 in the use of the word "woodman " as an occupation in 
 the census schedule, which may account, in part at any 
 rate, for the fluctuation in these numbers : but that the 
 number of persons actually engaged in woods and forests 
 in England is declining need cause no surprise, and may be 
 regarded as the natural result of the constantly declining 
 area devoted to this kind of cultivation. 
 
 The third sub-division of the agricultural class in the 
 census classification of occupations is devoted to those en- 
 gaged in the cultivation of gardens, and includes market 
 gardeners, nurserymen, seedsmen, florists, and all gardeners 
 not domestic. The census figures appear to show that the 
 number of market gardeners, that is of gardeners not 
 domestic, had declined from 98,069 in 1871 to 65,882 in 
 1881, whereas the number returned as nurserymen, seeds- 
 men, and florists, increased from 5,495 in 1871 to 7,755 in 
 1881. There can be no reasonable doubt about the great 
 development of the trading interests of the nurserymen 
 and florists during the ten years preceding the last census ; 
 and therefore the recorded increase of persons occupied in 
 
16 LABOUE ON THE FARM. 
 
 this trade is more likely to be correct than the recorded de- 
 cline in the numbers of gardeners not domestic, that is of 
 persons employed in market gardens, or in gardens culti- 
 vated by nurserymen and florists. Now the number of 
 domestic gardeners, that is of persons engaged upon the 
 cultivation of private gardens (who belong to quite a dif- 
 ferent occupational class), appear to have increased from 
 18,688 in 1871 to 74,648 in 1881. It is evident therefore 
 that between gardeners domestic and not domestic there is 
 a somewhat similar confusion in the census returns to that, 
 already referred to, between agricultural labourers and 
 general labourers. The census report points out that in 
 the classification of occupations in 1871 a pereon who re- 
 turned himself in the census schedule simply as a gardener 
 was classed as gardener, not domestic, on the assumption 
 that an undefined gardener was the more likely to be a 
 market gardener ; whereas in 1881 an undefined gardener 
 was classed as domestic gardener. In order, therefore, to 
 make any useful comparison between the number of persons 
 employed in gardening in 1871 and 1881, it is necessary 
 to include domestic gardeners with those returned at each 
 census as employed in gardens, together with nurserymen, 
 seedsmen, and florists. 
 
 These, the census report tells us, amounted to 122,255i 
 in 1871, or after correction for those described as " retired " 
 to 119,807, whereas in 1881 they had increased to 148,285, 
 the increase being equal to 24 per cent., the increase in the 
 general population having been little more than 14 per cent. 
 These figures, probably, approximately represent the 
 increase of garden cultivation in England and Wales, and 
 certainly afi'ord a fair approximation to the increase in the 
 number of persons engaged therein. 
 
STATISTICS. 17 
 
 Table II. — Ages of Persons engaged in Ageioultukb, 1881. 
 
 
 All Ages. 
 
 Under 15. 
 
 15 + 
 
 25 + 
 
 45 + 
 
 65 and 
 upwards. 
 
 Persons . 
 
 1,278,624 
 
 72,221 
 
 345,280 
 
 389,537 
 
 343,422 
 
 128,164 
 
 Males. . 
 
 1,214,453 
 
 70,095 
 
 329,073 
 
 374,958 
 
 322,745 
 
 117,582 
 
 Females . 
 
 64,171 
 
 2,126 
 
 16,207 
 
 14,579 
 
 20,677 
 
 10,582 
 
 The above table shows the ages of the million and a 
 quarter persons returned, at the census in 1881, as engaged 
 in all branches of agriculture, and also separately of the 
 males and females so returned, in five age-periods. Of 
 the total male population of aU ages, 96 in a thousand were 
 returned as engaged in agriculture, whereas not quite 5 in 
 1000 of the female /population were so returned. It 
 appears that of males employed in agriculture, 14 per cent, 
 were between 15 and 25, 12 per cent, between 25 and 45, 
 18 per cent, between 45 and 65, and 22 per cent, of those 
 aged upwards of 65 years. The percentages of females 
 so returned at the last census were 7 per cent, between 15 
 and 25, 4 per cent, between 25 and 45, 11 per cent, 
 between 45 and 65, and 16 per cent, among those aged 
 upwards of 65 years. 
 
 Before closing this notice of the figures in the last 
 census report bearing upon the employment of the English 
 population in the various branches of agriculture, it may be 
 interesting to consider the variations in the proportional 
 numbers of persons so occupied in the several counties of 
 England and Wales. In the whole country, as appears 
 from the following table, of each 1000 persons enumerated, 
 of all ages, 53 were returned as engaged in agriculture. 
 
18 
 
 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 Table III. — Peopobtionai. Disteibution ot AGKictrLTtrRAL Occu- 
 pation IN THB SEVERAL EeGISTEATION COUNTIES OP ENGLAND 
 
 AND Wales, 1881. 
 
 1 
 
 Persons 
 
 
 Persons 
 
 
 engaged in 
 
 
 engaged in 
 
 Comities. 
 
 Agriculture to 
 
 Comities. 
 
 Agriculjnire to 
 
 
 1000 Persons 
 
 
 1000 Persons 
 
 
 Euumeiated, 
 
 
 Enumerated. 
 
 IEngland & Wales . 
 
 53 
 
 Hertfordshire . . 
 
 108 
 
 
 
 Shropshire 
 
 111 
 
 England : — 
 
 
 Berkshire . . . 
 
 111 
 
 Lancashire 
 
 18 
 
 Buckinghamshire . 
 
 113 
 
 Durham . 
 
 19 
 
 Westmoreland . . 
 
 117 
 
 West Eiding . 
 
 28 
 
 Bedfordshire . 
 
 119 
 
 Staffordshire . . 
 
 28 
 
 Dorsetshire 
 
 120 
 
 Middlesex (Extra 
 
 
 Oxfordshire . 
 
 124 
 
 1 Metn.) 
 
 30 
 
 Wiltshire . . . 
 
 131 
 
 1 Warwickshire . . 
 
 37 
 
 Norfolk 
 
 133 
 
 Monmouthshire 
 
 43 
 
 Suffolk . 
 
 142 
 
 Derbyshire . . 
 
 44 
 
 Lincolnshire . 
 
 143 
 
 Nottinghamshire . 
 
 49 
 
 Herefordshire . . 
 
 149 
 
 Cheshire . . . 
 
 50 
 
 Cambridgeshire 
 
 156 
 
 Northumberland . 
 
 50 
 
 Rutlandshire . . 
 
 158 
 
 Surrey (Extra Met.) 
 
 51 
 
 Huntingdonshire , 
 
 169 
 
 Gloucestershire 
 
 58 
 
 
 
 Worcestershire . . 
 
 60 
 
 Wales :— 
 
 
 Leicestershire 
 
 60 
 
 Glamorganshire . . 
 
 22 
 
 Hampshire . 
 
 67 
 
 Flintshire 
 
 65 
 
 East Eiding . . 
 
 73 
 
 Carnarvonshire . . 
 
 82 
 
 ■ CSnmberland . 
 
 76 
 
 Denbighshire . 
 
 92 
 
 Kent (Extra Met) . 
 
 78 
 
 Carmarthenshire . 
 
 99 
 
 Devonshire . 
 
 86 
 
 Pembrokeshire . . 
 
 109 
 
 1 Sussex . . . 
 
 87 
 
 Merionethshire 
 
 110 
 
 : Essex 
 
 89 
 
 Brecknockshire . . 
 
 119 
 
 North Eiding . . 
 
 89 
 
 Anglesey 
 
 140 
 
 Somersetshire 
 
 90 
 
 Cardiganshire . . 
 
 149 
 
 Northamptonshire . 
 
 / 92 
 
 Montgomeryshire . 
 
 153 
 
 Gomwall 
 
 107 
 
 Radnorshire . 
 
 190 
 
 Note. — TAe Counties are ranged in the order of fheir Proportions of 
 Agricultural Occupation, from the lowest. 
 
 Excluding those parts of the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, 
 and Kent, on which the metropolis, or Registration London 
 stands, and in which only 6 per thousand of the population 
 were returned as engaged in agricultural pursuits, the 
 
STATISTICS. 19 
 
 smallest proportional numbers of persons so engaged were 
 18 per 1000 in Lancashire, 19 in Durham, 28 in the West 
 Eiding of Yorkshire and in Staffordshire, and 30 in the 
 extra- metropolitan portion of Middlesex. The largest pro- 
 portional numbers of persons engaged in agriculture were 
 142 per 1000 in Suffolk, 143 in Lincohishire, 149 in 
 Herefordshire, 156 in Cambridgeshire, 158 in Rutlandshire, 
 and 169 in Huntingdonshire. In the registration counties 
 of Wales, those proportional numbers ranged from 22 in 
 Glamorganshire, 55 in Flintshire, and 82 in Carnarvon- 
 shire, to 149 in Cardiganshire, 153 in Montgomeryshire, 
 and 190 in Eadnorshire. These figures undoubtedly 
 afford trustworthy indications of the relative importance of 
 agriculture as a means of subsistence in the various 
 counties of England and Wales. 
 
 We add here to the above statement, for which we have 
 to thank Mr. Humphreys, that the agricultural statistics 
 of Great Britain for 1886 give much interesting informa- 
 tion on the subject of allotments for labourers, as to which, 
 however, we can here only report the main facts, viz., that 
 there are 894,317 such allotments in Great Britain, of 
 which 389,067 are in England and Wales, 134,932 being 
 under 20 perches apiece — 357,795 in all being under one acre 
 each, and 36,722 varying between one and four acres each. 
 
 Agricultural Statistics as indicating Employment 
 for AgricTdtnral I^abourers. — The following figures give 
 the latest agricultural statistics (1886). They are con- 
 fined to such particulars as may illustrate the subject of 
 farm labour, giving the acreage of corn crops and green 
 crops, and of grass respectively, in the several divisions of 
 
 the country. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 
 England. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 Scotland. 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Total Of 
 
 United ; 
 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Estimated Population (1886). 
 
 ^ 
 
 3,949,393. 
 
 4,887,439. 
 
 36,707,418. 
 
 27,870,686. 
 
 
 
 Total acreage (land & water^ 
 
 Total acreage agrioultQ-) 
 
 rally occupied . . | 
 
 32,697,398 
 24,915,263 
 
 4,721,823 
 2,822,422 
 
 19,460,978 
 4,853,532 
 
 20,819,947 
 16,211,175 
 
 77,799,798 
 47,932,239 
 
 Com' crop (total acreage) . 
 Crreen crop ditto . . 
 Bare fallow ditto 
 Clover ditto , . 
 Permanent Pasture . 
 
 6,460,845 
 2,696,968 
 620,845 
 2,768,389 
 12,410,986 
 
 448,927 
 
 122,289 
 
 17,480 
 
 319,240 
 
 1,914,280 
 
 1,361,173 
 
 661,253 
 
 14,573 
 
 1,606,571' 
 
 1,209,813. 
 
 1,590,667 
 
 1,221,176 
 
 17,037 
 
 12,264,430 
 
 9,878,787 
 
 4,726,452 
 
 690,280 
 
 32,535,660 
 
 Live Stock. 
 Horses . . . . • 
 
 Cattle 
 
 f Sheep • . • . > 
 Pigs 
 
 1,094,116 
 4,769,119 
 16,402,138 
 1,882,698 
 
 140,113 
 
 720,285 
 
 2,514,969 
 
 204,887 
 
 191,130 
 1,167,279 
 6,603,611 
 
 133,890 
 
 492,831 
 4,184,027 
 3,367,722 
 1,263,133 
 
 1,927,527 
 10,872,811 
 28,956,280 
 
 3,497,165 
 
 Now, confining ourselves, as we already have, to 
 English agriculture alone — and here it may be observed 
 that a considerable acreage, 2,893 acres in flax, 70,127 
 acres in hops, and no less than 195,071 acres in orchards, 
 and 55,630 acres in market gardens, is excluded from the 
 above table of the agricultural statistics of England, all 
 of which involve a great deal of labour — confining our- 
 selves to the figures for England and Wales, we have 
 13,338,000 acres under arable culture, and about a million 
 more, 14,326,000, in permanent pasture. If there be a 
 pair of horses for every 50 acres of plough land in 
 England, employment is at once provided for about 
 550,000 horses. 767,104 were returned in 1886 as being 
 used for agricultural purposes, but this number included 
 animals of all ages. Supposing the wages of agricultural 
 labourers to amount to 35s. an acre on the arable land, and 
 
STATISTICS. 21 
 
 5s. on the permanent pasture, whicli is midway of the 
 instances already quoted, we then have a labour bill on 
 English farms of rather over £27,000,000. Now, there 
 are 830,452 labouring men engaged in outdoor work in 
 English agriculture; and, considering the table on page 
 17, it may be supposed that 150,000 of these are under 
 20 years of age. The " labour bill," as above estimated, 
 is enough to give 14s. a week to the men and 8s. a week 
 to the boys, throughout the year, which indicates that the 
 calculation is fairly satisfactory. The account may be 
 worked out in another way. Thus, 6,899,772 acres in 
 corn, at an average cost (see p. 125) of 50s. per acre for 
 labour, cost ^617,250,000 ; 2,819,247 acres in green crops, 
 at 70s. per acre, cost £11,860,000 ; 538,325 acres in bare 
 fallow, at 40s. per acre, cost £1,075,000 ; and 1,740,789 
 acres of clovers and permanent grass, at 7s. 6d. per acre, 
 cost £6,500,000. If to this we add probably £1,600,000, 
 or about £10 an acre, for the labour of all the land in 
 market-gardens and hops, and 40s. an acre for all the 
 orcharding — also a considerable sum for attendance upon 
 the live-stock of the farm — we have a total expenditure 
 exceeding £40,000,000 in labour costs of all kinds, includ- 
 ing of course horse labour also : and deducting £12,650,000 
 for 550,000 horses, at £23 per horse per annum, we have 
 as the result, a sum paid in farm wages which is sufficiently 
 near the conclusions already arrived at. 
 
 The information given in this chapter is related some- 
 what unconnectedly. Its estimates and' facts are stated 
 individually and separately, and the reader is left to choose 
 those of them for his guidance whose circumstances may 
 most nearly represent his own. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 STEAM — ^WATER — WIND. 
 
 Steam. — Farm uses of Steam Power. — Efficiency in Cultivation. — 
 Economy in Cultivation. — Cost per Horse-Power per Hour. — Fixed or 
 Portable Engiaes.— Management of Steam Engines.— Wateb — Fro- 
 cester Court Experience. — Mode of calculating available Power.— 
 Wind — Peill's Wind Engiaes. 
 
 The reader must be referred to other works for informa- 
 tion about those points in the relations of water to heat on 
 which the theory of steam power depends, as well as for those 
 details of the construction of steam engines which have 
 been devised in order most fully to realise in practice all 
 that theory points out as possible in the economy of fuel 
 and in the production of force. 
 
 He must also consult works on hydraulics,* both 
 theoretical and practical, for such instruction as wiU enable 
 anyone to turn a water supply to account, by means of 
 water-wheel or turbine, in the production of power. The 
 present chapter will be confined to general remarks on 
 the availability of these powers for agricultural pur- 
 poses ; on their ordinary cost per horse-power under given 
 circumstances ; and on the economical management of 
 each. 
 
 * For instance, to The Migineers' Assistani, published by Blackie and 
 Son, Glasgow. 
 
STEAM — WATER — WIND. 23 
 
 The Agricultural Uses of Steam Power. — There 
 are three classes under which all the operations of 
 the farm may he arranged, and they correspond exactly 
 to the three principal forces at our command. 
 
 In the first, where the greatest uniformity of process 
 obtains, the greatest power is needed; and a purely 
 mechanical force acting through levers, wheels, and pulleys, 
 is in this way sufiBoiently under our control for their per- 
 formance ; and this class of operations increases in extent 
 and in importance with almost every permanent improve- 
 ment of the land) i.e., with everything which tends to the 
 uniformity of its condition. In the second class as much 
 force is needed; but rocky subsoil, awkward hedgerows, 
 crooked roads, and scattered produce interfere vsith any 
 possibihty of uniform procedure. Some machinery, more 
 pliable than cranks and rods, is needed by which to carry 
 out the purpose of the mind ; and here, therefore, it must 
 work by means of the teabhable and powerful horse. This 
 class of operations diminishes in extent and importance 
 with every permanent improvement of the soil, i.e., with 
 every removal of those obstacles to which I have referred. 
 In the third class the care and cultivation of individual 
 life, vegetable and animal, are concerned: no great power is 
 necessary, but there is need for the constant and immediate 
 exercise of the will, varying, it may be, at every successive 
 moment ; and here, therefore, the human mind can work 
 only by its most perfect instrument — the human hand. It 
 is plain that everything by which on the one hand land is 
 brought to a uniform condition, and by which, on the other, 
 the quantity of its living produce is increased, will extend 
 the first and last of these three fields of agricultural opera- 
 tion, and will diminish the necessity of employing horses. 
 
24 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 This is, indeed, the principal lesson of the agricultural 
 experience of recent jeax's. If we knew for several 
 successive years exactly the employment of our agricultural 
 labourers (its nature, its quantity, and its reward) on each 
 of the farms which make up the surface of Great Britain ; 
 -and if we also knew the quantity and the manner, during 
 all these years, of the horse labour of all these farms, its 
 cost per acre and its effect ; and if in addition we had the 
 full experience of the use of steam power upon the farm, 
 not only for threshing and grinding and cutting, but for 
 cultivating the soil, we should certainly learn from it how 
 rapid has been the extension of those circumstances under 
 which steam cultivation becomes possible. Steam power 
 used in cultivation has special advantages over the horse. 
 I refer first to the injury done to the land by the tramp- 
 ling of draught animals ; and secondly, to that itregularity 
 of employment on the farm for horses during the year, 
 which in effect makes it necessary to keep upon a large 
 farm several horses all roiind the year for the sake of their 
 work during a few weeks of spring and autumn. If a steam 
 engine, which costs nothing when it is idle, can be used to 
 take this extra work, and so reduce the horse labour of the 
 farm to an uniform monthly amount, then its cost has to 
 be compared, not vrith that of the horses which it has dis- 
 placed during the few weeks in question, but with the cost 
 of those horses throughout the year. It is this fitness of 
 the engine for the cultivation of our stubbles in autumn — 
 and, so, its power to displace so many teams throughout the 
 year which would otherwise be kept just for the few weeks 
 of most laborious time — that greatly heightens the economy 
 of its employment. 
 
 It is, of course, on large farms, where three or four pairs 
 
STEAM — WATER — WIND. 25 
 
 of horses may be dispensed with, without incurring any 
 diificiilty at harvest-time, that steam power is most appli- 
 cable. And, especially on heavy soils, where large teams 
 must be kept all the year rotmd for the sake of their work 
 during those few months of the years when they can be 
 allowed upon the land, a power for tillage purposes which 
 will use more rapidly than horses the seasons of fitness — 
 which wiU, moreover, unlike horses, work the land without 
 treading on it, and, unlike horses, will incur no cost when 
 not at work — must and does exhibit its greatest superiority. 
 In a standard work on " The Valuation of Rents and 
 Tillages " (Bayldon), the cost of the first year of the course 
 of clay -land cropping is estimated thus : — 
 
 First ploughing in winter 
 Second ploughing in spring ... 
 
 Harrowiugs, &o. 
 
 Third ploughing with harrowings 
 Fourth ploughing with the manure 
 
 Fifth ploughing 
 
 Seed furrow (8s. ), &o 
 
 This is the tillage pursued in bare-fallowing clay-land 
 under ordinary horse cultivation. It is plain that six 
 ploughings by a team 'of three horses, with a probability 
 (almost certainty) that some at least of these operations will 
 be driven into a time when such land is in unfit condition 
 for cultivation, must be a most costly and inefficient tillage. 
 Every time that such a team has crossed the field some- 
 thing like two tons (man and tool and horses) have slid 
 and tramped from one end of the land to the other ; and 
 in ploughing, this has been done once to every ten or 
 twelve inches in width. Of course, this must harden the 
 ground ; and to any one who, without a practical know- 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 9 
 
26 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 ledge of farming operations, merely reasons from the 
 natural tendencies of things, it must appear the most 
 clumsy and unlikely process for attaining tilth. 
 
 " What," might not such an one ask of the clay-land 
 farmer, " is the object of those long teams of cattle that I 
 see traversing your fields all through the summer, going 
 to and fro twice for about every yard in width of the field 
 they traverse ? Are you aiming at the hardening and con- 
 solidation of the land?" " Certainly not," is the reply; 
 " we are ploughing the land, lifting the soil, exposing a fresh 
 surface to the sun and air. What we aim at by these 
 means is to mix and lighten up the layer of earth in which 
 we place manure for the growth of plants ; to soften and 
 reduce it so that the seeds we sow there may be covered, 
 each of them, by moistened particles smaller than itself ; 
 to feed and mellow it, so that the young plants shall spread 
 their roots abroad without difficulty, and find the food they 
 need." "Well! but,'' may not the answer be? — "these 
 teams, with the men and boys and tools belonging to them, 
 weigh 46 cwts. apiece, and to take those 40 cwts. tramping- 
 and sliding along every ten-inch width of the soil you want 
 to ' lighten up ' and ' soften ' is an odd way of aiming at 
 such an end, is it not ? " The answer which is given to- 
 this is not satisfactory. " We well know," it is replied, 
 " that there is nothing like treading with teams of horses 
 " or of oxen for hardening the ground. Indeed, when the 
 " land is loose about the young wheat-plant, it is, in some 
 " districts, in the early spring, a common practicfe to adopt 
 " that mode of hardening it ; but in ploughing they walk in 
 " the furrow, and the tool, too, slides along in their wake 
 " below the layer of earth we move, which, therefore, may be 
 " lifted, broken, and loosened, untrodden, notwithstanding 
 
STEAM — ^WATER — WIND. 27 
 
 " we are forced to use a team and a tool which must harden 
 " what they tread upon." This answer does not satisfy the 
 querist, neither ought it to do so. It presumes upon a 
 distinction between soil and subsoil which does not 
 originally exist, but is the result of the artificial treatment 
 of both in common horse-tillage. The creation of a 
 hardened floor beneath the soil and above the subsoil 
 which ordinary horse-tillage thus tends to produce, will 
 in great measure cut off the connection between the two, 
 and is a real injury to fertility ; and the destruction of this 
 pan or indurated layer by steam power is one of the 
 greatest benefits of steam-cultivation. The thorough 
 drainage of clay soils is thus enabled ; the material of the 
 subsoil is thus added to the scanty supplies of the shallow 
 layer which has hitherto fed our crops ; the whole ware- 
 house and machinery by which the work of plant-feeding 
 lias hitherto been accomplished is enlarged and energised; 
 and an immense increase of fertility has been obtained. 
 In place of six ploughings, by which, according to Bayldon, 
 horse tillage achieves its imperfect result, a single 
 thorough smashing up, before winter, of land which has 
 been well cleaned after harvest, is all that well-drained 
 clay-land needs. I certainly do not assert this as a rule 
 without exception ; but of calcareous clays, at any rate, it 
 may be asserted that, once drained and cleaned, a smashing- 
 np ID dry weather before winter is better than a series of 
 ploughings in the spring and early summer. This rough 
 cultivation, followed by a winter's frost, is all that such 
 land needs beyond the mere surface-preparation of the seed- 
 bed in the spring ; and that is work for the cultivator and 
 the harrow. Mr. John Fowler said truly on this point, 
 at a discussion before the London Farmers' Club, that a 
 
28 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 comparison of the cost of tlie one operation by steam power 
 with that of a corresponding operation by horse power was 
 most inadequate ; that one steam-cultivation was equiva- 
 lent, not to one, but to a whole series of operations by horse 
 power ; and this not only for its tillage effects, but for its 
 efficiency in the destruction of weeds. " When horses go 
 a second time over the land, they plant as much couch in 
 it as they plough out of it, so that it is impossible to clean 
 land so thoroughly by horses as by steam." 
 
 It is, however, to its effect in producing tilth that one 
 chiefly looks as the great result of steam cultivation. There 
 is abundance of plant food down below the level to which 
 horse tillage extends; and so it must of course, be con- 
 ceded there is plenty of it below even the level — ^though 
 that is much deeper — to which steam tiUage extends. The 
 main difference between the two lies, not in the greater 
 depth to which so great a power as steam can work the land, 
 but in the fact that horses trampling in the furrow along 
 which the tool they draw has gone, do harden a layer of 
 earth above the storage which is in their case thus cut off ; 
 and this makes the access both of the air which would 
 fertilize this mass of earth below it, and of the roots which 
 would then feed upon the material thus fitted for their food, 
 less practicable and easy. In steam tiUage, where the 
 power stands off the ground, and is conveyed by a long 
 rope to the tool — where the tool itfeelf is carried on large 
 wheels — this mischief, whether it be poaching the ground 
 which is thus moved, or hardening a floor immediately 
 below it over the earth which is not being moved, alto- 
 gether disappears. And it is not too much to say that a clay 
 soil deeply drained, and then deeply stirred and cultivated 
 in dry weather by steam power, is in altogether different 
 
STEAM — WATER — WIND. 29 
 
 circumstances from any which before all this it had ever 
 experienced. 
 
 The availahility of steam power for the deepest cultiva- 
 tion, and its applicability at the same time to the thorough 
 caltivation of any depth to which it may be desired to stir 
 or turn the soil, without any pressure on it except by the 
 wheels of the implement employed, must ultimately obtain 
 for it the preference over horses for all mere ploughing 
 and stirring, especially of clayland : and a very large share 
 of the horse labour of ordinary agriculture may thus 
 be handed over to the steam engine. 
 
 In order to ascertain how much, let me first say that all 
 the draught labour of the farm may, it is evident, be easily 
 considered as so much weight drawn as if over a pulley {i.e. 
 lifted) so many feet in a given time. Thus, the power 
 exerted by a horse is assumed, on the authority of 
 experiment, equal to the pull or lift of 33,000 lbs. one foot 
 per minute ; and to this agricultural experience agrees, for 
 if a pair of horses draw a plough along with an average pull 
 of 800 lbs. at an average rate of 2 J miles an hour, i.e. 
 of 220 feet per minute, it is the same as if those 300 lbs- 
 were pulled over a pulley, i.e. lifted that height in that time ; 
 and 300 lbs. lifted 220 feet per minute are just the same 
 as 66,000 lbs. lifted one foot high per minute ; and this, as 
 the performance of a pair of horses, is exactly the 33,000 lbs. 
 apiece at which their force is valued by the engineer. 
 
 Now, I have had described to me the cultivation of 
 certain farms in such detail that all the ploughing, 
 scarifying, harrovring, rolling, horse hoeing, carting, &c. — 
 all the horse labour, in fact — on each has been capable of 
 calculation in this way, as weight lifted a certain height 
 in the course of the year. Eeference will be made to these 
 
30 LABOUK ON THE FARM. 
 
 farms in more detail in the chapter on horse power ; hut 
 I will now select three instances in illustration of the 
 assertion that a very large share of the horse labour of the 
 farm may be done by steam power. 
 
 (1.) On a farm of 675 acres, occupied by Mr. Melvin, at 
 Bonington, near Ratho, iu Mid-Lothian, the whole horse 
 power of cultivation and carriage being converted, as I have 
 already said, into weight, amounted to upwards of 100,000 
 cwts. pulled, i.e. Hfted, one mile per annum. Of this the 
 ploughing and scarifying alone amounted to 27,000 cwts., or 
 more than one quarter ; the harrowing, rolling, and drill 
 cultivation amounted to upwards of 20,000 cwts., and the 
 carriage of dung and crops and produce amounted to 60,000 
 cwts. — all drawn (= lifted) one mUe. The carriage, in- 
 cluding much cartage of town manure, is here an enormous 
 proportion, more than one half, of the whole horse labour of 
 the farm, and much beyond its average amount in ordinary 
 experience; but still even here one-quarter of the horse 
 labour goes in mere "ploughing*, which can all be done by 
 steam power, and so done as that an eight-horse power 
 engine shall displace more than eight horses, and do their 
 work much more effectually. 
 
 (2.) Again, on a farm of fen-land of 790 acreSj occupied 
 by Mr. Aitkin, near Spalding, Lincolnshire, where the 
 horse labour of the farm is nearly the same as in the last 
 instance, or equal to 100,000 cwts. lifted one mUe per 
 annum, the carriage did not exceed much more than one 
 quarter of the whole, while the ploughing was nearly 40,000 
 cwts., four-tenths of the whole labour ; and the harrowing 
 and roUuig about S5,000 cwts. per annum. 
 
 (3.) On Lord Ducie's farm of 260 acres, at Whitfield, 
 Gloucestershire, the horse labour amounted to 37,600 cwts. 
 
STEAM — ^WATEE — WIND. 81 
 
 drawn (= lifted) one mile per annum, and of this, 12,000, 
 one-third, was carriage ; nearly 15,000, or four-tenths, was 
 ploughing and cultivating ; and the remainder harrowing, 
 rolling, and drill culture. This seems to he a pretty ordinary 
 division of labour, and if it applies generally to arable land, 
 it would appear that though farm carriage and all the lighter 
 work of harrowing, and drilling, and rolling continue to be 
 done by horses, there are still four-tenths of the horse labour 
 of the farm which may be done by steam. It appears, 
 then, that on arable land two-fifths of the horse labour of 
 the farm can be handed over to a power which is capable 
 of a much larger duty at the same expense. 
 
 And there is a special advantage connected with the 
 substitution of any cheaper power for that of horses, viz., 
 that the horse labour thus displaced is taken from the most 
 laborious periods of the year — those of spring and autumn 
 cultivation. On examining the horse labour of a farm of 
 240 acres of arable land under the alternate husbandry, it 
 will be found that it does not much exceed 600 days of a 
 pair of horses in the year, and that the need for it is 
 distributed among the months extremely unevenly. Not 
 more than thirty-five days of a team per month are wanted 
 in December, January, and February ; about forty-five days a 
 month are wanted in March, April, May, and June ; about 
 fifteen days are wanted in July ; about sixty in August, and 
 ninety in September, and fifty-five in October and November. 
 August and September stand highest; and as there are 
 not generally more than twenty-four working days in each 
 of these two months, there must be a provision of at least 
 threfe and a half pair of horses all the year, in order that 
 the work of August and September may be done. Now, 
 the two-fifths of the horse labour, which is proper for steam 
 
32 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 power, if so accomplished, will not merely displace two- 
 fifths of these seven horses through the year; for the 
 ploughing and cultiyating which are to be done by steam 
 constitute not two-fifths, but more than half of the labour of 
 the encumbered months of March, April, and May, and 
 August, September, and October ; and if this be done by 
 steam, the quantity of farm labour left will amount to little 
 more than thirty-five days' work during each month of the 
 year, which two pairs of horses will more easUy accomplish. 
 
 I believe then that by steam power, as applied to the more 
 regular operations of cultivation, nearly three out of every 
 seven horses on arable land may be dispensed with all the 
 year ; and their work may be done for less than the cost of 
 these horses during the three or four months when alone 
 they are really needed on the land. And there can be 
 but little doubt that this first class of operations upon the 
 farm, which includes the ploughing and turning of the soU, 
 will ultimately be taken by steam power out of the field of 
 horse labour, just as threshing, and cutting, and grinding 
 have been taken by it out of the field of hand labour. 
 
 The second division of fairm work includes such cases of 
 ploughing and cultivation as are taken by rocky subsoils, 
 crooked hedgerows, &c., out of the scope of the steam-driven 
 plough. It also includes the lighter kinds of horse work, 
 such as harrowing and horse hoeing, which, however, might 
 very well be done by steam ; and it more especially includes 
 the work of carriage, which, considering the scattered posi- 
 tion of the produce to be collected, and the crooked roads 
 along which it must be drawn, I see no probabihty of 
 getting done except by horse power and manual laboui* in 
 the usual way. 
 
 The third class of operations includes the lighter work of 
 
STEAM — ^WATER — WIND. 33 
 
 the farm, and attendance upon living things, requiring skill 
 and thought as well as labour. The planting of a seed 
 equidistantly upon the land may be done by machinery, but 
 the culture of the young plant, much of the hoeing of the 
 land immediately around it, and its treatment during 
 growth according to its condition, must be left to the hand. 
 
 When ripe it may be harvested by horse-drawn imple- 
 ments — our corn crops are reaped, our potatoes may be 
 dug, and roots may be cut from the gtound by horse-drawn 
 machines — they must, however, be gathered into bundles 
 or to heaps, and ultimately removed by the help of manual 
 labour. When stored they are threshed, and ground, and 
 cut, and steamed by steam-driven engines, but they must 
 be administered as food by manual labour. Leaving the 
 vegetable, which even when living may be treated to some 
 extent by machinery, and when no longer growing becomes 
 at once the subject of steam-driven processes, we come to 
 the treatment of the animal which it feeds, and here we 
 leave altogether the region of machinery actuated by steam, 
 and are confined to the hand directed by intelligence. 
 
 Is it not a remarkable thing, however, that agriculture, 
 which was once wholly the work of men's hands, but which 
 has long since given up the tUlage of the soil, and the 
 carriage of the manures and the sowing of the seed, and three- 
 fourths of the hoeing of the crops to be accomplished by 
 the horse — which has latterly given up the threshing of 
 the grain and the cutting of its straw to be effected by 
 steam power — which is rapidly abandoning the work of 
 reaping to the former, and of cultivation to the latter, 
 should nevertheless require more labourers than ever ? 
 
 The explanation lies in this : that agriculture is more 
 and more becoming the work of intelligence and skill as 
 
34 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 well as power; and those parts of its processes where 
 intelligence and skill are wanted are becoming a larger 
 poi-tion of the whole. Cultivation is more perfectly per- 
 formed, the crops cultiyat'ed are more laborious and more 
 productive ; the stock consuming them is proportionately 
 larger and needs proportional attendance. Probably each 
 acre cultivated in 1786 employed more manual labour in 
 its cultivation then than each acre cultivated now ; but how 
 many more acres are there under cultivation now than 
 then ? The question may still be asked although much 
 arable land has of late years been relaid to grass. 
 Each bushel of wheat grown half a century ago in- 
 volved so much more labour then that 8s. was the lowest 
 price at which it could be grown with profit ; but bow 
 many more bushels per acre does land upon an average 
 yield at present ? Each pound of beef and mutton cost 
 more in wages fifty years ago than now ; but we have a 
 double and triple store of food for stock, we have two crops 
 of fattened sheep and cattle where formerly we had one, 
 and each supplies a double quantity of meat. 
 
 But whatever the explanation be, the fact is certain, that 
 the use of steam power on a farm is part of that system 
 which employs more labourers. This has perhaps been 
 now sufficiently illustrated, but further reference to it 
 will be made in the section on hand labour. 
 
 The Cost of Steam Power per Horse Power per 
 Hour. — In order to a comparison of horse power with that 
 of steam, it is necessary to know what each costs for a 
 given force per hour. Steam power, when provided by 
 the most economical furnace, boiler, and engine, as in 
 Cornwall where fuel is very costly, is extremely cheap. 
 
STEAM — WATERS-WIND. 35 
 
 The Appold pump, at Whittlesea Mere, as stated to us 
 some years ago, drained upwards of 500 acres of land at a 
 cost of about £150, including coals, repairs of engine, 
 engineman's wages, oil, &c. The quantity of water raised 
 was 16,000 gallons, lifted six feet high, per minute. The 
 engine worked about three days a week, and four or five 
 hours at a time. According to this statement, the cost of 
 the operation was about 4s. an hour ; and the work done 
 was equal to 960,000 lbs., or thirty times 33,000 lbs., 
 raised one foot high per minute. This put the cost ot a 
 horse power produced by steam equal to about l^d. an hour, 
 even under the unfavourable condition of an irregular 
 employment of the engine, with the constant payment of 
 the engineer ; and of course it is much less than this in 
 the case of the large and constantly working fixed pumping 
 engines of our mines and waterworks. 
 
 The cost of the more ordinary agricultural engine must 
 
 be gathered rather from ordinary experience than from 
 
 the records of " racing " trials at an agricultural show ; and 
 
 I shall not be far wrong in putting the daily expenditure 
 
 on an eight-horse agricultural locomotive engine as 
 
 follows : — 
 
 s. 
 
 Coals, 6 cwts. say 6 
 
 Watei carting 4 
 
 Oil, &c. 1 
 
 Engineer's wages 4 
 
 Interest, and tear and wear, say 15 per cent. 
 
 on £250 divided over fifty-two days, about 15 
 
 30*. 
 Or 3s. an hour, corresponding to 4^d. per horse-power per 
 hour. 
 
 On a six-horse power fixed engine, costing about i£250, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 which for many years was worked on a farm under my super- 
 intendence, the cost of " tear and wear " being much less 
 in the case pf the fixed than of the locomotive, the daily 
 
 expenses stood as follows : — 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Coal, 6 cwts. € 
 
 Oil, &c 1 
 
 Engineer (a farm labourer) 2 6 
 
 Interest, &c., 10 per cent divided over 
 
 fifty days 10 
 
 19 6 
 
 Or barely 2s. an hour; and therefore about 4i. per horse 
 per hour. 
 
 Another ten-horse power fixed agricultural engine 
 known to me cost daily : — 
 
 s, d. 
 
 Coals, 8 cwts. 8 
 
 Oil, &o 1 
 
 Engineer (a farm labourer) 2 6 
 
 Interest, &c., 10 per cent, on £400, divided 
 
 over 100 days 8 
 
 In all 19 6 
 
 Which is about 2s. a day, or not 2^d. per horse per hour. 
 It is plain that these amounts will diminish in proportion 
 as the actual horse power got out of the engines exceeds 
 the nominal horse power to which these estimates refer, 
 and ' also in proportion as the engine is kept constantly 
 employed, so that the annual interest of capital invested in 
 it should come to be divided over a greater number of days. 
 It seems also plain enough that, other things being equal, 
 under ordinary circumstances the fixed engine must be a 
 cheaper source of power than the locomotive, owing to thei 
 large share which repairs of tear and wear have in its cost. 
 
STEAM — WATER-i-WIND. 37 
 
 The relative merits of the two were discussed some 
 years ago at the London Farmers' Club, when Mr. Allan 
 Kansome, of the well-known firm at Ipswich, recommended, 
 as the engine most applicable to agricultural purposes, for 
 powers up to six or eight horses, that known as the hori- 
 zontal engine, with the Cornish boiler, if to be used as a 
 fixed engine, or, with the multitubular boiler on wheels, if 
 to be used as a portable engine. On the question of 
 preference between fixed and portable engines he referred 
 on the part of the former to the greater cheapness, dura- 
 bility, and the less liability to stoppage for repairs, less 
 annual cost, and less attention required to make it work to 
 advantage ; and, on the part of the latter, to the facts that 
 the crops might often be threshed directly from the stack 
 and the expense of removing into the barn avoided ; and 
 that, as on most farms there could scarcely be found full 
 employment for a steam engine, the use of the portable 
 engine might be shared by two or three others. The 
 general tendency of subsequent speakers on that occasion 
 was to recommend fixed engines. But the history of the 
 past thirty years has completely upset the anticipations of 
 these speakers, and the portable engine may be now pro- 
 nounced the almost invariable form of agricultural steam 
 power. The new use found for it in the cultivation of the 
 land has arisen during this time, and it more than ever 
 justifies the conclusion, that these portable engines are of 
 the greatest agricultural benefit. 
 
 Economical Management of the Steam-Engine.-^ 
 
 Under this head I propose merely to quote the instruc- 
 tions given by Messrs. Eansome, which relate to the pqrt- 
 able engine only, but are applicable to both kinds, and 
 
38 LABOUK ON THE FAKM. 
 
 are given, very much abridged, in the following para- 
 graphs : 
 
 (1.) Place the engine as level as possible, and in such a 
 position that the dust caused by threshing may not be 
 directly blown upon it. — (The engine however ought alway? 
 to be placed more or lese to leeward of its work when 
 threshing.) 
 
 (2.) Procure water as clean as possible for the use of 
 the engine. Fill the boiler till it appears about half way 
 up the glass gauge-tube. 
 
 (3.) The water gauge-cocks should always be tried before 
 the fire is lighted, to ascertain that there is no obstruction 
 in the passages which would prevent the water finding its 
 proper level in the glass tube ; the bottom one should dis- 
 charge water only, and the top one steam ; the level of the 
 water in the boiler being somewhere between the two cocks^ 
 . (4.) The fire-bars must be well cleaned from dirt and 
 clinkers before the fire is laid ; a few dry shavings and a 
 small quantity of firewood should then be spread over the 
 bars, and some small coal scattered over them ; a light may 
 then be applied to the shavings fi"om beneath the grate- 
 bars, and the fire will soon burn briskly ; coal may then be 
 put on in small quantities at a time, the fire-bars being 
 kept covered to a depth not exceeding three inches ; the 
 fire must be clear, but the bars must not be allowed to be-^ 
 come bare of coal in places, for the cold air will then pass 
 through the tubes, and check the formation of steam ; all 
 wet straw and damp wood for lighting the fire should be 
 avoided. As soon as the fire is lighted, a few pails of 
 water should be poured into the ash-pan. 
 
 The fire as it burns up should be kept thin and bright ; 
 the coal must never be heaped up against the tubes ; too 
 
STEAM — WATER — WIND. 39 
 
 much coal should not be thrown on at a time, or it will 
 tend to delay the production of steam. Wood should never 
 be used as a fuel when the engine is at work, on account of 
 the great quantity of ignited pieces blown out of the top of 
 the funnel by the steam-blast. The foolish and dangerous 
 practice of carrying hot coals in shovels from the farm- 
 house to the engine in the stack-yard for the purpose of 
 lighting the fire should never be allowed. 
 
 (5.) If the coal is bad, or a kind which emits a large 
 quantity of smoke, the tubes should be well brushed out 
 during the dinner hour ; this can easily be done without 
 dropping the fire, by allowing it to burn low, and raking it 
 into one corner of the grate. 
 
 (6.) As soon as the water begins to boil, the safety-valve 
 should be opened by hand and examined, to make sure that 
 it is not obstructed in any way ; the spring-balance may 
 then be screwed down to about 10 lbs., and when the steam 
 blows off at that point, it may be gradually screwed down 
 to 45 or 50 lbs. as the steam rises. The spring-balance 
 should on no account be left screwed down to the full pres- 
 sure when the engine is not at work, and the steam not up. 
 
 (7.) Before starting, put a little oil into the cylinder, 
 through the cock provided for that purpose, and move the 
 engine round by hand, by means of the fly-wheel, to as- 
 certain that it is all in working condition ; all the oil-cups 
 must be filled up and the syphon-wicks examined, to make 
 sure of their being in good condition. A little oil should 
 be put upon the guide-bars theiliselves, as well as into the 
 oil-cups attached to them; the pump-plunger, and all the 
 eccentrics, must also be oiled. Neatsfoot or sperm-oil 
 should be used ; but if this cannot be procured, olive-oil 
 will answer the purpose. 
 
40 LABOUB ON THE FARM. 
 
 (8.) The piston should be placed at about the half- stroke, 
 and the regulator-valve opened graduaUy; the two relief- 
 cocks on the cylinder being previously opened ; after the 
 engine has made a few revolutions these cocks may be shut, 
 and the regulator-valve set full open, so that the speed of 
 the engine may be controlled by the governors. The feed- 
 pump should be tried as soon as the engine is in motion, to 
 ascertain that it is in working condition, before the water 
 has had time to diminish. 
 
 (9.) It is desirable to have a constant supply of water 
 always going into the boiler from the feed-pump ; a little 
 experience will soon point out to the engineman how far the 
 cock requires to be open to enable him to do this. 
 
 (10.) There should never be less than two inches of 
 water visible in the glass gauge-tube when the engine is at 
 work ; if, by accident or neglect, the water should become 
 so low as only to show about half an inch in the glass tube, 
 the fire should instantly be dropped, by lifting the fire-bars 
 from their places by means of the tools furnished for the 
 purpose, the burning coals will fall into the water in the 
 ash-pan, and be extinguished; water should never be 
 thrown into the fire-box to put out the fire, it is apt to 
 scald those who do so, and to injure the fire-box ; the fire 
 must on no account be again lighted until the boUer has 
 been filled up. 
 
 (11.) The bearings and guide-bars should be carefully 
 examined from time to time to see that they are properly 
 supplied with oil from the lubricators attached to them ; 
 it is a good plan to put a little extra oil upon the guide- 
 bars, in addition to filling the lubricators upon them. 
 Whenever the engine is stopped, all the bearings should 
 be felt, to make sure that they have not heated ; if there 
 
STJEAM — WATER — WIND. 41 
 
 be any disposition to heat, the bearings having such a 
 tendency may be loosened a little, but they must not be 
 too slack. 
 
 (12.) When the day's work is over, and the engine is 
 going to be moved to another place, the water should be run 
 out of the boiler when the steam is quite down; the 
 practice of blowing all the water out of the boiler directly 
 the fire is dropped is a very bad one, for the sudden con- 
 traction of the tubes caused by the rapid cooling makes 
 them leaky. 
 
 (13.) After the day's work is done the engine should be 
 well rubbed over with cotton-waste, and all dust and grit 
 should be removed, also all superfluous oil which may have 
 accumulated during working ; the chimney should be 
 lowered down and the engine be covered over with the tar- 
 pauling furnished for that purpose. The engine should 
 always be carefully covered up when travelling, to prevent 
 the working parts from becoming injured by dust or mud. 
 
 (14.) The boiler must be well washed out and cleansed 
 after about twelve or fourteen days' working ; to do this 
 the brass plugs and mud-doors round the bottom of the out- 
 side shell of the fire-box must be taken out ; water must 
 be poured freely into the boiler through the opening where 
 water is poured in, the mud and scales being at the same 
 time loosened and pulled out with a small iron rod, the 
 end of which shoijld be made like a hoe ; at the same time 
 the plug beneath the tubes in the smoke-box should be 
 taken out, and the man-hole cover be lifted off ; a long rod 
 being pushed backwards and forwards through the hole 
 under the tubes, so as to loosen the dirt ^.nd sediment. 
 Water should be poured into the man-hole plentifully, so 
 as to wash out all that may be collected in the boiler 
 
42 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 through the various mud-holes, which should all be open 
 during this operation, 
 
 Water-Power for Agricultural Purposes. — The follow- 
 ing is a report from Mr. J. T. Harrison, O.E., late 
 of Frocester Court, near Stonehouse, Gloucestershire : now 
 one of H. M. Inspectors in the Local Government offices. 
 He says : — 
 
 "There are some operations on a farm, such as chafF- 
 cutting and pulping, for which water-power is much more 
 convenient than steam or horses. They have to be per- 
 formed daily, and it is therefore of immense advantage to 
 have an inexpensive power at command to perform these 
 operations. Besides chaff-cutting and pulping, oat-crush- 
 ing for the horses, corn-grinding for the pigs and cattle, 
 threshing, winnowing, and apple-grinding in the cider dis 
 tricts, can be done at a less cost by water than by steam, 
 where sufficient power can be obtained ; but steam can be 
 applied for these latter operations very usefully, as the 
 work may be continued steadily all day, which is not the 
 case with daily operations of short continuance. We find 
 great advantage in very wet weather in being able to turn 
 all hands into the barn to thresh, as it would be difficult 
 then to employ them otherwise. Ours is, however, an 
 exceptional case, in consequence of our immense barns 
 enabling us to stow away a large proportion of the corn 
 grown on the farm. 
 
 " At the present time we are cutting 18 cwts. of chaff 
 and pulping 3 tons 8 cwts. of roots daily, and occasionally 
 bruising oats and grinding corn by water-power. 
 
 '* To accomplish this work we are obliged to be careful 
 and not waste any water. The quantity of water flowing 
 
II 
 If 
 
 STEAM — WATER — WIND. 43 
 
 into the reservoir per diem is about 500 cubic feet per 
 hour, or at the rate of 84,000 cubic feet per week. From 
 the level of the water in the reservoir to that of our turbine 
 there is a fall of about twenty-two feet. 
 
 " The quantity of water driving the water-wheel whilst 
 we are 
 
 " Chaff-cutting is .„ 92 cubic feet per minute. 
 
 Pulping roots 103 „ 
 
 Chaff-cutting and pulping together 114 „ 
 
 " We can cut J-cwt. of chaff per minute, and pulp thirty 
 cwts. of swedes in twenty- seven minutes, or thirty cwts. of 
 mangolds in twenty minutes. 
 
 " Thus we find it takes to cut 18 cwts. of chaff, say IJ hour. 
 
 ' And to pulp 3 tons 8 cwts. of roots 1 
 
 Total, 2J hours' work for the food daily consumed. 
 
 "And in doing this it will be found on calculation that 
 we use about 86,000 cubic feet of water per week, with the 
 twenty-two feet fall, which is, I believe, not far from the 
 average truth ; though probably at the beginning of the 
 week less water is used to do the work, as it then stands 
 Somewhat higher in the reservoir. 
 
 " The following information may be useful to those who 
 have a pretty steady supply of water, if only in the winter 
 season, when for chaff-cutting and pulping its application 
 would be very useful. 
 
 " The first thing to ascertain is the quantity of water at 
 command. For this purpose take a piece of board of 
 sufficient length to cross the stream, and, say eighteen 
 inches wide. Cut a piece out of one side of it, say three 
 inches wide and nine inches deep, and make the edges 
 Bmooth for the water to pass freely (these dimensions 
 
44 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 must, however, depend upon the quantity of water, asd 
 the opening must he widened so as to permit all the water 
 without waste to pass through it). Fix the board across 
 the stream, and, by puddling the bottom and sides, force aH 
 the water to pass through the aperture. When the water 
 has risen as high as it can, mark exactly the height in feet 
 at which it stands above the bottom of the opening ; this 
 dimension in the following rule is represented by H, and 
 the width of the aperture in feet by W. 
 
 '* The quantity of water passing in cubic feet per minute 
 is equal to 200 X H X W X V H. For example, the 
 aperture used to ascertain the quantity of water passing 
 from the water-wheel was 1*17 feet wide, and the height at 
 which the water stood when cutting chaff was "54 feet. 
 Then 200 X 1-17 X '54 X \/^i (or -73) gives 92 cubic 
 feet as the quantity passing every minute. 
 
 "Having ascertained the quantity of water which is 
 available, the next point is to find out, by means of a 
 spirit-level, what fall you can obtain. You have thus 
 decided the elements of the power at your command, 
 namely, the quantity of water per minute and its fall. 
 But as the water is running constantly, and you require it 
 only for a short time each day, you may, by forming a 
 reservoir for the water, bring a force to bear for a short 
 time considerably larger than if the water were used con- 
 stahtly. Our reservoir (part of the old moat enlarged) 
 holds 300,000 cubic feet or more. 
 
 "The reservoir should be as close as possible to the 
 water-wheel, as it adds considerably to the first cost when 
 the water has to be conveyed far in pipes (in oiir case, 
 where the reservoir is 700 feet from the wheel, the twelve- 
 inch cast-iron pipes cost fully i£100 extra), and there is 
 
STEAM — WATER— WIND. 45 
 
 besides a great loss of power from friction on the sides 
 of the pipes. 
 
 " For general purposes the wheel we use answers ad- 
 mirably; it is a turbine, made by Mr. Whitelaw, of Glasgow 
 (Messrs. Eandolph, Elder and Co., Glasgow, manufacture 
 similar water-wheels), and has not cost one shilling for 
 repairs during the last eight or nine years, and is now as 
 good as ever. This description of water-wheel is prefer- 
 able to others for farm purposes, on account of the great 
 velocity with which it works ; ours makes 200 revolutions 
 a minute, so that there is no occasion for multiplying cog- 
 wheels even for threshing, as the requisite speed is obtained 
 by a large wheel driving the strap, as in the steam 
 threshing-machines. The turbine has, moreover, the 
 advantage of producing a greater effect from a given 
 quantity of water falling through a given height than any 
 other description of wheel. 
 
 " Having determined of what horse-power it is desirable- 
 to have the water-wheel — say not less than five horse- 
 power if it be desired to thresh with it, or three horse- 
 power if it is only to be used for chaff-cutting and pulping ; 
 and having ascertained the fall that can be obtained from 
 the water, the following rule will give the quantity of water 
 that is required per minute to drive the wheel. 
 
 "The quantity of water j _ 696'73 x numher of horse-power, 
 per minute in cubic feet \ Fall of water iii feet 
 
 " Our turbine is fitted with regulators, as in the steam- 
 engines, so that when the work is light, and the velocity 
 increases, the balls fly out, and by means of levers lessen 
 the aperture for the escape of the water. . "i 
 
 "Calculating from the data given above, and inaking 
 
46 LABOUR ON THE FARM. , 
 
 allowance for the diminution of power in consequence of 
 the friction of the water in passing through the pipe, and 
 taldng the fall at twenty-two feet, ahout which it was when 
 we ascertained the quantity of water used, we have 
 
 Cul)ic feet 
 per mimite. 
 
 ' The number of horse-power 1 _ 93 x 22 feet fall _ n-g hnrsaa 
 used in chaff-cutting ... / 69673" 
 
 „ in pulping = 3'25 „ 
 
 ., both at once = 3*6 ,, 
 
 " The maximum discharge of water which occurs when 
 we ane threshing with a head of twenty-five feet, gives an 
 effective power of about four and a half horses." 
 
 Wind-power for Agricultural Purposes. — On this 
 I must merely say that windmills have generally been 
 displaced by steam or water power — the certainty of these 
 being more than a compensation for their greater cost. It 
 is, however, proper to add, that a wind-engine manu- 
 factured by Mr. Peill, of New Park Street, Southwark, 
 which possesses self-regulating appliances, so that, once 
 set, it needs no superintendence beyond a weekly oiling 
 of its bearings, is coming into pretty frequent use for 
 pumping water, for. grinding corn, crushing oats, cutting 
 chaff, and driving other farm machinery, where a constant 
 power is not required. It costs about £50 per nominal 
 horse-power, and numerous testimonies are bfeing received 
 of its fitness for work of the kind just named. For in- 
 stance, Mr. Christy, of Boynton Hall, near Chelmsford, 
 thus answers a correspondent of the Agrieultmal 
 Gazette : — 
 
 "I have one of Mr. Peill's wind-engines of J horse- 
 
STEAM — WATER— WIND. 47 
 
 power, with one of Messrs. Warner's pumps attached, that 
 has been at work about nine months. It is erected nearly 
 half a mile from the premises, and pumps the water from 
 a spring to a height of seventy feet : supplying the house 
 and farmyards, and filling a large pond that has been dry 
 for years. It requires very little wind, and (owing to the 
 sails being self-adjusting) no attention save oiling once a 
 week. If placed near the farmstead, it might be used to 
 drive a chaff-engine, &c., when not required for pumping." 
 Such pumping engines are often used in wide stretches of 
 f6n or river-side level grazing grounds which are sometimes 
 below the tidal level. Here the windmill may be continually 
 pouring its stream of water into the ditches for the water 
 supply of the live stock. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HORSE POWBE. 
 
 Food of the Horse.— Extra Costs connected with Horse-power. — Saddler. 
 — Smith. — Tradesmen.— Cost of Hobse-power per acre, per cwt 
 of Draught. 
 
 The Pood of the Horse. — The following describes 
 the practice and experience of the late Robert Bakeri of 
 Writtle, on this subject, as related by him in one of the 
 latest of the many contributions to agricultural literature 
 made during his useful professional life. He wrote as 
 follows : — 
 
 (1.) " My present treatment of horses from Michaelmas 
 to April is as follows : — Their daily food consists of — 
 
 "Clover hay 1° }M cut into chaffi 
 
 Straw 20 lbs. J 
 
 Good oats 10 lbs. 
 
 , 40 lbs. per diem. 
 
 During the seed-times (about five weeks each) 4 or 5 lbs. 
 of good old split beans additional are given per diem ; and 
 from the end of November till the middle of February the 
 oats are in part taken off, according to circumstances, — 
 reduced to 6 lbs. per diem, the full quantity of 10 lbs. 
 being given always whilst at plough- work. 
 
 " During the spring months, say from the middle of 
 
HORSE POWER. 49 
 
 April, my horses have early rye, mown green, and cut up 
 with the hay and straw, increasing the former and 
 diminishing the two latter weekly, until by the middle of 
 May rye alone is used cut as before ; and the horses will 
 continue to eat it when so managed till the middle of June, 
 when the rye has come fully into ear, and at that period 
 they get in better condition than at any other portion of 
 the year. From the time that the rye ceases, vetches with 
 rye are substituted for about two weeks ; and then vetches, 
 or red clover mown, or lucerne, are substituted, but not 
 always cut up, as before, into chaff. The horses are kept 
 in the yard so long as green food can be procured, which is 
 sometimes the case until the second math of red clover is 
 fit for mowing, which is combined vdth hay and straw, and 
 cut up daily for the teams ad libitum. If, however, the 
 math is abundant, it is given alone, i.e., with only the 
 addition of late spring tares, if the season is suitable ; 
 but this depends entirely on the season, as in cases of 
 drought the late tares do not succeed in the eastern 
 counties. 
 
 " My horses, I calculate, eat 1 peck of good sound oats 
 daily, or say 2 bushels per v^eek for eight months in the 
 year ; and 1 bushel each per week when eating green food 
 in the summer months, — ^rather less than more ; but 
 upon heavy-land farms another bushel of oats, or beans 
 and oats, is given for six weeks in the autumn and spring 
 seed-times per week. A horse wUl require dry food at 
 least seven months in the year ; and, eating about 21 lbs. 
 per diem, will during that period eat about 35 cwts. of hay 
 per annum ; and he will eat in addition about 1 cwt. of 
 green food per diem during the remainder of the year, say 
 150 days, or from 7 to 7j tons for that time. The oat 
 
50 LABOUB ON THE FAEM. 
 
 straw, and pea and bean straw, may be reckoned to supply 
 food for two months of the year. 
 
 " The cost of horse-keep in Essex upon the above ^ 
 principle of management will for each day be about the 
 same as that of a farm-labourer, but for all calculations a 
 further sum must be added to meet the wear and tear of 
 the horse and for shoeing, to which the farmer is not liable 
 as regards manual labour. The sum of 3s. per horse per 
 day during that portion of the year comprised from Lady- 
 day to Michaelmas is assumed by valuers as the fair sum 
 to be paid for each horse for each working day when at 
 plough, and 2s. 6d. when at other work, per diem. An 
 experiment was once made by myself as to the annual 
 consumption of food by a farm-horse, and the conclusion 
 arrived at was as follows : — 
 
 2 tons of hay at feeding value 
 7 tons of green food at 20». ... 
 
 9 c[TS. oats at 24s. 
 
 1 qr, of teans at 
 
 Add sti'aW and chaff 
 
 Cost of keep for one year 27 2 
 
 " My horses are fed in open yards, with sheds, each 
 parted off for a team of four horses. These, upon return- 
 ing from labour, are unhs^rnessed and fed in the stable 
 until about six o'clock, when they are put into the yard 
 with a sufficiency of cut chaff for the night. At from four 
 to five o'clock in the morning they are brought into the 
 stable, and fed with the corn and chaff until the time of 
 going out to work — in summer half-past five o'clock, in 
 autumn half-past six o'clock, and in winter rather later. 
 They work until ten o'clock, and invariably come home and 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 ... 6 
 
 
 
 ... 7 
 
 
 
 ... 10 16 
 
 
 
 ... 1 16 
 
 
 
 ... 1 10 
 
 
 
HOUSE POWEB, 51 
 
 are fed and watered, one hour being allowed. They then 
 return and work till three o'clock; an acre of ploughing 
 being performed. This mode of management appears 
 congenial to the health of the horses, as we rarely have 
 any sickness among the teams, and I have not lost more 
 than two horses during the last six years from upwards of 
 twenty constantly worked." 
 
 Mr. Baker's practice and experience are given at full 
 length in the foregoing paragraphs ; but in the following 
 account of the stable practice upon other farms, the facts 
 are stated in as condensed a form as possible, so as to 
 embrace the results of an extensive inquiry within the 
 compass of a few pages. 
 
 (2.) The following tables give the daily ration adopted 
 in the farm stable during spring, summer, autumn, and 
 winter respectively, by those whose names are in every case 
 attached. In successive columns I have put, first, the 
 number of the ease ; secondly, the authority on which it is 
 given ; thirdly, the weight consumed per week of hay, oats, 
 beans, roots, clover, and straw by a horse ; and lastly, the 
 calculated weekly cost of so maintaining it. This cost is 
 calculated at the rates of 3s. a cwt. for hay, 3s. a bushel 
 for oats, 5s. a bushel for beans, id. a cwt. for turnips or 
 mangpld-wurzel, 6d. a cwt. for carrots and clover, and 
 without charge for straw. Where an asterisk (*) is 
 attached to any item it is to be understood that the com 
 has been bruised or ground, or the hay or straw has teen 
 cut into chaff; where a dagger (t) is appended, the article 
 so marked has been boiled or steamed; a mark of in- 
 terrogation (?) indicates that the result so marked is 
 uncertain, owing to some indefiniteness in the account 
 given. The prices adopted in calculating the cost of food 
 
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52 
 
 LABOUK ON THE FARM. 
 
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HORSE POWER. 
 
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64 LABOUE on THE FABM. 
 
 are the market prices of the grain consumed ; and in the 
 cases of the hay and green food, the value which it is 
 supposed they might produce if given to other kinds of live 
 stock on the farm. 
 
 , There is considerable difficulty in estimating the cost of 
 pasturage, cut clover, and other food supplied ad libitum. 
 It will be found in the money column of the above 
 tables, which specify the calculated cost per week of food 
 alone for each horse in the stable, that 5s. a week has been 
 charged for pasturage alone, 6d. a cwt. for cut clover 
 carried to the stable, and from Is. 6c?. to 3s. a week for 
 night pasturage, according to the quantity of other food 
 supplied. When that is tolerably abundant, and clover is 
 supplied ad libitum, it is supposed that each horse will eat 
 one cwt. a day. 
 
 A review of these tables shows that the differences in 
 the cost of weekly food, according to the various modes of 
 feeding specified, are very considerable ; the cost of summer 
 feeding, which averages 8s. a week, varies from 5s. to 
 10s. 6d. ; autumn feeding, costs on the average about 10s., 
 and varies from 7s. 6d. to 12s. ; winter feeding, averages 
 about 8s., varying from 4s. 9d. to lis. ; spring feeding 
 averages 9s. a week, varying from 7s. 6d. to IDs. 
 
 I find that the average cost per week of keeping a horse 
 throughout the year, according to the cases here described 
 — ^putting the summer season down as lasting eighteen 
 weeks, the autumn as six weeks, the spring as lasting 
 over twelve weeks, and the winter season as sixteen weeks 
 — amounts to about 8s. weekly. 
 
 One must not too confidently infer from differences per 
 head, similar differences in the cost of horse-labour per 
 acre. The less expensive method is not necessarily the 
 
HOESE POWER. 65 
 
 cheaper of the two, as these very farms sufficiently illustrate. 
 In one case knovm to me twelve horses are used (con- 
 suming ^195 12s. worth of food, or 16s. 3d. per acre) in 
 cultivating 240 acres of " a marl on a chalk subsoil, from 
 six to seven inches deep." That it is well done may be 
 inferred from the good crops grown in the year of the 
 report, reaching forty-four bushels of wheat over sixty 
 acres, and fifty bushels of barley on a similar extent. In 
 another case twenty horses are employed (consuming £616 
 worth of food per annum, or about 18s. 9d. per acre) in 
 cultivating 675 imperial acres, " part of it eight to eleven 
 inches deep, the rest seven or eight — the lea furrow being 
 six inches deep." It is right to add that the first farm 
 includes sixty acres of grass-land, which, however, does 
 not greatly add to the labour of the horses. But the 
 difierence between £31 and £16 6s., the difference between 
 the horse expense in the two cases per head, does not 
 merely dwindle down to one between 18s. 9d. and 16s. 3d. 
 per acre ; it still further diminishes when considered in 
 connection with the quantity and laboriousness of the 
 fallow crops in the two cases respectively. But this will 
 more plainly appear when the other items going to swell 
 the cost of horse-labour — namely, wages of team-men, 
 farrier's and tradesmen's bills, annual cost of keeping 
 implements and animals good — are enumerated, and when 
 the number of horses kept, and the extent of the different 
 crops cultivated by them, are given for coniparison. My 
 reference now to two extreme cases is merely to guard 
 against the idea that the cheapest management of horses 
 necessarily implies the cheapest production of horse-power. 
 
 Extras in the Cost of Horse-Iiabonr. — Besides the 
 
66' LABOUR ON THE FABM. 
 
 food of the horse, there is the cost of the blacksmith's, 
 saddler's, and farrier's bills, the annual loss of value by 
 increasing age, the wages of horse-men and stable-boys,, 
 and the tear and wear of the implements by which the- 
 horse-power is utilised in cultivation, to be taken into; 
 account ; there is also the number of horses with their 
 men kept upon the farm, to be considered before we can 
 estimate the cost of horse-power per acre on the farm. 
 The extras enumerated above may be valued thus per 
 horse : — Blacksmith's bill for shoeing, 30s. annually ; 
 farrier's bill, per annum, 10s. ; saddler's bill, per annum, 
 10«. ; depreciation of value, ten per cent., say £3, the 
 whole thus reaching £5 10s. per annum. But on these 
 points I add a number of notes received from corre- 
 spondents. 
 
 (a) " Since I joined my father in my present occupation 
 in 1841 I have the account of horses purchased ; and as 
 our practice has been to buy only for making up our teams, 
 and, with only one exception, at an age to be put to work 
 immediately bought, so that nothing is chargeable to 
 keeping — and I consider our present team superior to what 
 I commenced with — it is, I think, a very fair criterion. The 
 cost of farrier will lead you to suppose we have been 
 tolerably healthy; it includes attendance on cattle, and 
 I believe nearly half should be charged to cattle account. 
 
 " Our blacksmith's bills include work done to machinery, 
 &c., which does not properly belong to horse-labour. 
 
 "Our shoeing will be very much less than in most 
 localities. [It is a fen soil.] 
 
 " The saddler's account, you will see, is in excess : it 
 includes harness for gig and riding. 
 
 " The implements are far below your estimate, though 
 
HORSE POWER. 57 
 
 I think mine are in good order, and fully capable of well 
 working our occupation. I have not employed either a 
 wheelwright or blacksmith on the premises, so that all 
 my expenditure has come in bills, and it is very easily 
 ascertained. Our total expenditure for seventeen years is 
 as follows : — 
 
 Horses. Farrier. Blacksmith. Saddler. Implements. 
 £ a. d. £ >. d. £, s. d. £, s. d. £ s. d. 
 678 18 50 12 370 15 7 244 13 2 550 15 
 
 i^um'^ay} *» » « ^ 00 22 14 10 32 
 
 " The extras you charge £5 10s. would in our case, 
 reckoning for twenty horses, only amount to £4: ; that is 
 £2 per horse for depreciation, 3s. for farrier, £1 2s. 
 blacksmith, and 15s. saddler. On further consideration I 
 should put the whole charge for extras at £i 10s. per 
 horse." 
 
 (6) " My smith's account, including cast-iron shares for 
 the plough, has not averaged £16 per annum; and my 
 carpenter's account from £5 to £6 annually. The farrier's 
 bill does not exceed £2 per annum, and the saddler costs 
 £5 a year. These sums divided by eight, the number of 
 horses [and deducting for work on general implements], 
 amount to £2 ; and, with ten per cent, on £30, the value of 
 the horses, this makes the sum in my case £5, instead of 
 £5 IDs." 
 
 (c) " I contract with a blacksmith to shoe my horses at 
 10s. per horse per year, and a similar sum to the harness- 
 maker. I think a deduction should be made for the 
 pasture-land; the expenses on the grass portion of my 
 farm amount, I find, to about 3s. per acre annually." 
 
 (d) " Your estimate of extras approximates very nearly 
 
'58 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 to what I see mine cost. The following is the amount of 
 my extras for four years : — 
 
 1 
 
 Saddler. 
 
 £ <. d. 
 19 7 
 
 Blacksmifcli's 
 Contract. 
 £ s. d. 
 36 
 
 Panier's 
 Contract. 
 £ t. d. 
 70 
 
 2 
 
 14 4 6 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 15 12 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 61 3 6 
 
 144 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Per annum ... 
 
 15 5 10 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 7 10 
 
 Per horse -f- 22 . 
 
 13 lOi 
 
 1 
 
 12 9 
 
 6 10 
 
 Amount in 
 
 all 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 ... 2 13 
 
 d. 
 5i 
 
 Add for an: 
 
 Qual depreciation 
 mt 
 
 ... 3 
 
 
 
 Total amoii 
 
 .. 5 13 
 
 6J 
 
 to which you are sufficiently near "; these figures, however, 
 relate to a period twenty or thirty years ago, and since then 
 tradesmen's charges have advanced, but the cost of food 
 has diminished. 
 
 (e) " We reckon the annual depreciation in value of a 
 £30 horse at £B, and of course £4 10s. on a d645 horse. 
 The smith's accounts come to £B 10s. per pair for main- 
 taining everything belonging to or wrought by the horses, 
 but not furnishing anything new. The saddler's account 
 costs from 15s. to £1 15s. per horse, according to the 
 style and keeping of harness. Insurance per horse 
 amounts to £1 on a £30 horse ; and my experience, where 
 horses are fully fed and hard wrought, declares it to cost 
 that sum. My farrier's account does not reach 5s. per 
 horse." 
 
 In addition to the expenditure in shoeing, saddlery, and 
 the other items specified, the annual tear and wear of 
 implements has to be considered. This may be put at 
 
HORSE POWER. 59) 
 
 ten per cent, of the value of the implements, which being 
 estimated at 20s. per acre over the arable land, results in a 
 charge of 2s. per annum on this account. 
 
 Lastly, the wages of team-men constitutes an important 
 extra in cost of horse-power. 
 
 The following are some of the notes we have received : — 
 
 (a) " Three of the ploughmen are paid lis. a week, and 
 receive 36s. extra for harvest. Two boys get 7s. a week, 
 and about 15s. extra for harvest work. No beer nor extras of 
 any kind beyond the wages. The carters groom but do not 
 feed their horses ; a regular horse-feeder is kept, who 
 employs about half his time at this work, and is paid 12s. 
 per week, and 32s. extra for harvest work." 
 
 (b) " The general wage of a full ploughman has been 
 till last few years 15s. or 16s. a week, with from two to 
 four bushels of wheat, the same of barley, eighty stones of 
 potatoes, and a house free, and cartage of coals. He is 
 bound to supply a woman-worker at Is. a day in summer, 
 Is. 6d. in harvest, and lOd. in winter. Some men get less 
 and some few more than this : my own wages are 15s. with 
 the lesser quantities of corn." 
 
 (c) " The waggoners have 2s. a week more than the 
 labourers, who are now paid lis. a week. The second man 
 has Is. less than the waggoner, and both have £2 10s. for 
 harvest. The ' all-workers ' have 10s. per week all the year 
 round. The boys have 7s. per week for board, and ^6 
 wages." (Four horses to a team.) 
 
 These particulars are given in explanation of the varying 
 nature of these items in the cost of horse-power ; though 
 even they do not convey the whole truth on the subject ; 
 for, in addition to varying wages, the number of men 
 and boys to a given number of horses varies exceedingly. 
 
60 LABOUK ON THE FARM. 
 
 Let it be remembered, also, that though daring the past 
 two or three years wages in agricultural districts have 
 somewhat shrunk, they have been higher than those 
 named in the instances here quoted. 
 
 Cost of Horse-Lalboiir per Acre. — ^We are now in 
 
 a position, with reference to the cases already specified, to 
 ascertain the whole amount paid for horse-labour on a 
 number of selected farms ; and, comparing it with the 
 acreage of the several farms, to state the cost per acre of 
 the horse-labour on each. In order to do this we give in 
 the columns of the following table (1) the annual cost of 
 food per horse taken fcom a former table ; (2) the estimated 
 or the actual amount of extras, including blacksmith's, 
 saddler's, farrier's bills, together with the cost of main- 
 taining the value of the animal undepreciated; (3) the 
 number of horses worked upon the farm ; (4) the total 
 cost of horse-keep on the farm, as made up of food and 
 " extras; " (5) the cost of maintaining at an undepreciated 
 value the implements in use — viz. ten per cent, upon an 
 estimated expenditure of £1 per acre of the arable land ; 
 (6) the amount of wages paid to team-men, as calculated 
 from the particulars supplied to me, and partly explained 
 in sundi-y notes already given ; (7) the total cost of horse- 
 labour on the farm; (8 and 9) the total acreage of the 
 farm in arable and pasture land ; (10 to 13) the acreage 
 of the several crops cultivated on the arable land — fallow 
 and fallow crops, including bare fallow, turnips, carrots, 
 mangold-wurzel, cabbage, &c. — grain, including wheat, 
 barley, oats, &c. — clover, including clover, sainfoin, 
 lucerne, &c. — and pulse, Jkc, including beans, peas, and 
 flax ; (14 and 15) the cost per acre of arable land, and per 
 
HOESE POWER. 61 
 
 acre of the actually ploughed land, of the horse-labour of 
 the farm. 
 
 It may he stated here, in explanation of the large amount 
 of extras under No. 5, that they included in that case a 
 considerable portion of the cost of implement repairs. The 
 wear and tear of implements also, however, stand rather 
 higher here than in the proportion which the others 
 present to their irespective acreage ; the fact being, that on 
 this farm a great deal of machinery had been tried, the 
 repairs of which were a heavy item. 
 
 Columns 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6, give us the means of cal- 
 culating the total cost of horse-labour, which accordingly 
 appears in column 7. 
 
 In columns 8 and 9 we have the acreage occupied by the 
 tenants in the several cases specified. Of course it would 
 be of little service to compare the total cost of horse-labour 
 with the total acreage, because much of it might be pasture, 
 involving little labour of any kind. The extent of arable 
 land is accordingly given, and the cost of horse-labour is 
 calculated in column 14 per acre of the arable land in every 
 case. But even this would mislead without further ex- 
 planation, and accordingly in columns 10, 11, 12, 18, will 
 be found the acres respectively in fallow and fallow crops, 
 in grain crops, pulse, and clover. And in column 15 the 
 cost of horse-labour per acre ploughed that year is calculated. 
 
 Even these particulars however, are insufficient to enable 
 a perfectly truthful comparison, for the soil may be stiff 
 or light, and the cultivation may be deep or shallow. 
 Take, for instance, one of the last cases (19) in the follow- 
 ing table. Mr. Wilson's farm was an extremely light sand, 
 just enclosed out of the heathy waste of Sherwood forest. 
 He cultivated it generally five to seven inches deep, except- 
 
I 
 
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HORSE POWER. 63 
 
 ing one deep ploughing in preparation for turnips, which 
 was ahout ten inches deep ; and yet a day's work at plough 
 Ta,ried from one acre of deep work, to one and a half or 
 even more of light fallow ploughing. The average of all 
 sorts will he at least one and a quarter acre done daily per 
 pair of horses in eight or nine hours. No wonder that his 
 horse-lahour cost less per acre than the others, whatever 
 his method of stable-feeding might be ; for heavy land 
 cannot of course be cultivated for the same expenditure as 
 light and sandy soil. In order, then, that the figures of 
 these last columns of the Table may be read intelligently, 
 I add another series of extracts from the reports, stating 
 the ordinary depth of cultivation adopted in the several 
 cases, and the character of the soil. 
 
 (1.) " The soil is peat upon clay, over say one half of 
 the farm ; over the remainder the clay is ploughed up, and 
 it needs a great deal of rolling to give it suiEcient solidity 
 for the wheat crop. The ploughing may be averaged for a 
 pair of horses to do one and a quarter acres daily. The 
 general depth of cultivation is five inches ; for, though we 
 plough deeper for fallow, yet the peat decomposes, and we 
 lose the depth in the course of a year, and we find it 
 prejudicial to any other crop to plough deeper than it was 
 fallowed." 
 
 (2.) "About 100 acres are strong land, but not so 
 retentive as to prevent its being ploughed ordinarily with 
 two or three horses. The remainder (460 acres) is a sandy 
 soil. It has all usually been cultivated from five to six 
 inches deep." 
 
 (3.) " Two hundred and sixty acres ase a useful marl 
 with stones ; the soil deep enough to allow of seven-inch 
 ploughing, and sufficiently retentive (often containing fifty 
 
64 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 or sixty per cent, of clay) to render it stiff working land in 
 moist weather. One hundred acres are of a light and 
 shallower soil, sometimes occupying the slopes of the hUls, 
 where we may not have more than two inches of earth. 
 Forty acres are' a strong clay marl. Three horses in line 
 are needed for six to seven-inch ploughing. From one 
 acre (lea ploughing) to three quarters (in winter) is a day's 
 ploughing." 
 
 (4.) " Except seventy acres of strong soil, part of which 
 is very steep, my farm is flat alluvial soil, partly light and 
 partly good deep loam — all good turnip-land. Fallows are 
 ploughed eight to nine inches deep with two horses, twelve 
 to thirteen with three horses, whenever the land allows ; 
 lea-land is ploughed six to six-and-a-half inches deep ; 
 turnip-land for corn five inches." 
 
 (5.) " The soil is a loamy clay, of a darkish hrown 
 colour, resting on the middle limestone formation." 
 
 (6.) " Of the soil, twenty acres are light and shallow, 
 resting on limestone rock ; 100 are a lightish sandy loam ; 
 and eighty are a clayey loam. We plough a foot deep for 
 roots, four inches deep for corn." 
 
 (7.) " The character of the land is gravel, clay, and clay- 
 loam. Our ordinary depth of cultivation is from five to 
 eight inches — ^never less than the former. The ordinary 
 day's work varies from three roods to an acre, the horses 
 working double." 
 
 (8.) " The character of the soil over 230 acres is gravel, 
 liable in a dry time to burn ; over 100 acres a black gravel 
 and loam. For wheat we plough four to five inches deep ; 
 for barley four inches ; our turnip fallows from eight to 
 nine inches. We usually expect a man with a pair in 
 ordinary work to do his acre in the day, excepting in 
 
HORSE POWER. 65 
 
 winter, wlieii the fallows are laid up with four horses in a 
 plough, and in spring, when these fallows are ploughed 
 back, with a three-horse plough." 
 
 (9.) " The soil over most of the farm is a gravel, and on 
 the rest a stiff clay. We plough six or seven inches deep 
 except for roots, when the furrow is 10 or 12 inches deep." 
 
 (10.) "We use two-horse swing-ploughs, and three 
 roods to an acre are a day's work ; on short days, of course, 
 we must be satisfied with less." 
 
 (11.) "We have a deep loam on the west side of the 
 farm, and can plough safely and usefully nine or ten 
 inches ; on the south side we have a strong loam on clay, 
 the average depth being six or eight inches ; on the east 
 side a very useful stoiiebrash, cultivated six inches deep ; 
 on the north side it is pasture. The ordinary extent of a 
 day's work at plough is an acre ; three horses are used 
 ploughing for beans and fallow in the autumn, two being 
 used for all else after the first spring furrow." 
 
 (12.) " The soil varies much, and in a dry summer is 
 very difficult to work. It is cultivated from four to six 
 inches deep. Three horses are used in a plough for 
 ' breaking ' grass and heavy stubble, and two only for the 
 after-ploughings. From three roods to one acre is about a 
 usual day's work for one plough." 
 
 (13.) " Soil chiefly a light stonebrash, like most of the 
 Cotswold district ; but there are some sand and some clay 
 spots. It is cultivated four to five inches deep, or more 
 when the soil admits. Half an acs-e, or rather less, is a 
 day's work, taking the average of dry and wet with the 
 distance from the stables. Generally two, sometimes three 
 horses are used in a plough." 
 
 (14.) " The soil on the fen farms is very light and non- 
 
66) LABOUB ON THE FAEM. 
 
 adhesive; on the high lands more tenacious and hea^y. 
 Many fen farmers break up a good deal of their clean fallow 
 lands with four or six horses in a large plough, bringing up 
 the subsoil and mixing it with the top soil. They plough 
 from fourteen to fifteen inches deep ; but the usual depth 
 of ploughing is, for wheat, five or six inches ; and on the 
 high lands we cultivate from six to eight or nine inches 
 deep. Two horses easily plough five roods a |day on the 
 fen. On the high lands early in the season, two horses 
 will plough from three to four roods per day ; but in winter 
 and spring, when the land gets wet and sticks a good deal, 
 we usually plough with three horses at length, to avoid 
 treading, and they plough just three roods daily." 
 
 (15.) " Three-fourths of the farm is a light chalky soil, 
 the remainder a rather stiff red gravel resting upon the 
 chalk. The wheat stubbles are usually ploughed about 
 seven inches deep in the autumn by three or four horses. 
 The average depth for wheat, barley, &c., is about five 
 inches. An average day's work is a statute acre, done by 
 a pair of horses abreast." 
 
 (16.) " The soil is a marl on a chalk subsoil; the depth 
 of cultivation is from six to seven inches. An acre and a 
 quarter to an acre and a half is a day's work — four horses 
 to a team." 
 
 (17w) " One hundred and twenty acres are a clay mould; 
 120 acres peaty, on a sandy subsoil, but damp — reclaimed 
 from swamp ; fifty-five acres sharp gravel. The ordinary 
 furrow is eight inches ; if subsoiled, fifteen inches." 
 
 (18.) " Soil loamy, with clay subsoil. Ploughing six to 
 seven inches deep. Three roods a day in winter ; one acre 
 in summer by two horses." 
 
 (19.) " Soil varying from mere sand to gravelly sand, 
 
HOESE POWER. 67 
 
 and in places many boulders. The depth of cultivation 
 varies according to crop from five to seven inches, except 
 one deep ploughing in preparation for turnips from ten to 
 eleven inches. A day's work at plough varies from one 
 acre of hard work to one and a half, or even more, of light 
 fallow ploughing ; ploughing clover lea for wheat, one and 
 a quarter acre per day; and perhaps the average 
 ploughing of all sorts is one and a quarter acre daily, done 
 in eight or nine hours — two horses to a team." 
 
 (20.) " Soil medium. Lea furrow six inches deep. 
 Part ploughed in autumn, eight to eleven inches deep, rest, 
 say seven or eight." 
 
 (21.) " Soil, a sand over 140 acres; a clayey loam over 
 eighty acres ; a light brashy soil over twenty acres. 
 Ploughed from 5 to 10 inches deep, according to the crop." 
 
 Even the extremely various character of the land, and 
 the great differences in the treatment of it, as above 
 described, fail, however, to account for the whole of those 
 differences in the price of horse labour per acre which the 
 Table describes. There is a large remainder after the 
 amplest deductions on this ground, which must be put 
 down either to varying stable management on the one hand, 
 or to varying laboriousness of cultivation on the other. 
 The number of acres cultivated per horse — i.e., excluding 
 ffom the whole" acreage of the farm, not only the permanent 
 pasture-land, but the extent in clovers and grasses — varies 
 exceedingly : no less, indeed, than from eighteen and fifteen 
 in the case of Nos. 15 and 27, to thirty-one and thirty in 
 the case of Nos. 4 and 21. From the accounts which have 
 been given me, there does not appear to have been that 
 greater laboriousness of cultivation which would explain 
 such differences as appear in the Table ; but it is worth 
 
 ir 2 
 
68 LABOUR ON THE FAEM. 
 
 while pointing out to the reader how the number of horses 
 kept on a given extent of land oTerrules in its ultimate effect 
 the most ,economical style of stable management. The 
 horses in the case of No. 16 cost him only £16 6s. each per 
 annum for their food, i.e., about half as much those of No. 
 20 ; and yet the expenditure in the latter case per acre for 
 horse labour, high as it is when compared with the other 
 cases on the list, was not so high as that of No. 16. 
 
 It may be added, as presenting the total result of the 
 instances specified in this table, that we have on twenty- 
 one farms 282 horses, costing for food, for depreciation of 
 value, and for saddler's, farrier's, and blacksmith's bills, 
 £7,713 a year ; their implements cost £874 a year to keep 
 them good ; and the ploughmen and boys employed about 
 them cost £4,242 a year in wages — ^in all, about £13,000, 
 or £46 per horse per annum ; and supposing that there are 
 2,500 working hours in the year, this is rather less than 
 5d. per horse per hour. 
 
 Cost of Horse Power per Cwt. of Brangbt. — The 
 
 common definition of horse power is the ability to lift 
 83,000 lbs. one foot high per minute. This is perfectly 
 consistent, as has been already said, with the results of 
 experiments on the draught of ploughs. Thus, when two 
 horses pull a plough along at the rate of two and a half 
 miles in an hour, and the tension on the draught chain is 
 equal to a Hft of 300 lbs. — ^no uncommon case — they do in 
 effect lift that 300 lbs. 220 feet per minute, that being the 
 sixtieth part of two and a half miles ; and this is equivalent 
 to a lift of 66,000 lbs., or just the 33,000 Ibk. apiece, one 
 foot high per minute, which is the ordinary mechanical 
 expression of one-horse power. This power, however, is 
 
HOESE POWER. 69 
 
 not continuously exerted. The plough, though drawn at 
 the rate of two and a half miles per hour, is not drawn 
 twenty-five miles in a day of ten hours ; it is not often 
 drawn much more than ten miles in that time, in conse- 
 quence of loss of time on headlands, &c. In fact, the 
 plough is drawn harely ten miles in turning over one acre 
 in furrow-shces ten inches vdde. In this lies one great 
 difference between animal and steam power ; namely, the 
 persistence of the latter, if only methods of continuously 
 employing it can be devised. The really effective work of 
 a horse per diem thus does not much exceed one half of 
 that calculated from its work per minute ; and its annual 
 performance must be often still further reduced below the 
 theoretical standard by the occurrence of days when it 
 remains idle in the stable. 
 
 In some of the instances described above, I have received 
 such a detailed account ef the work done upon the farms, 
 as enables me to estimate with some confidence the total 
 annual draught accomplished during its cultivation. 
 
 If you can enumerate all the operations on your farm, 
 together with the draught incurred in accomplishing them, 
 then you can easily convert the whole into weight lifted 
 through a certain space in a certain time. If you can 
 record the cost of horse food, of extras, of ploughmen, and 
 of keeping up live and dead stock, then against the work 
 done you can place the exact cost of doing it ; and the com- 
 parison leads, as in the two cases worked out above, to the 
 cost of horse power " per cwt. of draught, at a given rate 
 of movement." 
 
 It would be tedious to examine in detail the given 
 instances ; but I may add, as the result of such an 
 examination, that I believe the following Table describes 
 
70 
 
 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 pretty nearly the experience of those whose numbers are 
 given in the Table on page 62 : — 
 
 Number 
 
 in 
 Table 
 Page 62. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Perform- 
 ance per 
 Horse, i.e., 
 lbs. lifted 
 1 foot per 
 Minute. 
 
 Annual Labour. 
 
 Cost of Horse Labour. 
 
 Cost of 
 Horse- 
 power 
 
 per cwt. 
 drawn 
 
 Similes. 
 
 Cwt. 1 Cwt. 
 drawn 1 drawn 
 1 mile Zi miles 
 
 per per 
 
 ATTTinm- Hour. 
 
 Per 
 Annum. 
 
 Per 
 Hour. 
 
 1 
 3 
 
 19 
 20 
 21 
 
 Aitken ... 
 Coleman 
 Wilson... 
 Melvin ... 
 Morton... 
 
 lbs. 
 18,250 
 14,354 
 16,957 
 19,693 
 19,298 
 
 cwt. cwt. 
 
 100,000 14-8 
 44,000 ' 6-5 
 93,800 13-88 
 
 107,900 15-98 
 37,006 5-5 
 
 £ s. 
 873 
 471 5 
 956 16 
 1131 10 
 386 15 
 
 «. d. 
 
 6 5| 
 3 6 
 
 7 3i 
 
 8 ^ 
 2 10 
 
 d. 
 
 5i 
 
 64 
 
 6i 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 These figures, let me remark, are necessarily mere 
 approximations to the truth. They are given, of course, 
 without regard to any personal hearings they may have, 
 simply as the results to which calculation, on the data 
 furnished to me, has led. No doubt exception may be 
 taken to many of them ; they may, however, be safely 
 taken, both as illustrating the way in which the cost of 
 horse power must be calculated, and also as showing that 
 very considerable differences do exist in the expense of horse 
 labour as it is managed on different farms. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LABOTTEBE. 
 
 Economy of Kami-power. — Incidence of Farm Latour. — Price of Latonr. 
 — Modes of paying Labourers. — The Bothy System. — Bondagers. — 
 Boarding Labourers. — Weekly Payments. — Piece-work. — Master and 
 Servant. 
 
 It is proposed in this chapter (1.) to estimate the com- 
 parative cost of mere labour as done by hand power, and 
 steam, and horse power respectively; (2.) to state what 
 may be called the altered incidence of farm labour as 
 regards the different powers now used in its accomplish- 
 ment, i.e. the alteration in the shares of it which now fall 
 to them respectively; (3.) to state the actual wages at 
 present paid under several methods, and in different parts 
 of the country; (4.) to describe the modes of hiring labourers 
 on the farm ; and (5.) to discuss that relation of master 
 and servant by which the best economical and the best 
 social result may be obtained. 
 
 Economy of Hand Power. — The following four in- 
 stances must suffice in illustration of the cost of manual 
 labour engaged in mere work, i.e., where the least degree of 
 skill is called for. 
 
 (1.) A man will dig eight perches of land, or say 2,000 
 square feet, nearly a foot deep in a day. In doing so he 
 
72 LABOUE ON THE FARM. 
 
 lifts probably three-quarters of it through more than a foot 
 in height, or probably 150,000 lbs. one foot high in 
 ten hours' time ; and to do it therefore he must maintain 
 upon the average a lift of 250 lbs. per minute all that time. 
 Of course, in addition to the mere lift there is the labour 
 of cutting off this earth from the firm ground to which it 
 was attached. In my second case, then, this portion of his 
 labour is very much reduced. (2.) Three men will lift 100 
 to 120 cubic yards of farm-yard dung, and fill it into carts 
 in ten hours' time. The thirty-three to forty cubic yards 
 which fall to each man's share, at twelve to fourteen cwt. 
 a-piece, weigh 60,000 lbs., and this is lifted over the edge 
 of the cart, or four feet high— equal to 200,000 lbs. lifted 
 daily one foot high, oi 330 lbs. per minutel This is one- 
 fifth more than in the last case. (3.) Now take a third 
 instance, in which there is no labour in detaching the 
 weight from any previous connection : A man will pitch in 
 an hour's time an acre of a good crop tied in sheaves, to an 
 average height of full six feet, on the cart or waggon. 
 Straw and corn together such a crop will weigh more than 
 two tons, say 5,000 lbs. In doing this he therefore lifts 
 300,000 lbs. one foot high in ten hours' time, or 500 lbs. 
 per minute. (4.) My fourth case is of much the same 
 kind. One man, and five boys or women, equal as regards 
 wages, and I will therefore assume equal as regards power, 
 to three men, will throw into carts upon an average three 
 acres of a good crop of swedes and mangold wujzels, say 
 seventy tons in all, in a day of nine hours' length. They 
 lift these 150,000 lbs. four feet, being equal to 
 600,000 lbs. one foot; or 200,000 lbs. apiece in nine 
 hours' time, which is about 370 lbs. a minute. 
 
 These four oases indicate the mere force of a man then, 
 
THE LABOURER. 73 
 
 at a cost of say 3d. an hour, as equal to a lift of 250, 330, 
 500, and 870 lbs. per minute ; the two former being cases 
 where the load has to be detached as well as lifted, and the 
 third being performed under the influence of good harvest 
 fare. 
 
 But now compare this even in its best case with the duty 
 of the steam-engine, namely, the lift of 83,000 lbs. one 
 foot high per minute for 3d. or even less per hour ; and 
 compare it with the actual average performance of the 
 horse, 16,000 to 19,000 lbs. lifted one foot per minute for 
 ad. an hour. In order at the best rate named to do the 
 work of the steam-engine, sixty-six men would be required 
 at a cost not oi5d., but of more than 15s. per hour ; and in 
 order to do the work of the horse, thirty -two men would be 
 needed, at a cost of 8s. instead of 5d. an hx)ur. It is plain 
 that if we can take much of the mere labour of the farm 
 out of the hands of the labourer, and put it into the hands 
 of steam power for its performance, an enormous amount of 
 saving is made in the cost of agricultural production. It is 
 plainly folly in the labourer to think that as regards the mere 
 labour of the land he can compete with either steam power 
 or horse power. Strength of body is desirable, and sinew 
 hardened by long practice in hard work has a considerable 
 marketable value ; but it is clear that for sheer lift and the 
 mere putting forth of force, horse power, and still more 
 that of untiring steam, must grind the soul out of any 
 body that shall pretend to competition with it. It is in 
 the cultivation not so much of mere strength of body as of 
 skiU and intelligence that the safety of the labourer lies ; 
 and in his capability of education he is perfectly secure. 
 
 As the matter at presents stands, then, and confining 
 ourselves to that large and increasing class of operations 
 
74 LABOTJE ON THE FARM. 
 
 in whieli the power required is great and the process almost 
 uniform, and looking only to the cost per unit of work 
 done, it is plain that steam power stands first in the race, 
 horse power is a tolerahly good second, and the agricultural 
 labourer is literally nowhere. 
 
 Xncidence of Fanu Labour. — But consider now how 
 this superiority of elemental and of animal power comes 
 in by the aid of machinery to affect the incidence of farm 
 labour. It may well be that on the land which shall 
 nevertheless be paying the most wages per annum, all 
 grubbing and all heavy hoeing, all mowing and reaping, all 
 threshing, and all cutting up of roots and hay for food, are 
 done by horse or steam power, leaving little of mere labour 
 for the hand, except the lifting of the produce from the 
 ground. The great demand for labourers on the farm wiE 
 now more and more be for work which requires skill and 
 carefulness, rather than mere bodily strength. Men are 
 wanted for clever management of tools and of machinery; 
 for attendance on the steam engine and the horses by which 
 these are drawn or driven ; for particular cultivation of the 
 plants whose produce is desired in the field; and for 
 detailed care and management of the live stock by which a 
 portion of that produce is consumed. And yet, limited as to 
 quality as is the labour now required upon the farm, the 
 quantity needed of it on arable farms yielding such crops 
 as have been taken hitherto is enhanced so much by the 
 more vigorous cultivation which the land now receives, that 
 more labourers are needed now than when nearly all the 
 work was done by men alone. Potatoes, mangold wurzels, 
 turnips, and crops of that class, all of them laborious, 
 require so much more stock to consume the extra provision 
 
THE LABOURER. 75 
 
 of cattle-food, and these need care — so that though steam 
 power is a clear addition to our resources, and horse power 
 is by machinery now used for purposes once wholly served 
 by hand, yet hitherto, there has been more work than ever 
 for the labourer; work demanding a better education for the 
 men employed in it. 
 
 Here are we producers and consumers, taking England 
 by itselif, nearly 27,870,000 of people, living in this island, 
 on a great farm, which, by the help of such statistics as we 
 possess, we may describe as nearly 25,000,000 acres in 
 extent, of which more than 1,250,000 are arable, and 
 12,400,000 grass, employing as farm labourers, in-doors 
 and out, about 900,000 men and women, lads, and girls, 
 equal in all to about 750,000 grown men, or one to every 
 seventeen acres of arable and as much pasture. We 
 feed and use some 1,000,000 horses, of which probably 
 550,000 are strictly for farm purposes. We are annually 
 inventing and manufacturing labour-saving machines at an 
 extraordinary rate ; and every year many thousand horses 
 are added to the agricultural steam power of the country, 
 which must certainly displace both animals and men to 
 some extent. We have taken the flail out of the hand 
 of the labourer, and the reaping-hook is going ; on some 
 fiaims he rarely walks between the handles of the plough 
 — ^he no longer sows the seed — he does but a portion of 
 the hoeing and the harvesting — and yet he is as much 
 in demand as ever he has been, and his wages accord- 
 ingly have till very lately constantly been rising. Agri- 
 culture, in fact, experienced the truth taught in the history 
 of all other manufactures — ^that machinery is in the long 
 run the friend of the labourer. It is also facilitating and 
 cheapening production, and thus promoting the general good. 
 
76 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 The general truth thus illustrated is not the less true 
 for the change which has of late been witnessed in farm 
 management owing to recent great reductions in the market 
 value of agricultural produce. The only possibility of 
 profitable agricultural occupation of land seems now to be 
 in diminishing all wage payments as far as possible. To 
 this end much arable land is being laid down to permanent 
 pasture, and the clover and grass quarter of the land still 
 kept in crop rotation is kept down two and even three years 
 instead of only one. The extraordinary reduction in the 
 market price, especially of the wheat crop, is thus diminish- 
 ing the demand of labour on the farm ; and this would, no 
 doubt, have been seen much more than it is in a consequent 
 reduction of the weekly wage, were it not for the constant 
 reduction which has for many years been experienced in 
 the number who now seek employment as farm servants. 
 
 The Price of J^abour. — Up till very lately the fact 
 that labourers have been constantly in much greater demand 
 than they used to be was plain from the increased rate of 
 wages which their services everywhere command, and from 
 the frequent discussions before Farmers' Clubs as to the 
 best methods of retaining their services. 
 
 The following represents the varying circumstances of the 
 labourers during the 40 years I have had to do with them. 
 
 In the autumn of 1849, I applied through the corre- 
 spondents of the Agncultural Gazette for information on 
 this subject, and from most of the English counties and 
 many of the Scottish ones I obtained answers to printed 
 questions, as to what was then the wage of able-bodied 
 men, what their weekly wage at harvest time, what the 
 ordinary daily wage of women in the field ; what the cost 
 
THE LAJBOTJKEE. 77 
 
 of mowing clover, of mowing meadow grass, of mowing 
 barley, of harvesting a good ordinary crop of wheat ; what 
 the ordinary rent of cottages, and so on. Many years 
 since then, I have more than once repeated the same 
 inquiry, and have been told the rate of wages by many 
 gentlemen residing in Scottish, English, and Irish counties. 
 
 Let me first quote a few instances, taking the weekly 
 wage of an ordinary able-bodied man as the criterion. 
 
 In Aberdeenshire, Mr. M'Donald, of Huntly, reported 
 the wages of ploughmen in 1849 to be £16 a-year with 
 board and lodging ; they are now iG20 to £22 with board 
 and lodging. Mr. Bell, of Ferryden Farm, Forfarshire, 
 formerly reported the ordinary weekly wages of an able- 
 bodied man at 10s. ; he has since put it at 12s. in winter, 
 and 15s. in summer. Similarly, Fifeshire wages were 
 10s. ; they are now 13s. In East Lothian the wages were 
 10s. a week, or 10s. with coals hauled free ; latterly they 
 are valued at 12s. to 15s., &c. In Mid-Lothian Mr. Melvin 
 reported the annual wages of the married ploughmen at 
 910 lbs. of oatmeal, twelve cwt. of potatoes, two meals 
 daUy during harvest time, the hauling of four tons of coal, 
 and £17 in money ; he has since reported them at 1,050 
 lbs. of oatmeal, eight cwt. of potatoes, four weeks of 
 harvest food, coals carted, house rent free, and £21 in money. 
 
 In Northumberland, wages, according to Mr. Grey of 
 Dilston, were 12s. weekly, with cottage and garden, and 
 carriage of coals free ; they now are 15s. with house and 
 garden free. Mr. Drewry's wages at Holker, North 
 Lancashire, were 13s. 6d. ; ten years later they were 15s. 
 to 16s. 6d. They have since varied with the demand 
 for workmen at the neighbouring iron works. From 
 Lincolnshire I had four reports of the wages of able-bodied 
 
78 LABOUE ON THE FARM. 
 
 men, and they ran thus : — lOs., 9s. to 10s., lis. to 12s. 
 and 9s. to 10s. I had four reports from the same em- 
 ployers in 1859, and they ran thus: 12s., 12s., 12s., 10s. to 
 12s. ; and in 1868 two correspondents have reported them 
 as 9s. weekly, with board wages, or 15s. a week without 
 board. Since then they have somewhat fallen; and 
 fewer men are employed. Take, now, the case of Norfolk : 
 Mr. Cubitt, of North Walsham, in 1849 put the wages at 
 7s. to 8s., and the carters Is. to 2s. extra ; in 1860 they 
 were 9s., and the carters 10s. 6d : they are now IDs. to 
 12s. a week. In Northamptonshire, Mr. Grey, of Cour- 
 teen Hall, Northampton, reported 8s. and 9s. as ordinary 
 wages ; he put them eleven years later, at 12s. weekly, 
 and now generally still somewhat higher. In Warwick- 
 shire, Mr. Burbury, of Kenilworth, reported 8s. to 
 9s. weekly in 1849. They are now 13s. to 14s. In 
 Worcestershire, Mr. Hudson of Pershore, named 8s., 10s. 
 or 9s. with two quarts of beer a day, as ordinary weekly 
 wages, now they are reported at lis. to 13s. in the same 
 locality. 
 
 In Oxfordshire, Mr. Druce, of Eynsham, stated 8s. 
 weekly, the carters and the shepherds having cottages rent 
 free in addition ; wages are now 10s. to 12s., ploughmen 
 and shepherds from 12s. to 15s. with cottages. 
 
 In Wiltshire, which was the worst paid county in the 
 kingdom, wages were, some thirty years ago, 6s. to 7s. a 
 week for ordinary labourers ; they were 8s. a week in 
 1859 ; and now they are lis. and 12s. weekly. 
 
 In Kent they were 9s. and 10s., and agaia lis. to 12s., 
 how 16s. From Sussex I had three reports formerly 8s. to 
 IDs., 10s., and 10s. ; and I have had three reports after- 
 Wards, lis., 12s., and IBs. 
 
THE LABOURER. 79 
 
 From Dorsetshire I had five reports, averaging 7s. and 
 8s. a week, with cider or beer, and with cottage free " in 
 some cases." I had two reports in 1868, the one named 
 9s., and in the other the various payments make the money 
 equal to 12s. weekly now. 
 
 In Devonshire the wages were 8s. to 10s., and now lis. 
 to 12s. In Cornwall they were 8s. to 9s., and now 12s. 
 
 All this proves, then, that the labouring force in agri- 
 culture is even still, although now somewhat reduced, 
 much better paid than it used to be ; and that the 
 enormous extension of machinery and steam power has 
 not been to the injury of the farm servant. 
 
 It has been urged that it is more economical to pay 
 liberal wages ; and employers have said that they cannot 
 afford to employ, men for less than half-a-crown a day. It 
 is declared that when we compare steam, and horse, and 
 hand power together, the powers in question are not the 
 engiue, horse, and man, but the food which each consumes ; 
 and their relative economy therefore depends on their 
 being fed properly and well. That the high-waged, 
 well-fed labourer is really a cheaper source of power than 
 the poor and half- starved man is no doubt true ; and the 
 only pity is that labourers have, by long habit, been so 
 tied to parishes and unions that wages do not naturally 
 become more uniform in the country. 
 
 It is plain however that labouring men cannot be 
 considered and cannot be treated by their employers as 
 machines to be "fed," in order to obtain as large a "duty" 
 irom them as possible. It is upon their acquiring in- 
 dependence and manliness enough to seek for themselves 
 the best circumstances of the country that the prospects 
 of labourers in dense as well as scanty populations depend. 
 
80 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 Wages are the natural result of the relation of the 
 labouring population to the labour offered then : and the 
 land being bound to maintain that population, whether we 
 employ them or not, it is probable that the rate of pay- 
 ment which naturally arises out of the circumstances is 
 the best possible for all parties under those circumstances. 
 
 Mode of Hiring and Faying Ijabonrers. — ^Besides 
 the amount of wages there is the mode of paying them, 
 which greatly affects the character and position of the 
 labourer. It may be (1), partly in money, but with an 
 immense variety of perquisites; it may be (2), partly in 
 board and lodging in the house ; it may be (3), in money 
 solely. These three include, I believe, all the various 
 systems of payment adopted. 
 
 (1.) Of the first I give two instances from the extremes 
 of the island, Forfarshire and Dorsetshire. A Forfarshire 
 correspondent writes to me as follows : — 
 
 "Our ploughmen receive per annum £18 to d620 in 
 money, 6|- bolls oatmeal (140 lbs. a boll) ; IJ (Scotch) piat 
 warm milk {Qd. a pint during summer six months, 1 pint 
 in winter ditto) ; 15 cwt. potatoes ; and house and garden 
 at say £3. This for a married ploughman. Unmarried : 
 £20 and £22 ; one * pint ' of warm milk daily aU the year ; 
 6J bolls of meal, and fire and lodging in a bothy. At hay 
 and corn harvest they get two bottles of beer daily, and 
 bread and beer while leading to the stackyard. Married 
 men get all their fuel driven by their masters." 
 
 I value those wages at 14s. to 16s. weekly. The daily 
 workers, when getting something like steady work, have 
 12s. a week in vnnter, and 15s. in summer, with no beer 
 or other allowance. 
 
THE LABOUEER. 81 
 
 In Dorsetshire, the late Mr. Saundera, of Watercomb 
 Farm, Dorchester, wrote to me as follows of the way in 
 which he paid agricultural labourers of different call- 
 ings:— 
 
 "They all live on the farm near their work, I have 
 eighteen cottages in which my men all live rent free, and 
 most of them have good gardens, besides other potato 
 land free. In this county we agree for a family at a 
 certain sum, from the 6th of April to the 6th of April in 
 the following year ; and some of my men have continued on 
 my farm with me for more than thirty years without 
 change. The following is about the general run of wages 
 in our county : — 
 
 House, good garden, worth to let, £4 a year 
 
 Weekly Wiiges 8s. or 9*., and 30 perch of potato land ploughed 
 ■ in with their potatoes, often^growing 15 sacks, now worth 10s. 
 
 per sack, which, allowing the seed out,, would he worth £5 ... 
 
 200 furze faggots, carried home free to the cottage 
 
 28 cwt. hest coals, carried home at 1». per cwt. ^advantage worth 
 
 at least 
 
 Extra for harvesting, cash £1, and 1 gallon of ale per day 
 
 Every journey with team, Is. ; average one per we«k 
 
 Three quarts of ale per day at haymaking, for 8 weeks, at 9d. 
 
 pergallon 
 
 . The ploughman's (carter's) wages are thus ahout 13s. per week . . .£38 9 
 
 My shepherd has the same as the horse-man, except that he £ s. d. 
 
 earns about £3 extra for sheep which he shears, and he has Is. 
 
 per score for all lambs bred, which at about 600, is £1 10s. ; 
 
 and also 6d. for every ram let or sqld, generally £2 10s. in aU 
 Take from this the difference of carter's journey money, which is 
 
 Leaving in favour of shepherd 
 
 Wages and perquisites as carter's account 
 
 jSAspAerd's wages weekly, 17», £42 17- '0 
 
 a 
 
 £ s. 
 
 4 
 
 d. 
 
 
 25 16 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 14 
 
 2 
 2 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 7 
 
 
 
 7 
 2 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 8- 
 38 9 
 
 
 
 
82 LABOUE ONTHj; FAEM. 
 
 " The common labourer received 8s. per week. LSftiise, 
 garden, potato land, 200 of furze, 15 cwt. of <3oal&, and 
 most of my labourers have piece work at different times of 
 the year when convenient. I consider, on an average, a good 
 labourer's place with me is worth fully 12s. to 13s. per week." 
 
 This was a most elaborate scheme of payment, and 
 on the whole a liberal one, though I do not value the items 
 so high as the late Mr. Saunders did, making, the yearly 
 wage of his ploughmen as nearly as possible 13s. a week. 
 
 (2.) Now, over large districts in England another system 
 obtains, of which Mr. Manser, a tenant farmer at Dumpton, 
 near Ramsgate, gave me the following very interesting 
 account, and I have since referred it to him for correction to 
 present date : — 
 
 " Our ploughmen here are generally single and yearly 
 servants, and are boarded and lodged by the farmer or by 
 his bailiff. They are hired from the 11th of October to the 
 11th of October each year, and though they sometimes con- 
 tinue for several years with the same master, a fresh agree- 
 ment takes place every year. They commence as lads at 
 thirteen or fourteen years of age ; their duties then are to 
 drive the horses and attend to them in the stables, and we 
 almost invariably find that the younger the boys go to 
 service (as it is here termed), the better ploughmen and the 
 better labourers they afterwards become. They begin at 
 about £5 wages per annum, which is usually increased every 
 year their strength and ability increase, or as master and ser- 
 vant agree ; the increase goes on at the rate of about ^1 per 
 year, and our head horse-man or waggoner gets from £12 
 to £14 per year. The cost of their board varies according 
 to the price of provisions ; and when they are boarded by a 
 third party, it is generally paid partly in money and partly 
 
THE LABOUEEB. 83 
 
 in kind ; they always have meat three times a day, and can- 
 not be boarded on an average of less than 8s. per week per 
 head. In some few instances, however, where there are 
 cottages near, married men are employed as ploughmen at 
 wages of 14s. per week, and a cottage rent free ; if they 
 have to pay rent they are usually allowed about £5 extra 
 for harvest, in addition to the 14s. per week. I find, on 
 examining my labour accaunt, that my best men, on an 
 average of the year through, earned about 16s. per week, or 
 a little over £40 a year. This includes harvest and hay- 
 making, as well as lost time from weather or other causes, 
 and is the man's earnings, independent of the rest of the 
 family." He added, " Our labourers pay about 2s. 6d. per 
 vveek rent for their cottages, and for this many get but a 
 miserable home, which, however, is less a disgrace to the 
 neighbourhood than it has been. Labourers are however 
 still (many of them) driven to reside in the worst parts of the 
 towns, many of them in hovels, built or rather stuck Up for 
 the sole purpose of investment, without any regard to 
 health, comfort, cleanliness, or morality. No garden is 
 attached, or anything else to make a poor man's home com- 
 fortable ; they are completely away from the eye of all who 
 feel an interest in their welfare. The consequence I need not 
 describe. There is every inducement for them to spend their 
 spare time and hard earnings at thepublic-house or beer-shop; 
 they have often from two or three miles to go in all weathers 
 to their labour; they never know the luxury of a hot dinner or 
 a meal with their families, except on a Sunday ; the children 
 run the streets in the worst parts of the town, and get early 
 imbued in every vrickedness. With no father near to correct 
 them, how can it be otherwise ? I do hope this subject will be 
 pressed before the public on every favourable opportunity." 
 
 »2 
 
84 LABOUR ON THE FAKM. 
 
 The cottage question to which Mr. Manser refers in the 
 above letter has the very greatest influence on the condition 
 of the agricultural labourer, and on the relations between 
 , him and his employer. We were struck with this on a 
 visit to the farms of Mr, Charles Howard some years ago 
 near Bedford. Pointing to the comfortable homes, wiih 
 gardens, occupied by his farm labourers, he exclaimed, ' ' Do 
 you think I fear any agent of the National Labourers' Union 
 here ? Do you think that Joseph Arch could pull any of 
 these labourers out of their oomfcirtable houses ? Why ! 
 , six of my best horses could not do it ! " 
 
 There "are several local or provincial peculiarities in the 
 relation of -farmer and labourer which, though not exactly 
 of the same class as that to which Mr. Manser's letter 
 alludes, may be mentioned in the same paragraph with it, 
 for in both there is part payment of wages in the form of 
 board and lodging. I refer to the so-called " bondager " 
 and " bothy " systems prevalent in the south-eastern and 
 in the north-eastern counties of Scotland. 
 
 In the former, the married hind who occupies one of the 
 farm cottages, is boimd to provide for his master during 
 the year, a woman worker, who thus becomes- the 
 '' bondager," receiving lOd. to Is. as may be agreed upon 
 for every ordinary day's work she does, and Is. Gd. more 
 ^or fevery harvest day's work she does. This is a great 
 rburden on the man, for it iniposes a lodger on him who 
 may be a most undesirable inmate; and such women 
 workers are able to obtain from ^£7 to £9 as yearly wages, 
 filing with thfeir board and lodging,, liie expense of which, 
 borne by him, is rarely met by the daily wages which the 
 wioman earns for him. ' And the system is not good so far 
 ap she is concerned either^ for it^piaces her in the position 
 
THE LABOURER. 86 
 
 of a servant's servant, and removes her so far from direct 
 relationship to the master of both, as to impair that interest 
 in her well-being which he might otherwise both feel 
 and exercise. 
 
 In the " bothy " system, on the other hand, the young 
 men whom it concerns are directly the servants of the 
 farmer — they are his unmarried ploughmen and labourers 
 — and he provides a room or rooms (the so-called bothy) 
 in which they are lodged apart from the farmer's house, 
 and in which they have their meals, which are in fact 
 oftentimes prepared by themselves. Of course siich an 
 flstablishment may be so looked after by the master, as that 
 It shall be a useful school to all its inmates. But this 
 represents only the possibilities of the case, — the 
 probabilities of it, as of every other enforced departure from, 
 or violation of, the family system natural to man, are far 
 otherwise. The evils of the system arise out of the isolation 
 of young men, the impossibility of any bit clandestine 
 association with the other sex, and the consequent liability 
 of such intercourse to become licentious. And it is a 
 fact which might have been expected under the circum- 
 stances, that there is a greater number of illegitimate 
 births in proportion to the population where the system 
 prevails than occurs elsewhere. The system itself has no 
 doubt arisen out of the absence of sufficient cottage 
 accommodation for the labourers of the district. The 
 responsibility for the evils which have arisen out of it rests 
 primarily, therefore, on the landowners of the locality. 
 
 In Lincolnshire and some other counties, Kent, for 
 example, as Mr. Manser mentions just above, a system of 
 boarding young labourers prevails ; and on this subject a 
 paper was read, some years ago, before the London Farmers' 
 
86 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 Club, by Mr. Marshall of Riseholm, Lincoln shire, whose 
 experience was thus described : — 
 
 "In some of the southern and midland counties the 
 custom prevails of hiring labourers by the year at a certain 
 sum per week, which is regularly paid every Saturday night, 
 a small deduction, say about 2s., being kept in hand to 
 ensure the service till the end of the contract, the servant 
 in all cases engaging to board and lodge himself at his own 
 expense. This he usually does with the foreman on the 
 farm, who undertakes to supply him with bread, meat, mUk 
 and vegetables, at a fair market price. In addition to the cost 
 of provision. Is. 6d. per week is charged for lodging and cook- 
 ing ; no beer whatever is allowed, except during the time of 
 hay and harvest, when four pints per day are commonly 
 given. In North Lincolnshire, it is the custom to employ 
 a large number of unmarried servant men and lads, who 
 are regularly hired by the year, from Old May Day tiU Old 
 May Day, at the various statutes held in the district for that 
 purpose. At present wages vary from ^5 for lads who can 
 plough and go with horses, to £20 for head waggoners who 
 are also drill men, and stack during harvest. On a farm of 
 500 acres of turnip land it is customary here to work about 
 fourteen horses, for which five farm servants, under the 
 superintendence and control of a married foreman, are 
 considered sufficient. An ample house with garden for 
 vegetables is provided rent free ; £30 a year is in wages 
 given to the foreman, who has also the produce of two cows 
 for five, or one cow for three men ; and twenty-six stones of 
 bacon {i.e., a fat pig weighing twenty-six stones) for him- 
 self, and twenty-six stones for each of his men. He has 
 further, forty stones of flour, twenty of best seconds for 
 puddings and pies, and twenty best thirds for bread for 
 
THE LABOURER. 
 
 87 
 
 each man ; one quarter of malt for himself and the harvest 
 men, and one sack for each man servant (equivalent to one 
 pint per day and four in harvest). He has five tons of 
 coal for the year's consumption ; and has Is. per day for 
 aU casual hoarders, such as additional harvest men, black- 
 smiths, carpenters, &c., who work by the day and have their 
 board. The men have three meals per day. For breakfast 
 hot bread and milk, and cold meat ; for dinner hot meat, 
 pies and puddings, vegetables, and one pint of ale; for 
 supper hot meat, bread and milk, or pea soup. By this 
 means they have always meat three times a day, milk twice, 
 and beer once. They pay for their own washing, and are 
 allowed an interlude of three or four days as a holiday at 
 some fitting period during the year, which always expires 
 on the 13th of May. I believe the quantity of bacon 
 allowed is always consumed, but probably the flour is a 
 little above what is required. The ordinary consumption 
 of a man, his wife, a servant maid, and five men, 
 usually averages about thirty stones for each person per 
 annum. The annual expenses of their board and wages 
 may be set down as follows : — 
 
 Foreman's wages 
 
 26 stones of bacon, at 7s. 
 
 1 quarter of malt 
 
 2 cows, at 3s. 6d. each per week ... 
 
 • 130 stones of bacon, for five men, at 7s. 
 
 200 stones of flour, at 2s 
 
 5 sacks of malt, at 9s 
 
 5 tons of coals, at 12s 
 
 Wages : — 2 waggoners, at £12 
 
 „ 2 middle men, at £10 ... 
 „ 1 boy at £6 
 
 
 £ ». d. 
 
 30 
 
 
 9 2 
 
 
 3 12 
 
 
 18 4 
 
 
 45 10 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 2 5 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 24 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 £181 13 
 
88 LABOUR ON THE FAEM. 
 
 "In addition to the above, the foreman's wife shares 
 largely in the profits of this system, inasmuch as she has 
 the butter and superfluous milk from two cows to dispose 
 of, the privilege of raising poultry of every description and 
 gathering eggs. For these she receives a certain price pei; 
 couple and per score, out of which she pays her maid 
 servant, and retains the residue as her own perquisite in 
 return for her vigilance and labour. Upon her good 
 management very much depends the comfort and well-being 
 of the whole establishment. These items amount to 
 iElSl 13s. for six men, namely, one foreman and five farm 
 servants, the yearly average for each being £30 5s., or 
 within a very trifling sum of 12s. per week. Now, if it be 
 taken into consideration that the ordinary wages of a daily 
 labourer in that district are 15s. per week, exclusive of a 
 very considerable increase during harvest, I think it must 
 in justice be conceded to me that I have, at least, pointed 
 out to you not only a far cheaper, but in every other respect 
 a far better plan ; such a one, moreover, as may at any 
 time be made available in any county or in any locality, 
 and one that is equally advantageous to master and servant. 
 It has, too, the acknowledged authority of one of the 
 largest 'and best cultivated districts in England to con- 
 firm its practical utility, and to warrant its more general 
 adoption." 
 
 Mr. Marshall's interesting account furnishes a very 
 liberal and excellent plan of managing his men. 
 
 In some districts, especially on small pastoral and 
 dairy farms in the northern counties, it is still the custom 
 for the farm labourers to board and wage with the farmer's 
 family. Take the following example from the Eeport of 
 
THE LABOUREB. 89 
 
 the Dairy Farms,* competing for the prizes offered in 1885 
 by the Royal Agricultural Society : — 
 
 Mr. Edward Newhouse, farmer at Anclyffe Hall, in the 
 parish of Slyne, ahout three miles north of Lancaster, 
 occupies 186 acres of land, of which 35 are arable. The 
 labour is accomplished by three horses and a nag. All the 
 men are boarded and lodged in the house, including one 
 carter at £26, one cowman at £25, one day labourer at £26, 
 one dairywoman at £19, one girl and one boy at £9 and £5 
 respectively ; and £5 or thereabouts is spent extra at 
 harvest time. The money expended in wages thus comes 
 to £115, but the board of so many must cost at least £120 
 more. The maste^ also shares in the work, taking his part 
 in the milking along with the others. The day begins at 
 about 4.30 a.m., followed by milking at 5. Breakfast of oat- 
 meal porridge and bread and butter is given at 6.30, dinner at 
 half-past 11 — meat, potatoes, and beer — tea, with bread and 
 butter, at half-past 8, and supper, at 6, of potatoes and 
 meat, or porridge, or bread and cheese. The second 
 milking is done at 5 p.m. This is a picture of homely 
 country life, which, now rare, was once the general rule. 
 
 (3.) The third method of payment is by a weekly sum of 
 money. ' The amounts given in the several districts of the 
 country have been already stated ; and the only remark to 
 be made upon the system is that, whether the payment be 
 weekly or fortnightly, it will be a great convenience to the 
 recipients if they are paid on Thursday or Friday evening, 
 instead of Saturday. The marketing for their families can then 
 be done with greater advantage to themselves ; and there is, 
 perhaps, less temptation to spend money at the beer- shop. 
 As regards weekly labourers, also care should be taken to 
 • Journal of the Boyal AgricuUwral Society, vol. xxii., 55. 
 
90 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 pay wages justly ; i.e., according to the real worth of the 
 men. Nothing more discourages effort, self-respect, and 
 energy in men, than treating them alike, however different 
 may be their value as labourers. Under this head, the 
 alternative has to be considered of payment by the piece, 
 and payment by the day or week. It seems plain that the 
 former is the better plan whenever it can be adopted. A 
 little experience will enable any one to determine the proper 
 price per perch, or acre, hundred, ton, or bushel for the 
 work in hand. The price should be fixed before the work is 
 commenced, and whatever may be the wages earned per 
 week under this agreement they should never be begrudged. 
 On the other hand, if the wages earned be insufficient, it is 
 better to make it up by letting the next job more liberally, 
 rather than by a sum paid as a recompense for the loss ; for 
 this would tend to give the labourer hopes of wages to be 
 earned otherwise than by industry. In either case the 
 work should be carefully superintended throughout ita 
 performance, as it will demoralise the labourer as well as 
 injure the master if a careless and imperfect performance 
 be allowed. The prices to be paid for various kinds of work 
 will be found on reference to the index. 
 
 Fiece-work Payments. — This subject requires, how- 
 ever, a more detailed consideration ; and this it has no- 
 where received in a more able and satisfactory a manner 
 than by Mr. 0. Howard, of Biddenham, near Bedford, at a 
 meeting of the Central Farmers' Club, now many years ago, 
 80 that I shall still use his words on the subject. 
 
 " A farmer," he says, " is far from being so advanta- 
 geously placed as the manufacturer in letting his work by 
 the piece, inasmuch as it is impossible for all the work of 
 
THE LABOUREK. 91 
 
 the farm to be performed on that system ; a great deal, 
 BDch as the feeding and tending of stock, carrying corn to 
 market, and many of the field operations, cannot be done 
 otherwise than by the day. Again, the farmer has to con- 
 tend with the elements ; and, if ever so disposed to keep 
 his men at piece-work, the weather frequently prevents him. 
 Again, some farmers are situated, as I am myself, with a 
 good and well-conducted set of men, whom he is disposed 
 to keep all the year through ; and at certain seasons, when 
 work is not very plentiful, there is no inducement to the 
 Jarmer to set his men to piece-work, which would have the 
 effect of raising his weekly expenditure. Still I think the 
 system might be advantageously extended ; for I find upon 
 farms where piece-work is generally adopted, the work of a 
 farm is always in a more forward state than where the day 
 system prevails ; the men are better off, they are more 
 active, and more skilful. It is a well-known fact in the 
 commercial and manufacturing world that those trades have 
 been the most successful, and have made the greatest 
 progress, in which piece-work has been the rule ; and I 
 think this may be partly accounted for on the ground that 
 the men feel an interest in facihtating the various operations 
 upon which they are employed ; the energies of their minds 
 are also bent upon finding out easier and quicker methods 
 of getting over their work. Put a set of men by the piece ; 
 at once a rivalry is felt as to who shall do the most work, 
 or, to use their own words, be " best man." Piece-work, 
 too, is the readiest way of making a difference between the 
 good and indifferent labourer; and the plan adopted by 
 many masters who wish it to be the rule, is to pay a com- 
 paratively low price by the day, in order to induce their men 
 the more readily to take piece-work." 
 
92 LABOUE ON THE FAKM, 
 
 Mr. Howard proceeded to give the reports on the subject, 
 which he had received from correspondents iu different 
 parts of the country. In the northern part of England and 
 in Scotland, there is not so much work done by the piece,, 
 in consequence of the practice of having yearly or half- 
 yearly servants. In most of the counties of England, oH 
 the other hand, it is carried out to a considerable extent ; 
 the operations by the piece being hoeing of corn and root 
 crops ; filling and spreading manure ; mowing grass and 
 clovers; washing and shearing sheep; cutting, carting, stack- 
 ing, and thatching of corn ; laying and trimming hedges ; 
 ditching, draining ; mangel pulling ; turnip cleaning, heap- 
 ing, and covering ; cutting haulm, and threshing Lent com. 
 
 Reference will be made in the sequel to the cost of 
 different agricultural operations, both when done by day- 
 labourers and when paid for by the piece. The above 
 statement has, in the meantime, been extracted from Mr. 
 Howard's lecture, in illustration of the general superiority 
 of the latter plan of payment whenever it can be adopted. 
 
 Relation of Master and Servant. — For all the various 
 customs of payment there must, of course, be the assent 
 of the labourer, and the concurrence of both master and 
 servant ; and so long as a labourer agrees to take certain 
 wages, there is no place for interference by any other person. 
 , I will, however, say that a very short acquaintance with 
 the subject shows that every system which has been , de- 
 vised for paying labourers is liable to abuse. The payment 
 of a stipulated sum of money for stipulated services; to be 
 rendered is, of any plan, the least so liable, and it ought 
 as far as possible to be carried out. That system which 
 gives food and accominodation is the best of all, wheq 
 
THE LABOUEEK 98 
 
 Bidminstered with kindness ; for the extras are worth to the 
 labourer much more than the sum at which they would be 
 valued to him ia a m'oney payment ; but it is more liable 
 to abuse than the simple money payment. The abuse in 
 this case affects the due reward of labour ; as, for instance, 
 the privilege of receiving wheat at 5s. a bushel may very 
 easily be made no privilege at all. The payment, too, pf 
 all this household stuff as wages, is a thing which affects 
 householders only, and the young men who are leaving us 
 are those whom we want to keep. To do so, then, we 
 must just offer wages which will keep them — wages, too, 
 according to the work they do. This, however, is not the 
 whole truth of the matter. The relation of master and 
 servant is mixed up ia agriculture with much bt^ide :a 
 mere bargain for the sale of services — with much that is 
 personal ; there is more scope for development Of kindly 
 personal feeling between the two than there is in the case 
 of any other class excepting household servants. Of course 
 this personal .feeling may show itself in that which is of 
 higher value than money is capable of measuring. A young 
 man wiU, notwithstanding loweir wages, keep his place fcir 
 the sake of advantages of grieater value .than the increased 
 sum he might otherwise receive. His master takes an 
 interest in him personally, showing it by helping forward 
 his education, and by, seeking ultimately a better position 
 for him; and ihis is soon observed and thought of.. But 
 there is a reverse side to this picture, and just in pro- 
 portion to the closeness of contact which the terms of 
 >service enforce between ;fche.two may be their recoil asunder 
 as soori as they are once more free. . j 
 
 ! If there be a pl'ah which would strengthen the bond 
 betweeh the two more than any other, one would imagiae 
 
94 LAEOUE ON THE FAEM. 
 
 it to be the very common one in England of lodging the 
 younger labourers in the farm-house, and giving them 
 partial board as well as cash. But what is the ordinary 
 experience on this point ? In many an English country 
 parish, Old Michaelmas Day sees an almost complete sweep 
 of the young men and lads who have lived during the past 
 year in the houses of their masters. The evening school 
 each winter presents a new array of faces — and the masters 
 are for a while at least and necessarily as much strangers to 
 their lads and many of their men, as if they paid their wages 
 through a clerk, and had as little opportunity of personal ac- 
 quaintance as a manufacturer with his hundreds of mechanics. 
 
 It is plain that it is not in the system, hut in the adminis- 
 tration of it, that merit or demerit lies, and that while 
 suf&cient wages (and that is just as much as labourers 
 can get) are given, a personal interest in the labourer as 
 a neighbour is what will bind him* to his master. 
 
 If I had in a single sentence to describe the relation of 
 master and servant in the agricultural world, it would be to 
 assert that nowhere is it better and nowhere is it worse. 
 The two are thrown closely together, and character is on 
 both sides known, and therein lies the explanation ; the 
 two are never, as is unavoidably the case when one man 
 pays 500 — they are never indifferent to one another — they 
 love, honour, and respect each other, or they distrust, and 
 hate : and while in the former case there is ample oppor- 
 tunity of exerting a useful influence over those who are 
 employed, the latter, in the very closeness which is the 
 condition of agricultural service, has scope enough for 
 bringing forth its fruit. 
 
 Let me add one word more on this topic. The whole 
 value of the expression to which this goodwill leads arises 
 
THE LABOUBEB. 95 
 
 out of its origin in a personal feeling — ^it cannot be deputed 
 without altogether losing its character. Anything like the 
 transference of my personal duty and pleasure in such a 
 thing to a public institution spoils the whole affair. 
 
 There are local and provincial societies long established 
 in England for distinguishiag the worthy among agricul; 
 tural labourers by public testimony to their worth. If 
 that worth had shown itself in public-spirited conduct, 
 nothing could be more appropriate than a public acknow- 
 ledgment of it. When it is, however, only personal and 
 domestic worth (far more worthy, let us all admit it, than 
 the other), nothing can be more grotesquely out of place. 
 
 These societies have, however, been established, and are 
 supported by a real if unwise philanthropy, and I would 
 not say one word in discouragement of their object, however 
 unwise may be their plan. Benevolent men have truly 
 seen that the relationship of master and servant is but a 
 part of the truth affecting them ; and in carrying the 
 superiority of the employer over his servants into a field 
 where no superiority exists, they have read the command- 
 ment as if it were addressed to the former only ; and as if 
 it said of the latter : " Thou shalt be a father unto him." 
 The system of rewards for good conduct, for long servitude, 
 and for morality, is founded, on a mistaken idea of this 
 kind. It is a mistaken idea — ^let me repeat it. Along 
 vdth the paternal relationship, with all its powers and 
 responsibilities, wherever it really exists, God has implanted 
 the natural love of the father as the safeguard of the child, 
 and the docility and helplessness of the child as the 
 counterpart justification of the father. Neither of these 
 conditions applies to the relationship of master and servant. 
 The commandment has been mis-read. It is really addressed 
 
96 LABOUB ON THE FARM. 
 
 to both alike, and it prescribes a perfectly mutual and 
 equal duty in words addressed to each — " Thou shalt love 
 
 ,thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 This is the law which supplements the bare relation- 
 ship of master and servant, and makes the operation of it 
 perfect. But it is not for me to pursue the subject furthef, 
 or to illustrate at any greater length to what it leads. I 
 will only add that the more we encourage genuine individual 
 manliness in labourers, with its efforts after real self- 
 improvement in intelligence and skill, and its higher sense 
 of individual responsibility, the more likely are we to attach 
 the young men to us, and to obtain labour of the kind of 
 which steam-power is rapidly proving the necessity. But 
 this is not to be done either by taking all the difficulties 
 of their position out of their way, or by offering rewards 
 
 • to them proper only to the ijualities and condition of a 
 child. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 
 
 Data, Hand- power, Horse-power. — Farm Opbeations : Ploughing, 
 Harrowing, Rolling, Grubbing, Hoeing, Sowing, Harvesting, Tliresh- 
 ing, and Earth- work. — Ckop Costs : Cereal Crops, Green Crops. 
 
 In this section of tlie book it is proposed to estimate the 
 lahour-cost of various farm operations and results, naming 
 the authority for each, except in those cases where the con- 
 clusion arriyed at is derived from personal experience, or 
 from simple calculation. The data on which the calcula- 
 tions are based are first enumerated, and they are then 
 applied to the foUowiug cases — ^the price guiding either the 
 day work or piecework payments : — Ploughing, harrowing, 
 rolling, grubbing, horse and hand hoeing, sowing, reaping, 
 mowing, harvestiag, threshing, digging, draiuing, &c. 
 Aiid the calculated expense of the several operations is then 
 employed in determining the labour-cost of the several 
 crops — seed crops, root crops, forage crops, special crops. 
 
 Data on which the Cost of Agricultural Lahour 
 Depends. — (1). Hand-power. The wages of an ordinary 
 labouring man are assumed to be 2s. a day, except during 
 about five weeks of harvest time, when they are put at 
 3s. 6d. to 4s. a day of ten hours. Those of a woman work- 
 ing in a field are lOd. a day of ten hours, except during 
 harvest time, when they are Is. dd. to Is. 6d. Those of a 
 
 H 
 
38 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 boy vary from 2s. a week, the wages of a " scare-crow," up 
 to perhaps Is. 6d. or more per day, as he approaches man- 
 hood. These are necessarily true only here and there. In 
 some places the actual wage is lower, and in many it is 
 still higher than the figures named, which, however, we retain 
 as still more generally true than any other. (2.) Horse-power. 
 The cost of a horse, as worked on the average, i.e., under 
 the varying circumstances of farm labour, with one man to 
 a pair, or occasionally one to each animal, amounts to nearly 
 5d. per working hour throughout the year. The cost by 
 horse power of 1 cwt. drawn ( = lifted) 2^ miles in one 
 hour is about 6d. The annual cost of food — of extras, 
 such as farriery, maintenance, saddlery, &c. — of guidance 
 and management — and of maintenance of implements is 
 £23, £5, £15, and £3 respectively, or £46 a horse ; and 
 this, if the working time be 2,400 hours, amounts in all to 
 nearly 5d. an hour as has been said. If the time of labour 
 be as is estimated by some, 2,700 hours per annum, 
 whether 300 days of nine hours each, or 270 days of ten 
 hours each, then the cost is less than A\d. per hour. If 
 the mean of these figures be taken as a guide, then a pair 
 of horses at 9cZ. an hour, and nine hours a day, will cost 
 6s. 9rf. a day. (3.) Steam-power. Its cost varies consider- 
 ably according to the size and quality of the engine. I do 
 not quote the returns of what are called " racing " trials of 
 the moveable and fixed engines of the different makers at 
 the annual meeting of the Agricultural Societies, because, 
 although an enormous power may be obtained from the 
 consumption of a very small quantity of coals under the 
 particular circumstances of any given hour for which special 
 preparation has been made, such results are never realised 
 in ordinary practice ; and it may, therefore, be put down 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 99 
 
 as the ordinary experience, that 1 cwt. of coals per horse 
 power is consumed during a day of ten hours; and that, in the 
 case of eight to ten horse power moveable engines, the cost 
 of coals, labour, water, oil, getting up steam, repairs, and 
 moving from place to place, amounts to from less than 3<i. 
 per horse power in the larger engines, to 4d., or even more, 
 in the case of the smaller engines ; varying also, of course, 
 between even wider extremes than these, according to the 
 skill of the management, and the price of coals in the 
 different localities compared. 
 
 Cost of Farm Operations. — (1.) Ploughing. Let us 
 suppose it capable of being done by a man and pair of 
 horses, involving a draught ( = a lift) of 3 cwt. for 10 miles 
 per acre (four times the distance along which, according to 
 the datum already determined, 1 cwt. can be drawn for 6d.). 
 It will cost 3x4:X6d. = 6s. per acre. IJ acre should be 
 done in 10 hours ; and this at 4J(i. per horse per hour 
 (the other datum) brings the cost = 10 X 2 x iid. = 7s. 6d. 
 per li acre, or 6s. an acre as before. If deeper, it may 
 involve a draught of even 5 cwt., and then a wider furrow 
 slice being taken, only 8 miles are walked per acre ; 5 cwt. 
 drawn 8 miles are equivalent to 16 cwt. drawn 2^ miles, 
 and the operation will thus cost 8s. an acre. Calculated 
 the other way, 3 horses would probably be taken for the 
 work, and they should do 1^ acre a day in 10 hours, cost- 
 ing 3 X 10 X 4:^d. or lis. dd., rather more than 8s. an 
 acre. But these figures are much higher than are to be 
 quoted agaiiist the operations if effected by steam power ; 
 for we then calculate on Bd. per horse power per hour, and 
 on a larger quantity of work being accomplished, owing to 
 less loss of time on the headlands. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 It may indeed be safely contended that the operations of 
 both ploughing and grubbing land can be more cheaply 
 done by steam power than by horses ; especially where, 
 owing to the depth of»work, or the stiffness of the soil, the 
 labour is excessive. The cost of steam power as compared 
 with that of horses may be 3^. as compared with 4t^d. for 
 the same amount of force exerted, but in the case of steam 
 ploughing, the loss of time on headlands is so much less, 
 as lio raise the difference between the two much in favour 
 of the former. We don't say, that a farmer hiring steam 
 tackle will not be at as great or even greater cost than if 
 he used horses : but all that must be put down to the need 
 of a profit to the owners of steam tackle M'hose eniployment 
 may be fickle and uncertain. The tenant who uses his 
 own steam tackle will probably find on a large farm that 
 the figures here given — two-thirds the expense of horses 
 — are nearly true. And as to the quality of the work, it is 
 the experience of steam-cultivators that the grubber driven 
 by steam power is especially the tool for the production of 
 tilth. 
 
 The state called tilth is however not altogether, nor even 
 chiefly, an artificial thing. You might grind clods, and 
 even rocks, to powder, but the powdered stuff would not be 
 mould, nor would the condition to which the material would 
 be thus reduced be the state we call tilth. The hardened 
 soil must be moved, of course, by artificial means, broken 
 into fragments, and the labour of such heavy work 
 particularly adapts it to steam power ; but these fragments, 
 large or small, must moulder down by the influence of the 
 weather. It is a great mistake to suppose that steam 
 power will be best applied to the work of cultivation by 
 setting it to grind the hard ground artificially to powder. 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 101 
 
 Even if this could be done, it would most likely end not in 
 creating but in retarding tilth : the powdered soil would 
 run together in a mass on the first rain which should 
 thoroughly soak it. The great object of the tillage-farmer 
 is to break his land up into dry fragments, on a well- 
 drained subsoil, and then leave time and weather to do 
 their work. Frost, with alternate rain and drought, on 
 deeply-moved and well-drained land, are the real tillage 
 implements. The soil is thus reduced from fragments and 
 clods by the mere costless lapse of time into that condition 
 of soft moistened mould which is best both as seed-bed and 
 as feeding-ground for our crops. 
 
 It is the fitness of steam power for that preliminary 
 artificial process by which the natural and final pro- 
 cesses are enabled and facilitated, which renders it 
 of such inestimable value to the tillage-farmer, and 
 which must, on clay land, make steam cultivation, 
 following drainage, a great help to fertility and pro- 
 ductiveness. 
 
 (2.) Harrowing. — A man and pair of horses will, with 
 harrows of ordinary width, i.e., covering about seven or 
 eight feet, go over rather more than nine times the land 
 turned over by the plough, although the width of the tool 
 is not more than nine times the width of the furrow slice. 
 Horses at harrow ought to, and generally do, travel faster 
 than at any other farm operation ; we may therefore calcu- 
 late on ten times the work of the plough being done — equal, 
 in a good day's work, to about twelve or thirteen acres; or, 
 if a double turn be given on the same land, equal to six or 
 seven acres thus treated. In the one case, then, the cost 
 of ten hours' work (7s. &d.) is 6|cJ. per acre, and in the 
 other, Is. Id. 
 
102 LABOUK ON THE FAEM. 
 
 (3.) Rolling, if with one horse and a light five-foot roller, 
 costs 3s. 9d. per day of ten hours, during which about six 
 acres may be rolled, at a cost of l^d. per acre ; if with two 
 horses and a six-foot roller, it costs 7s. 6d. per day of ten 
 hours, during which eight acres may be accomplished at a 
 cost of about Is. an acre. If "pressing" after the plough be 
 adopted, one horse wiU press after two ploughs ; and as 
 this is done, generally, preyious to wheat sowing, when 
 nine hours is the utmost time of a day's work, it accom- 
 plishes less than two acres, costing about Is. 9d. to 2s. an 
 acre. The clod-crusher (Crosskill's), drawn by three horses 
 over rough cloddy land, will not accomplish so much, ac- 
 cording to its width, as the common roller, and will cost at 
 least Is. 6d. an acre. 
 
 (4.) Grubbing and Cultivating may vary from a mere 
 scarifying of the surface to a thorough disintegration of the 
 soil to its full depth. Being done by horses, a pair, with 
 Finlayson's so-called harrow, may get over four acres a day 
 five inches deep, in the case of land already ploughed, thus 
 costing less than 2s. an acre; or four horses may be 
 needed, and Coleman's, Clay's or Bentall's implement, 
 stirring between three and four feet wide at a time, may 
 accomplish three acres a day, six or seven inches deep, at 
 5s. an acre. This too, however, as has been said, is an 
 operation perfectly manageable by steam power. Smith's 
 (of Woolston) grubber accomplishes five acres of heavy land 
 grubbing and seven acres of light land grubbing with ease, by 
 means of a seven or eight-horse engine. This is in the case 
 of unploughed land, and, of course, involving an immensely 
 heavier draught than is required in ordinary horse tillage, 
 where the land maybe said to be almost invariably ploughed 
 first before the use of the grubber. The cost of grubbing by 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 101 
 
 steam power will vary from 3s. to 4s. an acre, in the case oi 
 stiff land. This is sufficient to pay for fuel, material of all 
 kinds, and wages. To this must be added the cost of tear and 
 wear of machinery. Travelling at the rate of four miles an 
 hour, between two engines placed at either end of the field. 
 Fowler's thirteen-tined cultivator can accomplish the culti- 
 vation of the land to a depth of about six inches, and it 
 may accomplish several acres within the hour. It is plain 
 that two engines, of ten or twelve-horse power, consuming 
 at most a ton of coal a day, and involving at most the 
 wages of five hands and the cost of a horse and cart, need 
 not be made to expend more than 50s. a day in current out- 
 goings. And this need not be 3s. an acre of the extent of 
 land which, on large fields of light land, they will be able to 
 get over with their cultivating tool. The charge for cross- 
 cultivating — a double operation is needed — is often as much 
 as 12s. or 16s. an acre ; but in this case, the charge is 
 supplemented by the profit to the owner of the steam 
 tackle ; and it is justified by the advantage which he offers 
 of rapid performance, which is itself of great value to the 
 liirer at a critical time of the year. 
 
 (5.) Hoeing. — The hoeing of corn by Garrett's hoe, an 
 attendant lad leading one horse, costing about 6s. a day, 
 Tvill cost in general considerably less than Is. an acre. 
 One-horse hoeing between the drills of turnips,, where one 
 interval is thus grubbed at a time, will generally be done at 
 the rate of three acres a day, and may therefore be esti- 
 mated at Is. 6a!. an acre. To hand-hoe drilled corn costs 
 from 3s. 6d. to 5s. an acre, according to the nearness of 
 the rows and the softness and cleanness of the land. To 
 hoe and at the same time single turnips sown broadcast, 
 costs from 8s. to 10s. an acre^ where three hoeings are re- 
 
x04 LABOUB ON THE FAEM. 
 
 quired ; the second and third being done some weeks after 
 the first, when a second cleaning may be necessary, and an 
 additional singling may be needed. To hand-hoe, i.e., 
 single, rows of turnips drilled more than two feet apart costs 
 3s. 6ii. to 4s. an acre. The second hoeing in this case, 
 which overtakes the land left by the horse-hoe, may be 
 done for 2s. 6d. an acre. To hand-hoe potatoes, i.e., hack 
 the intervals between the rows deeply with a heavy adze- 
 like tool, costs about 8s. an acre ; to earth them up, which 
 is done with a wide hoe, costs about-5s. or 6s. an acre. 
 Both of these operations may be done by horse-drawn 
 implements — the horse-hoe to grub the intervals, leaving 
 the mere line of the young plants to be hoed by hand, and 
 the double mould board plough to earth up the plants as 
 soon as they are high enough. There is thus horse work 
 equal to a double horse-hoeing, besides the partial hand- 
 hoeing, in place of the hacking and moulding up all by 
 hand, or probably 7s. or 8s. worth of labour in place of 14s. 
 or 15s. worth. 
 
 (6.) Sowing. — This, as done by the Suffolk drill, generally 
 requires three horses, two men, and a boy, costing 12s. 6d. 
 to 13s. a day. A cart-load of seed corn will be needed for 
 the day's work, which may cost two hours of a man and 
 horse, or Is., to place in position in the field, and this will 
 make the daily cost 13s. 6d. The work done will rarely 
 be more than 10 acres, and it will cost Is. 4cZ. to Is. 6d. an 
 acre. — The sowing of turnips by a double rowed turnip- 
 drill, is done by one horse and man at the rate of 6 acres 
 a day, and need not cost more than 9d. an acre.^ — The 
 dibbling of mangold-wurzel seed by hand is done at the 
 rate of ^ to ^ of an acre a day by each woman employed, 
 and may thus cost from 2s. 6d. to 4s. an acre. — The dib- 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 105 
 
 bling of corn by hand costs variously, according to the im- 
 plement employed. When a man using two dibbles walks 
 backwards, making two holes at a time 9 to 10 inches 
 apart one way, and 4 or 5 the other, followed by children 
 dropping the seed, it costs from 5s. to 8s. an acre, accord- 
 ing to the distance of the rows. In Gloucestershire a good 
 deal of wheat has formerly been hoed in. The man, using 
 a flat hoe, and carrying an apron full of grain, makes a 
 shallow track across the land, sows a handful of corn, and 
 covers it with the earth moved in making the next track 
 one foot further on. This cost about 8s. an acre. . Broad- 
 cast sowing may be done at the rate of 16 to 18 acres a 
 day ; and a man served by a lad with seed which has been 
 placed out in bags by two hours' labour of a man and horse, 
 will cost in wages and horse labour altogether about 4s. 6d. 
 to 5s. ; so that the cost varies from 3^d. to 4<Z. per acre. 
 — Clover seed and grass seed sown by a seed-barrow 
 covering 1 perch wide at once, will be accomplished easily 
 by one man at the rate of 2 acres per hour ; or, taking the 
 cost of placing the seed in the field for him, at the cost of 
 not more than 2d. per acre. 
 
 (7.) Cutting and stocking Corn costs from 8s. an acre for a 
 light crop up to more than double that sum for a heavy 
 and tangled crop. The process is almost everywhere now 
 being done by reaping machines, and the cost varies acord- 
 ing to the crop, the machine employed and the skill in 
 using it. 
 
 Mr. Clare SeweU Read's experience with Burgess and 
 Key's reaper during three years may stni be quoted as a 
 fair report : — 
 
 " I use six horses for the machine, three off and three 
 on; they are changed four times a day, as they start at 
 
106 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 6 A.M. and keep on cutting till dark, stopping, of course, foi 
 breakfast, dinner, and at 4 o'clock. We don't value horses 
 much during the early days of harvest, and I put down the 
 six at 18s. per day. Two men or strong lads attend to the 
 machine ; one to ,drive it, and the other walks behind, 
 turns the corners properly, and sees that all goes right. 
 These men change places as they please. A tiny boy rides 
 the fore horse. An old man with a scythe, rounds off the 
 corners. I have cut, on an average, 15 acres of wheat per 
 day, the cost for labour being : — 
 
 " 6 horses 
 
 2 men 
 
 Boy 
 
 Old man 
 
 Or 2s. per acre. 1 10 
 
 "Then there are the following annual charges against 
 the machine : — 
 
 £ S. d. 
 
 " Repairs, wear, and tear 2 
 
 Kew knife . 10 
 
 OU 5 
 
 10 per cent, on £42 4 4 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 7 9 
 
 or Is. per acre on the 150 acres I cut ; but I may add that 
 my present machine has not yet cost me sixpence for 
 repairs, and that I have only had one new knife in three 
 years. 
 
 " Again, as to binding. I do this principally by women 
 and girls; they have Is. 4ci. a day, working about nine 
 hours. Two women will tie up an acre and a half in a 
 day, so the binding by women costs only 2s. per acre ; but, 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 107 
 
 when I have to employ the men for that purpose, they 
 make the cost per acre come to about 3s. Bd., for our men 
 are hii-ed by the harvest (having £6 for securing the crop, 
 which seldom extends over a month), and so they earn, 5s. 
 per day. Then there is the drag-raking and the stooking 
 for, as we call it in Norfolk, ' shocking in '), which may be 
 put down at 6d. per acre ; so that the total cost of cutting 
 and binding and setting-up is, per acre, 5s. 6d., when 
 women are employed, and nearly 7s. when the men bind 
 the corn. Before I had a reaping-machine I put out to 
 strangers, who are never seen now, about forty acres of wheat 
 to cut and tie — tedious, slow, and expensive work. Since 
 then I have increased the farm to the extent of thirty acres 
 more corn yearly, and I hire two men less, but four more 
 women, making a total of £35 saved ; from this deduct 
 iilO for horse-labour, and £5 for wear and tear, and that 
 leaves £20 clear profit. My harvest now costs 10s. 6d. 
 per acre (including thatching), formerly 12s. 6d. ; 2s. per 
 acre on 350 acres is £35, which agrees with the other 
 figures." 
 
 (8.) Mowing by machinery, when the circumstances are 
 favourable, may be done at the rate of 8 to 10 acres a day 
 with a man and a pair of horses, and therefore costs per- 
 haps a shilling an acre. By hand it costs, according to the 
 table in page 120, from 2s. 6d. to 8s., and even 10s. an 
 acre, according to the crop. Mowing meadow land is 
 generally somewhat slower work than mowing clover, 
 involving waste of time by the need of a more frequent 
 sharpening of the scythe, and also in an equal crop the 
 need of greater power ; the higher price, therefore, goes to 
 the meadow grass, and the lower price to clover. 
 
 I give one report of Burgess's mowing machine,' only 
 
108 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 adding that Homsby's, Wood's and many other machinea 
 are equally well spoken of by those who use them. 
 
 Of Burgess and Key's mower, Mr. Horswell, of 
 Tavistock, reported as follows some years ago. The figures 
 are fairly applicable still : — 
 
 " It answered admirably, and, though the season was 
 very bad, I never saved hay in better condition, or with so 
 little labour. During the eight days' uninterrupted fine 
 weather in July (the only fine weather for the season), 
 when men could be scarcely obtained, and for the mere 
 labour of cutting 8s. or 10s. per acre had to be paid, I got 
 in fifty- six acres with the aid of the mower, hay- tedder, 
 and hay-gatherer — (the cost in manual labour, in getting 
 it ready to be carried, did not exceed Is. per acre), and it 
 had no rain upon it whatever — and there were twenty-four 
 acres besides with very little damage, all secured before 
 the heavy rains set in. Without the aid of machinery, 
 twenty or thirty out of the eighty acres would be the most 
 that I could have possibly saved in good condition. 
 Where the surface is moderately even, we can set the 
 machine so low as to cut four or five cwt. of hay per acre 
 more than the best men can do in the ordinary way. 
 Since I have availed myself of the machinery that there is 
 to aid the agriculturist, I can comfortably complete my 
 harvesting with my regular labourers alone." 
 
 (9.) Harvesting. — In addition to the mowing and reaping 
 of the crop, there is the cost of preparing it for the rick, 
 and the carrying it there. 
 
 The labour of pitching sheaves to the cart or waggon, 
 and building them there, and pitching from the cart or 
 waggon to the rick, may be let to gangs of three — two men 
 and a boy (one pitcher and one builder in the field, and 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 
 
 109 
 
 one pitcher at the rick) — and need not cost more than 
 Is. &d. an acre in the heaviest crop. I have let the 
 pitching of 140 acres of wheat, barley, beans (generally 
 bulky crops), in this way generally for £7, or Is. per acre, 
 and it never costs me more than Is. 2d. In addition 
 to this, of course, there was the building on the rick, 
 generally by one man and a boy, whose day's work would 
 amount to about 8d. per acre ; and one lad and three 
 horses to carry the corn and lead the carts to and fro, 
 costing about 8d. an acre ; and the thatching 3s. a rick of 
 every thirty sacks or Is. an acre ; while the previous 
 " leasing " or preparation of the straw, would be about one- 
 third of this, or id. an acre. 
 
 The whole process of harvesting, as it may be thus 
 conducted, would cost : — 
 
 
 ». d. 
 
 Cutting by machine, and tying and stocking 
 
 6 
 
 Pitching and loading 
 
 1 
 
 Eick building ... 
 
 8 
 
 Carrying 
 
 8 
 
 Thatching 
 
 Is. to 1 4 
 
 In all, per acre 
 
 9 8 
 
 As it is still in many instances conducted — unavoidably 
 indeed, owing to a bulky and laid crop — the reaping alone 
 may sometimes cost 15s. to 20s. — the carrying and 
 building may cost 3s. or 4s. more — the thatching at Is. 
 per "square," i.e., ten feet by ten feet, may cost rather 
 more than Is. an acre ; and, in all, the expense of 
 harvesting may be more than double what has been 
 named. 
 
 It is a common contract in Gloucestershire to cut and 
 carry hay, and build it in the rick — the farmer supplying 
 
110 LABOUR ON THE FABM. 
 
 horses — ^for 10s. an acre, so that the mowing costs, say 
 3s. 6d., and the harvesting 6s. 6d. ; but such a contract is 
 a mere speculation — as, though 10s. may represent the 
 average cost, yet it varies in actual experience from 5s. to 
 '20s. and more, according to the weather. 
 
 In Middlesex, where the best hay in the world is made, 
 the usual expense per acre of hay-making is often double 
 the Gloucestershire average. 
 
 (10.) Harvesting, root crops, viz., the pulhng, topping 
 and tailing, and throwing into carts, swedes, mangold- 
 wurzel, and carrots, good crops of each, or respectively, 
 twenty, thirty, and twelve tons per acre of each may cost 
 7s., 9s., and 20s. per acre, respectively. 
 
 I may give here, in illustration of this point, a detailed 
 statement of my own experience during a single season, 
 when twenty- nine acres of mangolds and 11 acres of 
 swedes had to be carted off : — 
 
 The following is an account of the hands employed by 
 the contractors in lifting 40 acres of mangolds and swedes, 
 and the time they took to do the work, and the tons of 
 roots placed in the store. Having a weighing machine, 
 we weighed several cart-loads every day ; the cart without 
 its wings measured just a cubic yard ; the ground was dry, 
 and the work was either on level ground or on a gradual 
 descent, and the cart-load weighed twenty-two, twenty- 
 three, and twenty-four cwt., including the earth left about 
 the roots after they were cut off, which might be two, 
 three, or four cwt.' each cart. We, therefore, took every 
 cart-load at a ton. Let it be understood, however, that 
 this is a very unusual weight for one-horse carts to carry 
 across the fields in the winter time — ^the horse labour would 
 generally be much more than in the case described. 
 
COST OF FAEM OPERATIOKS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE TIME AND NUMBER OF HANDS USED BY THE CONTRACTORS Df 
 HARVESTING 30 ACRES MANGOLD AND 10 ACRES SWEDES. 
 
 
 
 
 
 FflUngthe 
 
 ,. 
 
 
 
 
 Women 
 
 carts. 
 
 
 18—. 
 
 
 pBUing. 
 
 cutting 
 Boots. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Women 
 and 
 
 Boys. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 Taking up Mangold, No. 6 field 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 
 9 
 
 }" 
 
 18 
 
 .. No. 6 „ 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 
 9 
 
 19 
 
 No. 10 „ 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 
 9 
 
 1-10 
 
 21 
 
 No. 10 „ 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 
 9 
 
 22 
 
 No. 2 „ 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 23 
 
 „ Swedes, No. 2 ,, 
 No. 22 „ 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 !» 
 
 24 
 
 No. 24 „ 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 ^ 
 
 9 
 
 ) 
 
 40 
 
 70 
 
 7 
 
 63 
 
 40 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 The contract was for 29 acres of mangold, at 6s. 6d. per acre 9 8 6 
 
 Ditto ditto 11 acres of Swedes, at 5a 6(i. „ 3 6 
 
 Total 
 
 £12 9 
 
 THE WAGES EARNED BY THE CONTRACTORS, AND PAID BY THEM TO Tlrs 
 HANDS THEY EMPLOYED. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 47 days of a man at 2s. a day ... ... ... ... 4 14 G 
 
 70 days of a woman at lO^i. per day 2 18 4 
 
 63 days of a hoy and girl at 9i. per day 2 7 3 
 
 Total 
 
 £9 la 7 
 
 Leaving £2 9s. Sd. to be divided amongst the contractors 
 over and above their daily wages of 2s. 
 
 THE EXPENSE OF HAULING THE ROOTS TO THE Sl'ORE. 
 
 No. 6. 3 days of 3 horses == 9 days, 306 tons from 11 acres. 
 „ 10. li day of 5 „ 7J „ 242 „ „ 10 „ 
 
 2. li day of 5 „ 7i „ 190 „ .. 8 .. 
 
 ^°^ ?^ 1 2 days of 6 ,. 12 „ 192 „ „ 11 
 and 
 
 £}' ^^^"' 
 
 36 930 40 
 
 J30 loads or tons carted by 36 days of 1 horse, is 26 loads per horse per day. 
 
112 LABOUR ON THE FAEM. 
 
 THB EXPENSE OP OAKTINO 930 TONS OPF 40 ACEES OF MANGOLD AND 
 SWEDES. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 36 days of a horse aud cart at 3s. per day 5 8 
 
 7 days of a man to tack and tip the carts in the stores at 2s. 14 
 
 17J days of a boy leading carts at 8d 11 8 
 
 Or at the rate of 3s. id. per acre ... £6 13 8 
 
 THE EXPENSE OP STOKING THE LOADS AND THATCHING THEM. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 3 men 7 days, 21 days of a man, at 2s. per day 2 2 
 
 2 boys and 2 wqmen, 7 days each, 28 days at Wd. ... 13 4 
 
 Or Is. I^d. per acre £3 5 4 
 
 So that the total expense of liarresting our "| * *" ^' ' 
 
 root crop of 40 acres, was for pulling, &c. J 12 9 or 6 3 per acre. 
 
 For carting 930 tons home 6 13 8 „ 3 4 „ 
 
 For storing them 3 5 4 ,, 1 7i „ 
 
 The expense of harvesting 40 acres of roots £22 8 or 11 2i „ 
 
COST OF FAKM OPERATIONS. 113 
 
 the experience of Gloucestershire, where there is an 
 especial dexterity in using the potato fork ; and if men be 
 employed to dig and gather too the cost may be more. 
 "VSTiere Hanson's potato digging machine is employed, the 
 cost is considerably reduced; and two- thirds of the 
 expense — that of digging, 16s. to 16s. an acre — is at once 
 reduced to three or four hours' work of a man and two 
 horses, or about 2s. 6d. an acre. The cost of an 
 additional harrowing and picking after the harrow, or 
 perhaps 2s. extra, must be added to this, making the cost 
 of digging and picking up altogether not more than 10s., 
 in place of 20s. to 24s. per acre. To cart home and pit 
 may inyolve an expenditure of 4s. or 5s. extra. 
 
 (11.) Carnage. — A man and a pair oi horses in carts or 
 waggon may carry two tons along a good road twelve 
 miles ; and that, with the return journey, will be a day's 
 journey at a cost of 4d. or 5d. per ton per mile. Carriage 
 on farm roads and over fields costs much more. In the 
 instance already quoted 930 tons of mangold- wurzel were 
 carried home for about £6 13s. 8d. ; this would be from 
 an average distance of about a quarter of a mile. 280 tons 
 carted one mile for £6 IBs. 8d. is as nearly as possible 6d. 
 per ton per mile. But this is probably the minimum 
 expense of carriage on a farm where the system is 
 perfectly organised and hurried along by contract work. 
 Three horses and one boy going to and fro will lead 
 one acre of a good crop of corn, weighing probably 50 
 cwt., a distance of a third to half of a mile per hour; the 
 cost will be about Is. ; and 50 cwt. carried one mUe will 
 cost, therefore, 2s. or 3s., or from lOd. to Is. 3d. per ton 
 per mile. Here, however, there is the slow gathering of 
 the load, and the waiting at the rick to interfere with 
 
114 LABOUE ON THE FARM. 
 
 rapid work. — The carting of 120 cu"bic yards = 60 or 70 
 tons of dung, may be done by three horses and one man 
 and a boy in a day, to a distance of one-third of a mile, 
 costing about 9s. or 10s. There is thus a charge of 
 nearly 6d. per mile against every ton of it. Here, too, 
 there is a well-arranged system and contract work to hurry 
 it along. In ordinary cases carriage on good roads may be 
 charged at from 4d. to 6d. per ton per mile, and on bad 
 roads or fields from 8d. to Is., according to circumstances. 
 
 (12.) Threshing. — This, when done by hand, varied 
 according to the grain and the bulk of straw ; but the 
 work is now done wholly by machine. 
 
 By steam power (moveable engine) the cost may be 
 stated thus : — 
 
 Hire of 8-liorse engine and machine, witli 
 
 engineer and feeder 
 
 Cost of coals, say 
 
 Cost of water (one man and hoise half his time) 
 
 2 men and 2 lads unloading lick, and pitching 
 
 to feeder, and opening sheaves 
 
 1 man attending to sacks 
 
 1 man and horse removing corn 
 
 Labour of removing straw and chaif, and 
 
 huilding the former, equal to 6 men 
 
 Beer, 6 gallons ... 
 
 For this sum, from forty up to even sixty quarters, 
 according to the yield, may be threshed for Is. 6d. or 
 less a quarter. 
 
 Sometimes machines and engines are let out at so much 
 a quarter ; and a common charge is Is. 4d. a quarter for 
 
 £s. , 
 
 i. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 5 
 
 
 
 
 3 5 
 
 6 
 
 ■ ■■ 
 
 ... 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 £3 11 
 
 6 
 
COST OF FAEM 0PER4.TI0NS. 115 
 
 wheat, and lOd. for oats or barley, or Sd. more when an 
 elevator is used for removing the straw. In either case 
 two men (the feeder and the engineer) are included in the 
 hire. The additional hands required are for supply of 
 water and removal of grain ; also for bringing the sheaves 
 to the feeder, just as in the first case quoted, costing, 
 therefore, 13s. And, besides these, one man will be 
 needed to build from the straw elevator, and this, with the 
 beer supplied, amounts to 7s. 6d. and the coals may cost 
 8s., so that the additional charge is equal to 28s. 6d., or 
 8d, a quarter upon a probable day's work, making the cost 
 on the whole as much under this plan when a fixed charge 
 (generally 30s. a day) is made for the use of the engine. 
 
 The threshing of grain by machine in cases of ordinary 
 yield may thus be put at 2Jd. to 3c?. per bushel for wheat; 
 while it is less in the case of those crops which yield more 
 grain to a given bulk of straw. The immense superiority 
 of machine and steam power threshing over hand labour 
 consists not so much in the diminished cost per bushel as 
 in the greater quickness of the process, and the ability 
 thus at once to supply the market without materially 
 interfering with the ordinary labour of the farm, and 
 without exposing the labourers to a constant temptation to 
 dishonesty. An extra winnowing is almost always re- 
 quired, and it may be done as fast as two men can measure 
 up and sack and wheel away the sacks. Two men can 
 winnow probably 60 or 70 quarters a day, and four men, 
 whose wages are 10s., will thus measure up at the rate 
 of l^d. to 2d. a quarter. If the wheat needs " reeing," 
 in order to get the chaffy grain and weeds out of it, this 
 will require a man's wages for every eight or ten quarters 
 a day, according to the filth to be removed, and it may 
 
116 LABOUE; ON THE FAEM. 
 
 thus cost 2d. or more per quarter in addition to the 
 winnowing. The threshing-machines, however, as now 
 made, are quite able to turn out corn clean and fit for 
 market. 
 
 (13.) Earth Work. — Digging costs various sums, accord- 
 ing to its quality and depth, and the stiffness of the soiL 
 When the soil is just turned over with a light spade, without 
 using the foot, it may he done for Id. per perch (tb^ of an 
 acre) — the depth not being more than two or three inches. 
 When it is dug over with a spade to the depth of five or 
 six inches, the foot being used, and the land being in fair 
 working order, it will cost at least 2d. per perch = 
 £,1 6s. 8d. per acre, and it will generally cost £2 an acre. 
 This also will be the price of forking rather deeper when 
 the land is in a tolerably friable state. 
 
 If the grafting tool — a long straight narrow spade, 
 taking a spit nine or .ten inches deep — is used, it will cost 
 from Ad. to 6d. per perch. 
 
 Trenching is done by two labourers, a man and a lad. 
 A trench two feet wide and six or seven inches deep is dug 
 and the topsoil removed to the other side of the field. A 
 man working in the trench digs the subsoil over ten inches 
 deep with the grafting tool, taking the full width of the 
 trench and digging from one end of it to the other. A lad 
 digs the topsoil of the next trench with the common spade, 
 throwing the whole of the earth so moved on to the top of 
 the dug subsoil, and so opening a new trench for the man. 
 The lad may receive M. a perch and the man od. a perch 
 for his work— the former may earn Is. 6d. and the latter 
 2s. 6d. a day — and the cost per acre is thus £5 6s. 8d. 
 
 . Paring with a breast-plough costs from 8s. to 10s. an 
 acre in the case of stubble or light soil — ^to 15s. or 18s. in 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 117 
 
 the case of tough old sward. And we may add here that 
 burniDg may be contracted for at about as much, thus 
 doubling the cost. It is understood, however, that the 
 farmer harrows over the pared ground before the burners 
 gather it and burn it. 
 
 Where stifle-burning is adopted, the actual expenditure 
 depends altogether upon the quantity of material burnt on 
 a given extent of ground. Stifle-burning consists in col- 
 lecting the clods of cultivated land, generally in limestone 
 districts, and with these, and afterwards with finer earth, 
 covering heaps of weedy rubbish, to which fire has been 
 set by a wisp of burning straw. The heaping, burning 
 and spreading the ashes are generally done by the piece, 
 for 12s. to 14s. an acre. When clay-land is burned in 
 heaps, with coal or wood as fuel, it may cost from 6d. to 
 8d. per cubic yard, measured after burning, and Id. per 
 cubic yard for fuel, and 2d. per cubic yard for spreading 
 the heap over the land. The contract price for digging 
 and burning dry clay as ballast in large heaps for road 
 material may be from Is. 6d. to 2s. a cubic yard. 
 
 Earth-work generally, where the pick-axe is not used, 
 may cost about 2d. a cubic yard to lift and place, and it 
 will cost Id. per cubic yard for every thirty yards run to 
 wheel it away. This will apply to calculations for making 
 wide open ditches not very deep ; and when the grafting- 
 tool or shovel aJone are used, i.e., when there is no rock 
 or subsoil needing the pick-axe. In the case of narrow 
 and deep trenches, as for draining, the cost is more, as the 
 workman labours under disadvantages. And a 4-foot deep 
 drain, to take a 2-inch tube at bottom, in a clay or loamy 
 subsoil' without stones, will cost from 6d. to 8d. per perch 
 to dig, which is 3d. to 4d. per cubic yard. 
 
118 LABOUB ON THE FARM. 
 
 To turn dung-heaps will cost from ^d to |d. per cubic 
 yard (measured after the work is completed, and it has 
 sunk to its natural solidity), according to the strawiness of 
 the heap. Where the hay-knife is needed to cut it out in 
 successive slicps, as in cattle-boxes, and it has then to be 
 thrown into carts or into the yard, it wUl cost ^d. per cubic 
 yard. 
 
 Well-made dung may be filled into carts for 7s. 6d. per 
 120 cubic yards, which is just ^d. per yard, and good 
 labourers will make 2s. 6d. a day at this wage. 
 
 Dung may be spread at the rate of Is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. per 
 acre, according to the heaviness of the dressing ; and it 
 may be spread in rows in the turnip-field by one man and 
 three lads, as fast as three men at the carts can fill them ; 
 i.e., for about the same wages, or ^d. per cubic yard, or 
 from Is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. per acre, according to the dressing. 
 
 There are other works which may perhaps come under 
 this paragraph, such as digging and grubbing up old 
 hedgerows, and works of that class ; but it is impossible to 
 give any information of the cost of such work without 
 seeing the character of it. It may cost from Is. to 3s. per 
 running perch, according to the width of the fence which 
 needs removal. And it may be added, that the same 
 uncertainty and variety attends the converse employment 
 of repairing, renewing, and pleaching fences to remain, 
 which a man will do at the rate of three up to eight or ten 
 rods, or perches, a day, according to its laboriousness. 
 
 (14.) Live Stock Management. — The shepherd wUl shift 
 the hurdles and troughs for chaff, and peck the turnips for 
 300 or 350 sheep folded on turnips, having the daily 
 supply of hay-chaff cut for him, and brought to him in the 
 field. Attendance on feeding sheep may thus be estimated 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 119 
 
 as costing ^d. per sheep per week, and ^d. more in cutting 
 chaff, &c., when they receive other feeding. And where 
 sheep are kept in yards, and cut turnips are supplied to 
 them in troughs, the cost will not be much more. A man 
 and boy can clean and cut with Gardner's tuTnip- cutter from 
 three to five tons of roots a day, and supply them in three 
 meals, and keep the bedding trim ; and this will suiSce fof 
 300 to 400 sheep. When sheep are folded on the land, 
 and also fed on cut turnips in troughs, there is a doubll 
 labour, and it will need a man and boy to attend on 300.^ 
 Shearing sheep varies with the size and weight of fleece, 
 from 3s. 6d. to 4s. per score. — The labour of attendance 
 on fattening cattle, when a mess of chaff and meal and 
 steamed roots is given once or twice a day to beasts in 
 stalls, and cut roots are given twice or thrice a day, at the 
 rate of half a cwt. or so to each, and a little hay uncut is 
 also given, may be estimated at Id. a day to each beast ; 
 that is to say, a man and boy will look after forty beasts 
 in boxes, if there be conveniences for feeding them, and 
 supplying them with straw and water. In this case there is 
 no labour of clearing out the soiled litter, for that accumu- 
 lates under the cattle, and is covered daily with fresh straw. 
 : Attendance upon dairy stock is measured by the number 
 of milkers needed. One is desirable for every nine cows, 
 and one at least is required for every twelve to fourteen 
 cows. A dairymaid and helper can make the cheese from a 
 dairy of 100 cows : and the milking will employ nearly all 
 the hands on a pasture farm. 
 
 Recapitulation. — The following then, are, in figures, 
 the principal statements of the foregoing paragraphs : — 
 
120 
 
 lABOtJE ON THE FAEM. 
 
 CULTIVATION. 
 
 Honghing 
 
 „ by steam ... ... ,,. 
 
 Harrowing (a double turn) 
 
 Eolling 
 
 Drill-pressing 
 
 Grubbing 
 
 „ by steam power 
 
 Faring, by horse 
 
 Horse-boeing com 
 
 „ turnips , 
 
 Hand-hoeing com 
 
 „ turnips three times 
 
 II ,, once 
 
 „ potatoes, deeply 
 
 „ „ (earthing up) ... 
 
 Sowing com (by SuflFolk drill) 
 
 „ turnips (2-rowed drUl) 
 
 Dibbling mangold-wurzel 
 
 „ beans... 
 
 Hoeing in wheat 
 
 Sowing coru broadcast ... 
 
 ,, clover 
 
 s. d. s. d 
 per acre 6 to 8 
 4 8 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 5 
 3 
 3 
 1 
 
 1 6 
 3 6 
 10 
 3 6 
 8 
 6 
 
 1 6 
 9 
 
 2 6 
 5 
 8 
 3 
 2 
 
 i 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 HABYUST WOKK. 
 
 Cutting and stooking cpm by hand . . . 
 
 „ ,1 by machine 
 
 Mowing clover 
 
 ,, „ by machine 
 
 Haymaking (including mowing) 
 Pitching corn in sheaves from field to rick 
 
 Building com in rick 
 
 Carriage from field 
 
 Thatching 
 
 Carriage per mile 
 
 Harvesting swedes, mangold-wurzel ... 
 
 Pulling and filling carrots 
 
 Digging ,, potatoes 
 
 Threshing by steam power, wheat .„ 
 Winnowing 
 
 » 8 
 
 „ 4 
 
 „ 2 
 
 ., 3 
 
 » 1 
 
 „ 10 
 
 „ 1 
 
 » 
 
 » 
 
 . „ 1 
 
 , per ton 
 . per acre 10 
 , ,1 20 
 . ,, 20 
 , per qr. 1 
 . „ 
 
 16 
 8 
 6 
 8 
 1 
 
 25 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 14 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 121 
 
 EARTH ■WOBK. 
 
 S. d. S. d. 
 
 Digging, turning in ... „ perperoliO 1 
 
 „ deeper „ 2 to 4 
 
 Trenching (two spits) „ 8 10 
 
 Turning dung per cubic yard 0| 
 
 Filling „ into carts „ Of 
 
 Paring (breast plough) per acre 8 15 
 
 „ (horse plough) ,, 3 6 
 
 , and burning „ 12 30 
 
 Digging ditch per cubic yard 2 3 
 
 „ drains, 4 feet deep perperch 6 8 
 
 LIVE STOCK MANAGEMENT. 
 
 Sheep feeding, weekly per head OJ 0| 
 
 Cattle ditto 3 8 
 
 Sheep-sheaiing per score 3 6 6 
 
 To this table I add, for the sake of comparison, the 
 testimony of two or three of Mr. Howard's correspondents, 
 and the prices paid by them and reported by him to the 
 London Farmers' Club on the occasion to which I have 
 already referred. 
 
 The following is from Mr. Battams, of Carlton, one of 
 our most successful farmers, who had recently retired from 
 business, leaving his sons in large farms. He says : — 
 
 " Although I have thrown the plough in the ditch, I will 
 refer to my labour-book, and give you the prices paid upon 
 my farms for piece and day work. I will commence with 
 my first operation, grubbing up about sixty acres of wood- 
 land. This cost £,Q per acre. It was then drained four 
 feet deep, at 2s. &d. per chain. I next dug with spade 
 ninety acres of old grass covered with ant-hills. This was 
 done at £2 to £2 2s, per acre. It was then drained four 
 feet deep, at 2s. and 2s. dd. per chain. The old ploughed 
 land was drained the same depth, and at the same price, 
 
122 LABOUR "ON THE FARM. 
 
 except where the pickaxe was used. This cost 3s. 6d. to 
 48. per ehaia. The above was extraordinary farm work. 
 I had more than 100 men employed at one time, my sons 
 superintending the work. It was done well ; and the men 
 earned 12s. to 15s. per week, and some even more, in .the 
 winter months. I now come to ordinary farm work done 
 by the piece : — Trimming hedges, 2d. per chain ; singling 
 turnips, and hoeing the side of the ridge after the horse- 
 hoe, 5s. to 6s. per acre ; topping and pitting turnips, 6s. ; 
 mangel-wurzel, singled by the day, and for pulling, 
 topping, and placing in rows for carting, 3s. ; bean dibbling, 
 two feet apart, when the rows are marked out, 3s. 6d., if 
 unmarked, 4s. 6d. per acre ; hoeing ditto twice after the 
 horse-hoe, 6s. ; mowing clover, 2s. ; mowing grass, 2s. 6d. 
 to 3s. per acre, with three pints of beer per day ; mowing, 
 sheafing, raking, and shocking wheat, barley and oats, 7s. 
 to 8s. ; pea hooking, 4s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. ; bean hooking, 
 7s. 6d. per acre, with four pints of beer per day ; thatching, 
 Is. per square of 100 feet, with beer ; harvest carting, 
 8s. 6d. per day; ordinary day labour, lis. per week; 
 men attending the steam-engine, 15s. per week, with beer ; 
 horse-keepers and shepherds, 12s. per week, with house 
 and garden rent free. I think it desirable to have work 
 done by the piece when practicable ; but I find three- 
 fourths of the ordinary work of the farm is performed by 
 the day, and I cannot well see how it is to be avoided, with 
 so many men attending stock, and the threshing, chaff- 
 cutting, grinding, and a great part of the cultivation of 
 land done by the steam-engine ; but even this day labour 
 may be done very satisfactorily, where a good feeling exists 
 between the master and the men, the former devoting 
 suf&cient time to the superintendence of the workmen." 
 
COST OF FABM OPERATIONS. 123 
 
 Mr. Battams adds, " I have not noticed the cost of paring 
 and burning old grass-land, as I think the necessity of 
 doing it almost exceptional. I prefer double-ploughing ; 
 what I have burnt cost £2 an acre." 
 
 The following, again, was from the late John Hudson, pf 
 Castle Acre, Norfolk. He says : — 
 
 " There is not so much piecework done on the farms in 
 this district as in former times ; but we prefer that system 
 when the men will take the work. The drilling is done by 
 the acre. The man who leads the horse, and the man who 
 guides the drill, are paid each Sd. an acre, if the work is 
 done well ; they earn about 3s. a day each. Fencing is 
 paid for by the rod of seven yards, at from 9d. to Is. a rod. 
 The manure is filled by the load, at l^d. per load ; manure 
 heaps turned over at Id. per load. Turnips are hoed at 2s. 
 per acre, and singled by hand at Is. 6d., and hoed round 
 each plant at 3s. an acre, besides being horse-hoed three 
 or four times between the ridges. Clover is mown at from 
 2s. to 3s. 6d., and 4s. an acre. The harvest work is taken 
 by the men on the farm, who cut the barley and oats, and 
 pitch, load, and stack the whole of the crop, including 
 wheat, at from £6 to £6 10s. per man, the wheat being cut 
 by machines, and tied up by women, at from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 
 an acre, according to crop. Barley is gathered and heaped 
 at 6d. an acre. In the autumn the swedes are placed in 
 rows of from six to eight drills together, at 2s. 6d. an acre. 
 If topped and tailed, and loaded on carts, or heaped ready 
 to cover up, 4s. an acre [extra?]. Stones are gathered 
 from the clover, and put at once on carts, instead of being 
 laid on the ground in heaps, at Is. per load of twenty-four 
 bushels. Hay-stacks are thatched at id. a yard run at the 
 eaves ; corn-stacks at Sd. per yard run." 
 
124 LABOXJK ON THE FARM. 
 
 It is proper to add that, as abeady stated, farm wages 
 have risen all round since these letters were written ; but 
 in all probability even now work will be taken at prices not 
 materially greater than those here named. The follow- 
 ing may be added, from the pen of Mr. C. S. Eead : — 
 "I am in favour of well-paid piece-work and a com- 
 paratively low-priced day work. If your day's pay is 
 high the men don't like to take piece-work; and 
 having piece-work is the only way we can make the 
 proper difference between the good and indifferent 
 labourer." 
 
 LaTjonr Cost of Crops. — ^We have now to apply these 
 particulars to ascertain the labour cost of different farm 
 erops. For some of the crops named it wiU be necessary to 
 add information on particulars not yet mentioned. I shall 
 not pretend to specify all the crops known to English agri- 
 culture ; the following estimates relate only to the commonly 
 cultivated crops, and only to the labour employed on them, 
 leaving questions of rent, manure, interest of capital, &c., 
 out of the question. The crops enumerated are wheat, 
 barley, oats, peas, beans, rye, turnips, wurzel, carrots, 
 cabbage, vetches, rape, flax, clover, pasture-land. 
 
 It is assumed that reaping and mowing are done by 
 machine, that horse-hoes are used in place of hand-hoes 
 where possible, and that horse, not steam, cultivation is 
 the rule. But the alternatives of hand-hoeing and hand- 
 reaping on the one hand, and of steam cultivation on the 
 dther, are suggested and worked out to their results. 
 
 (1.) Wheat. — The following are estimates of the labour- 
 cost per acre of this crop under various modes of culti- 
 vation. 
 
COST OP PAEM OPERATIONS. 125 
 
 (a.) After clover : — 
 
 £ B. d. 
 
 Ploughing 6 
 
 Two double hatrowings 2 2 
 
 Drilling seed 16 
 
 Harrowing Oil 
 
 Water furrowing, probably 10 
 
 Bird-soaring at seed-time 16 
 
 Rolling 9 
 
 Horse-lioeing 10 
 
 Hand- weeding, probably 20 
 
 Bird-soaring before harvest 16 
 
 Cutting corn by machine 6 
 
 Pitching, carrying, building, and thatching 4 
 
 Threshingby steam power (5 qra.) 10 9 
 
 Carriage to market (5 qrs.), probably 5 
 
 Cost per acre of labour 
 
 
 . 
 
 £2 3 
 
 6 
 
 Extra : 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 If weed patches need forking out of cloYer 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 If reaping be done by hand 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 If hoeing be done by hand... 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 If a dressing of 15 tons of manure be carried on 
 
 
 
 
 
 the clover before ploughing — 
 
 
 
 
 
 Making dung 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 FiUing 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Carrying 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 Spreading 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 Total labour-cost per acre 3 3 6 
 
 (J.) After b9,re fallow : — 
 Cultivation of fallow — ^three ploughings and six double 
 
 harrowings 
 
 Gathering and removing weeds (perhaps) 
 
 Seed furrow (ploughing) 
 
 One harrowing 
 
 Drilling seed, &c., as in (a). 
 
 Add, if reaping and hoeing be done by hand 
 
 Labour-cost per acre £4 15 
 
 ;£ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 1 7 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 15 
 
 4 
 
 3 14 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 
 
126 
 
 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 (c.) After root crop : — 
 
 The same items as in (o5.) „ 
 
 Or if one gnibbing be given in place of the ploughing 
 (24. 6 A in place of 6*.), deduct ... 
 
 Add, if reaping and hoeing be done by hand .^ 
 
 Labour-cost per acre ... .„ „, „. 
 (2.) Barley:— 
 
 Ploughing after the sheep-fold 
 
 Two double harrowings „ 
 
 Drilling seed 
 
 Harrowing 
 
 Rolling 
 
 Bird-scaring 
 
 Cutting by machine, turning, loading, building, thatching 
 
 Threshing (7 qrs.) 
 
 Carriage to market... _ 
 
 Add, if tying in sheaves, and stocking be adopted 
 
 Total labour-cost per acre of the barley crop ... 
 
 (3.) Oats. 
 
 (a.) After clover : — 
 
 A good crop will involve an expenditure as nearly as 
 possible like (both in items and in total cost) that of 
 wheat after clover (ft.) viz. 
 
 Or if the weed-forking, hand-reaping, and hand-hoeing 
 be required, add '. 
 
 Labour-cost per acre 
 
 (6.) After root crop : — 
 
 A good crop win involve an expenditure as nearly as 
 possible like (both in items and in total cost) that of 
 barley after roots... 
 
 Or with additions _ 
 
 Total laboui-coBt of oats per acre 
 
 £ 
 
 s 
 
 eU 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 £2 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 £1 16 11 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 £1 
 
 19 
 
 11 
 
 2 S 6 
 
 9 
 £2 12 6 
 
 1 16 11 
 S 
 
 £1 19 11 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 127 
 
 (4.) Peas. 
 
 {a.) After corn crop : — 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Shallow grubbing stubble 2 6 
 
 Harrowing Oil 
 
 Gathering and burning weeds (probably) 3 
 
 A dressing of 12 tons manure : — ». d. 
 
 Making „ 2 
 
 Filling 16 
 
 Carrying ... .„ 4 
 
 Spreading 2 
 
 9 6 
 
 Ploughing 6 
 
 Harrowing Oil 
 
 Sowing by Suffolk drill 1 6 
 
 Harrowing Oil 
 
 Bird-soariug at seed-timo 13 
 
 Horse-hoeing 16 
 
 Hand-weeding 3 
 
 Bird-soaring before harvest 016- 
 
 Cutting by scythe and harvesting, carrying, building, 
 
 and thatching 10 
 
 Threshing (5 qrs.) 7 6 
 
 Carrying to market 5 
 
 Labour-cost per acre 
 
 ••• 
 
 .. £2 15 
 
 6 
 
 (6.) Grown for green peas 
 
 : — 
 
 
 
 Cultivation by grubber and hand- 
 
 ■weeding, as before 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 Manuring, and ploughing, and harrowing, as before 
 
 16 
 
 7 
 
 Bibbing, half ploughing 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 Sowing in the drills 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 Covering by hand-hoe 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 Bird-scaring 
 
 ». 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Horse-hoeing 
 
 ... 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 Hand-hoeing ... 
 
 « 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 Earthing by plough .„ 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 £1 18 8 
 The crop is sold on the ground, and followed by turnip or rape. 
 
 (c.) After root crop : — 
 Items and cost as in (a.) after the dressing of manure ... 1 Id 5 
 
128 
 
 LABOUE ON THE FAEM. 
 
 (5.) Beans. 
 
 (a.) On corn-stubble manured : — 
 
 The same as for peas (a. )i Excepting that the cost of har- £ s. d. 
 
 Testing will be at least 2s. more, for tying in sheaves, &o. 2 17 S 
 It may be sown by bean-barrow, in the wake of every 
 
 seoond plough, but this will not affect the labour-cost. 
 
 (6.) After root crop : — 
 
 The same as for peas (c), excepting that the harvesting 
 
 will be at least 2s. more, for tying in sheaves, &c. ... 2 16 
 
 (c.) After clover or grass : — 
 
 The same as (i.) 1 18 8 
 
 Except for digging weeds, add, probably ... 2 
 
 Extra harrowings required 11 
 
 If dibbled instead of being sown 5 6 
 
 Labour-cost pf beans per acre 
 
 8 7 
 
 ... £2 7 3 
 
 {d.) After grain crop, and ridged as in turnip-culture : — 
 
 The same as (a. ), excepting that the manure being spread 
 in drills, there is the cost of ribbing the land, spreading 
 the dung in drills, sowing the seed by barrow and 
 splitting the intervals to cover it, in place of broad- 
 casting the manure and ploughing it under, and har- 
 rowing and sowing by Suffolk drill. Also there is an 
 opportunity of an extra horse-hoeing and moulding up. 
 The labour-cost will be probably 4s. greater, or ... 2 19 6 
 
 In all cases of manuring, the expense of making and 
 applying the manure will vary from 6s. to 10s., and even 
 15s. per acre, according to crop ; being about 9d. per ton. 
 
 (6.) Rye. 
 
 (a.) May be sown on a manured corn-stubble : — 
 
 Costing, if thoroughly well cultivated, nearly the same as £ s. d. 
 
 peas (a.) '.. ... ... 2-15 6 
 
 or, (deducting, for diminished labour, owing to the lighter 
 
 s<> il on which it is cultivated), probably 2 10 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 123 
 
 (6.) But in general it is grown as a forage crop : — 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Costing as peas (os.), np till the brairding of the seed 17 
 And then, after mowing (3s. 6d. ), carried to the feeding 
 
 stalls, say Sd. per mile, 3s. 6d 7 
 
 Labour-cost per acre of rye forage ._ £1 14 
 
 (7.) Turnips. 
 
 (a.) After corn crop : — 
 
 Grubbing 
 
 Harrowing 
 
 Gathering and burning weeds 
 
 Deep ploughing 
 
 Water furrows 
 
 Harrowing .. >, 
 
 Grubbing 
 
 Harrowing 
 
 Boiling 
 
 Gathering and burning weeds 
 
 Ploughing 
 
 Harrowing 
 
 Boiling 
 
 Bibbing 
 
 Dressing with 18 to 20 tons manure : — 
 
 Making 
 
 Filling 
 
 Carriage 
 
 Spreading 
 
 Covering dung by splitting drills 
 
 Sowing 
 
 Two horse-hoeings 
 
 Hand-hoeing 
 
 Two horse-hoeings 
 
 Hand-hoeing 
 
 Harvesting and pitting 
 
 (J.) Or in place of grubbing and autumnal cultivation, it 
 may suflice to fork ont patches of root weeds, haul on 
 the dung and plough it under in autumn, and be satis- , 
 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 ... 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 
 .*. 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 ... 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 •.• 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 *.. 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 
 ••* 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 ... 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 ... 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 >.• 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 ■ a* 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 — . 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 
 ... 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 ... 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 ., 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 £3 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 i 16 
 
 9 
 
130 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 fied with grabbing, rolling, harrowing, and sowing on £ a, d. 
 the flat iu spring, in which case at least 1S«. worth of 
 ploughing, grubbing, harrowing are saved, and the cost 
 will be about 3 
 
 (c. ) Or the roots may be consumed on the ground, and the 
 expenseof harvesting will be saved, reducing cost to... 2 8 
 
 {d. ) If the autumnal ploughing be done by steam; it may 
 be doue more efficiently, at a saving (unless hired) of 
 Zs. or 4s., reducing cost to 2 5 
 
 (8.) Mangold-Wurz.el. 
 
 Its labour-cost will be as nearly as possible identical 
 with that of turnips, adding perhaps 2s. per acre to the 
 expense of harvesting what will generally be a heavier crop. 
 
 (a.) 
 
 (6-) 
 
 (c.) Wliere roots are at once consumed on the land, which 
 
 is coming to be the practice to some extent 
 
 (d.) By steam cultivation in autumn 
 
 If seed is dibbled instead of drilled, the cost will be in 
 
 every case at least 2s. more than this. The cost of 
 
 singling will not be altered, but the total cost will then 
 
 stand thus :— (a.) M, (6.) £3 2s., (c.) £2 10s., (d.) £2 Is. 
 
 (9.) Carrots and Parsnips: — 
 
 These crops may be named together, as costing nearly 
 the same. 
 The expense before winter as in the case of the turnips (o.) 
 Only the manure should have been carted on before the 
 
 autumn ploughing 
 
 Harrowing 
 
 Gathering weeds 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 3 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Hotse-hdeing 
 
 Singling 
 
 Horse and hand-hoeing 
 Harvesting 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 16 
 
 8 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 1 5 
 
 
 
 In all ..^ ... £3 12 4 
 
COST OP FARM OPERATIONS. 
 
 131 
 
 (10.) Cabbages: — 
 
 The labour-cost may be the same as for turnips in ridges, 
 
 up till sowing the seed, viz. (a.) 
 
 Afterwards there is the planting of 10,000 plants 
 
 Two horse-hoeings and one hand-hoeing 
 
 Harvesting, probably 
 
 In all 
 
 £ s. 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 £3 18 
 
 (11.) Potatoes: — 
 
 (a.) By horse-culture, labour up to setting the tubers, as 
 
 in turnips (a.), up to covering in the dung 
 
 Setting tubers (carted to the field) 
 
 Covering 
 
 Harrowing down ... 
 
 Two horse-hoeings 
 
 Hand-hoeing 
 
 Earthing up 
 
 Digging and harvesting (?) 
 
 (6.) By hand-culture, labour up to ribbing for receiving 
 
 the dung, the same as turnips {a.) 
 
 Carrying manure and spreading 
 
 Digging and planting potatoes 
 
 Earthing up 
 
 Digging and harvesting 
 
 2 7 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 £4 19 
 
 1 
 
 1 13 
 
 6 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 Labour-cost of potatoes per acre . 
 
 £5 5 
 
 (12.) Vetches: — 
 
 Sown after a com crop and manured, will cost in labour, 
 including the drilling of the seed, the same as rye as a 
 forage crop 
 
 And carried home to the feeding stalls, 8». to 12*., accord- 
 ing to crop... M ••• ••• ... 
 
 17 
 
 10 
 
 £1 17 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 LABOUR ON THE FAEM. 
 
 (18.) Rape. 
 
 (a.) Sown on a corn-stubble : — £ s. d. 
 
 Autumn cifltivation — manuring and sowing the seed on 
 the flat — ^will involve nearly the same items of labour 
 as turnips sown on the flat, and consumed on the 
 ground, viz. (e.) 2 8 
 
 Deduct, however, for three horse-hoeings and one hand- 
 hoeing not needed ... 8 
 
 Leaving the cost, including one horse-hoeing and a par- 
 tial hand-hoeing 2 
 
 (6.) Sown after an early crop of rye and vetches : — 
 
 Two grubhings and harrowings and rolling 
 
 Dressing of manure. (12 tons) 
 
 Ploughing and harrowing 
 
 Sowing 
 
 Horse and hand-hoeing 
 
 (14.) Flax. 
 After root crop : — 
 
 Ploughing 
 Harrowing ... 
 Weeding 
 Ploughing 
 Harrowing 
 
 Scarifying and harrowing .. 
 
 Eolling 
 
 Sowing broadcast, by machine 
 
 *Weeding, pulling, rippling, and steeping 
 Taking from steep, spreading, turning, and lifting 
 
 Scutching 30 stones 
 
 Cleaning seed 
 
 Labour-cost of flax £6 4 
 
 If less seed be sown, and a coarser fibre with larger 
 quantity of seed be obtained, the two last items will be 
 somewhat larger. 
 
 * These items are stated on the authority of Mr. M'Adam, in vol. viii. 
 AgriauUural Society's Journal. 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 £1 12 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 ... 1 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 1 2 
 
 
 
 1 12 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 
 
 133 
 
 (15.) Clover:— 
 
 (a. ) Sowing broadcast on young barley 
 
 Rolling and picking stones 
 
 Mowing — if by hand 
 
 Making and building, 8«. to 10»., according to weather 
 
 and crop ... .» 
 
 CaiTying ... .„ 
 
 (J.) When the clover is fed down, the last three items 
 are saved, and the cost per acre is oiJy 
 
 (e.) When mown green smd carried as forage, £ s. d. 
 it may cost for mowing twice 8 
 
 And carrying green twice 8 
 
 Or with sowing, &c., probably 
 
 £, s. d. 
 
 3 
 
 2 9 
 
 4 
 
 10 
 2 
 
 £0 19 6 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 (16.) Rye-Grass : — 
 
 Will cost in labour the same as clover (a). The labour 
 of sowing it is somewhat greater ; that of mowing it, 
 if by hand, may be also somewhat greater. The cost 
 of hay-making will probably be as much = 
 
 (17.) Pasture-Land: — 
 
 , Mown every other year, and the stones gathered off it, 
 and rolled ; fence mending at intervals, &c., charge per 
 acre per annum = 6 to 
 
 (18.) Attendance on Sheep : — 
 
 Per head per week — all the year round may vary from JA to 
 
 (19.) Attendance on Cattle : — 
 
 d. d. 
 On an average per head, winter feeding per week 7 to 9 
 
 Summer, barely 1 
 
 Average throughout the year, per week ... 
 
 The following, then, in tabular form, are the results 
 arrived at. The first money column states the labour-cost 
 per acre ; the second, third, and fourth state the labour- 
 cost per bushel and per ton on various estimates of crop. 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 Of 
 
 4 
 
134 
 
 LABOUE ON THE FARM. 
 
 LABOTTR-COST OF GEAIN CEOPS. 
 
 i. 
 
 
 
 Per BuaheL 
 
 
 
 
 80 Bushels 
 
 40 Busliels 
 
 50 Bushels 
 
 60 Bushels 
 
 £ .. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 £ .. d. 
 
 £ B. d. 
 
 £ 
 
 ». d. 
 
 Wheat, (a.) after clover 
 
 2 3 
 
 6 
 
 1 5i 
 
 Oil 
 
 104 
 
 9 
 
 „ do. manured ... 
 
 3 3 
 
 6 
 
 2 14 
 
 1 7 
 
 1 340 
 
 1 OJ 
 
 „ (6.) after fallow... 
 
 3 14 
 
 5 
 
 2 6 
 
 1 10 
 
 16 
 
 1 3 
 
 ,, (c.) after roofa ... 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 4 
 
 10 
 
 940 
 
 8 
 
 Barley 
 
 1 19 
 
 11 
 
 14 
 
 10 
 
 940 
 
 8 
 
 Oats, (a) after clover ... 
 
 2 3 
 
 6 
 
 1 54 
 
 1 1 
 
 104 
 
 9 
 
 ,, (6. ) after roots ... 
 
 1 16 
 
 11 
 
 1 24 
 
 11 
 
 84 
 
 
 
 Vi 
 
 Peas, (a.) after corn .. , 
 
 2 15 
 
 6 
 
 1 10 
 
 1 54 
 
 1 14 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 ,, (6.) green crops ... 
 
 1 18 
 
 8 
 
 1 3i 
 
 114 
 
 94 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 „ (c. ) after roots 
 
 1 19 
 
 5 
 
 1 34 
 
 1 04 
 
 94 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 Beans, (a.) after corn ... 
 
 1 17 
 
 6 
 
 1 104 
 
 1 54 
 
 1 24 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 ,, (6., after roots ... 
 
 2 1 
 
 5 
 
 1 44 
 
 1 04 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 8| 
 
 ,, (c.) afto.r clover.. 
 
 2 7 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 1 24 
 
 114 
 
 
 
 9} 
 
 „ (A) ridged 
 
 2 19 
 
 6 
 
 1 114 
 
 1 54 
 
 1 24 
 
 
 
 1 04 
 
 Eye 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 13 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 LABOUE-OOST 
 
 OE 
 
 GEBBN CEDES. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Per Ton. 
 
 
 
 8 Tons. 
 
 12 Tons. 
 
 20 Tons. 
 
 30 Tons. 
 
 £ a. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ <■ 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. (2. 
 
 £ 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Kye (forage) 
 
 1 14 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 2 9 
 
 
 
 1 74 
 
 
 Turnips, (a.) (carried) ... 
 
 3 16 
 
 9 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 
 6 4 
 
 
 
 3 9 
 
 
 
 2 6 
 
 „ (6.) 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 • %* 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 U 
 
 2 
 
 (cXfed) 
 
 2 8 
 
 
 
 • »• 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 2 5 
 
 
 
 1 7 
 
 Mangold-wurzel, (a.) (car- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ried) 3 18 
 
 
 
 • •• 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 10 
 
 
 
 2 7 
 
 >) » {f>) 11 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 • •• 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Carrots 
 
 3 12 
 
 4 
 
 >■• 
 
 
 
 
 5 9 
 
 
 
 3 5 
 
 
 
 2 3 
 
 Cabbages 
 
 3 10 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 
 5 10 
 
 
 
 3 6 
 
 
 
 2 4 
 
 Potatoes, (a.) (horse culture) 
 
 4 19 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 „ (6.) (hand culture) 
 
 5 3 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 8* 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 Vetches 
 
 1 15 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 i 9 
 
 
 
 Eape, (0.) 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 4 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 i 4 
 
 „ (6.) 
 
 1 13 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 7 
 
 
 
 1 7 
 
 
 ... 
 
 Clover, (a.) hay) 
 
 19 
 
 6 
 
 ,, 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 • •. 
 
 
 • ■> 
 
 „ (5.) (green) 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 8 
 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 • ■• 
 
 Eye grass (hay) 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 * Quite Ukely to be half the weight and double the labour-cost per ton. 
 
COST OF FARM OPERATIONS. 135 
 
 Before leaving this section of the book, let us just test 
 the applicability of these figures to the circumstances of 
 one or two farms known to us. It is plain that it is only 
 in a general way that the same figures can be applied to 
 varying districts where varying rates of pay prevail ; but it 
 will give emphasis to our calculations hitherto if we 
 subject them to the test of one or two examples. 
 
 (a.) Take the following example known to us, where 200 
 acres are cultivated on the four-field course, and where 100 
 acres are pasturp, and where the stock kept may be supposed 
 equal, on an average, to 240 sheep and 30 beasts all the 
 year round. The land is cultivated on the four-field course. 
 
 Crops. Labour-cost p Acre. Total Labour-cost. 
 
 £, s. d. £, a. d. 
 
 50 acres wheat or 20 at (a.) 2 3 6 
 
 and 30 manured (6.) 3 3 6 
 
 50 „ turnips 30 (a.) 3 16 
 
 20 (c.) 2 8 
 
 50 „ barley 2 
 
 50 „ clover 30 (hay) (as.) 19 6 
 
 „ ,, 20, cut twice (c.) 10 ... 20 
 
 Sundry labour on carriage of materials, 
 
 fencing, roads, &c., on 300 acres, viz. ... 50 
 
 Attendance on Stock : — 
 
 240 sheep at |d. weekly each ... 
 
 30 beasts at 6d. ditto - ._ 
 
 100 acres of pasture at 5s. an acre 
 
 This sum pays for horse labour as well as (vages. Deduct 
 the cost of the horse labour, except wages paid to team-men 
 = £184 and you have for wages £419, which is equal to 
 38s. an acre on the arable land, and 6s. an acre on the 
 pasture, and this is probably near what is actually paid. 
 
 43 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 11-1 
 
 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 0' 
 
 
 
 29 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 
 
 £603 
 
 
 
 
 
136 LABOUR ON THE FAEM. 
 
 (6.) Take the case of a Nottinghamshire light land farm. 
 The cropping, according to the accounts received, must be 
 nearly as follows on 930 acres : — 
 
 LaTjour-eost Total. 
 Per annum. 
 
 £, s. d. £ s. d. 
 
 100 acres in wheat at (fls.) 3 3 6 317 10 
 
 100 acres in oats at (a.) 2 3 6 217 10 
 
 150 acres in barley at 2 300 
 
 20 in peas at (o.) 2 13 6 53 10 
 
 , J. . f 110(o.) 3 18 
 
 210 acres in wurzel and turnips-! ,„. , ; „ „ » 
 
 V. 100 \c.) z o u 
 
 429 
 240 
 
 ( 100 mown ... 19 6 97 10 
 
 350 acres in clover < 100 do. twice ... 1 ' 100 
 
 ( 150 fed 5 37 10 
 
 Sundry labour, as carriage of material, 
 
 mendingroada, fences, &o, (900 acres) * 120 
 Attendance on live stock, probably 
 
 1,200 sheep, id. each per week ... 130 
 
 Total labour-oost £2,042 10 
 
 This includes cost of horse labour, and deducting £608, 
 viz. dG956, calculated from data already discussed, except 
 wages of team-men, £348, you have a total paid in wages oi 
 about £1400. Now the wages actually paid on that farm 
 were £1383, which is a suf&cient confirmation of the justice 
 of our valuation. 
 
 * This item may be fairly put as high, seeing that it includes a nnmbei 
 of items hardly capable of enumeration, such as carrying corn and coal 
 and manure from market for consumption on the farm ; also lime fdr 
 application at intervals of years ; also every unusual expense owing to 
 weather ; also repairs of roads and fences, &c. 
 
CALENDAR OF FAEM LABOUB. 137 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 OAIiENDAR OP FARM LABOUE. ' 
 
 Monthly Operations. — Disteibution ot Faem .Labour through the 
 Months. — Horse-Labour. — Hand-Lahour. 
 
 In this the last section of the book, it is proposed to 
 enumerate the labours of the several months, and estimate 
 the quantity iu each; taking the case of a farm of 300 acres, 
 60 of which are in permanent pasture mown every other 
 year, and the remainder of the farm is arable land, cultivated 
 on an eight years' course of cropping, thus : — 1. Wheat 
 (30 acres). — 2. Winter beans (10 acres), carrots (10 acres), 
 potatoes (10 acres). — 3. Wheat (30 acres.) — 4. Turnips (10 
 acres), swedes (20 acres). — 5. Barley (30 acres). — 6. Clover 
 (30 acres).— 7. Wheat (30 acres).— 8. Mangold-wurzel (30 
 acres). Of the green crops, the carrots, potatoes, mangold- 
 wurzel, and half of the turnips and swedes, and half of the 
 clover, are carried home to the yard, there to be consumed 
 by cattle, sheep, and pigs. All the green crops and the 
 winter beans are manured ; and as much of the manuring 
 as possible is done in the autumn. 
 
 These calculations relate to the circumstances of this 
 farm, but the following summary, given in the first place, 
 of operations named under the several months relate tc 
 agriculture generally. 
 
138 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 Monthly Operations of the Farm. — January. Drain- 
 age operations; carriage of manure to heaps in fields, 
 also of lime and marl, also of grain to market ; threshing 
 grain for sale ; ploughing, prohahly the last of the stubhles 
 for root crops ; applying clay and marl, carrying lime, &c. ; 
 attendance on cattle and sheep ; road and fence mending ; 
 top-dressing pastures. 
 
 Fehniary. — Preparing for and sowing spring wheat, beans, 
 and peas towards the end of the month ; continuance of all 
 works- of carriage, viz. manures, lime, &c. ; purchase of 
 manure and seeds, and carriage home ; marketing of grain 
 and fat stock ; attendance on feeding and breeding cattle, 
 sheep, and swine ; gathering stones off the meadows. 
 
 March. — Finishing sowing wheat, peas, beans ; prepara- 
 tion of land for and sowing oats, barley, carrots, grass, 
 cloTer, vetches ; potato cultivation and planting : prepara- 
 tion of land for mangold-wurzel, turnips, cabbage, flax ; 
 turning manure heaps in the field and yard, for use in the 
 cabbage or mangold-wurzel fields ; threshing if necessary, 
 for marketing or for straw ; attendance on fatting and 
 breeding stock of all kinds ; marketing ; mowing fields to be 
 cleaned, harrowed, rolled, and shut up. 
 
 April. — Finishing sowing oats, barley, carrots, grass, and 
 clover seeds; also potato planting, and, if possible, 
 mangold-wurzel sowing; sowing sainfoin, vetches, flax; 
 cleaning out yard and carrying to field all the manure for 
 turnip fields ; horse-hoeing wheat, and possibly beans and 
 peas ; attendance on breeding and feeding stock of all kinds. 
 
 May.— Finishing sowing of mangold-wurzel ; transplant- 
 ing cabbage ; preparation of land for turnips ; horse and 
 hand-hoeing grain cropsi; also carrots and parsnips and 
 early-planted potatoes ; cutting and carrying green rye and 
 
CALENDAR OF FARM LABOUR. 139 
 
 Tetches. Cattle fed in houses or turned out to pasture ; 
 sheep in pastures ; sheep-shearing. 
 
 June. — Sowing turnips ; horse and hand-hoeing mangold- 
 ■wurzel, carrots, parsnips, beans, cabbages, potatoes ; 
 preparing land still for turnips, rape, &c. Attendance on 
 cattle and sheep in pastures ; sheep-shearing ; haymaking. 
 
 July.~ A last horse-hoeing of carrots and parsnips ; 
 finishing sowing turnips as a main crop ; sowing rape 
 and mustard ; mowing clovers and meadows ; hay-making ; 
 harvesting peas and winter beans ; ploughing and sowing 
 turnips and rape, after rye and vetches ; pulling flax 
 when ripe enough ; horse and hand-hoeing turnips and 
 mangold-wurzel ; carriage of tiles, road material, &c., for 
 autumn and winter use ; also of lime for use either on clover 
 or on corn stubble. 
 
 August. — Wheat, barley, oat, bean harvest ; finishing hay- 
 making; horse-hoeing turnips and mangold-wurzel; plough- 
 ing and scarifying stubbles ; finishing sowing turnip and rape 
 after vetches or corn crop ; sowing trifolium on corn stubble. 
 
 September. — Corn harvest ; autumn cultivation ; plough- 
 ing clovers (after in some cases carrying manure on them) 
 for wheat; sowing trifolium on corn stubbles. 
 
 October. — Finishing corn harvest; preparation for and 
 sowing wheat, rye, winter beans, winter vetches ; harvesting 
 potatoes, swedes and mangold-wurzel ; autumn cultivation 
 of stubbles ; carrying and application of lime, also of manure, 
 on fields for root crops. Folding sheep on turnips. 
 
 November. — Wheat sowing ; finishing harvesting swedes, 
 mangold-wurzel, carrots, potatoes ; continuing to carry 
 manure on to stubbles and ploughing it in ; also plough- 
 ing clover and grass land for oats ; threshing grain for 
 market and for straw. Attendance on cattle in stalls, and 
 
140 
 
 LABOUB ON THE FARM. 
 
 sheep on turnips in the field. Road mending, draining, 
 chalking, marling. 
 
 December. — Wheat sowing in favourahle weather. Con- 
 tinuing ploughing stubbles, and finishing ploughing lea for 
 oats ; threshing and marketing ; carriage of manure to field. 
 Attendance on fattening stock in stalls, yards, and fields. 
 
 Estimated Labour of tlie Farm. — The following is 
 the estimate referred to In the opening paragraph of the 
 previous section. First as regards hokse-laboue : — 
 
 No. 1. — ^WhBAT AFTEE MaNGOLD-WUKZEL, 30 ACEBS. 
 
 The kind of work required for a crop of Wheat. 
 
 The months when 
 
 the work 
 ahoxad be done. 
 
 Days' work 
 
 and 
 two horses. 
 
 To gathering and carting off mangold leaves 
 „ ploughing the land after the roots are off 
 „ haiTowing the land a double turn 
 
 „ drilling the seed 
 
 ,, harrowing the land a doable turn 
 
 „ carriage of crop 
 
 November. 
 
 Nov. and Dee. 
 
 December. 
 
 J3 
 
 August. 
 
 6 
 30 
 6 
 3 
 6 
 6 
 
 This crop of wheat requires six days of two horses in 
 August, twenty days of two horses in November, and 30 
 days' work of two horses in December. 
 
 No. 2. — 30 AOEES ; 10 acebs to be in Wintee Beans. 
 
 
 
 Days! worh 
 
 The kind of labour required for Beans. 
 
 The months to 
 do the work. 
 
 of a man 
 
 and 
 two horses. 
 
 To cultivating the land twice across each other 
 
 August. 
 
 9 
 
 „ two double turns of the harrow 
 
 
 4 
 
 „ carting 160 loads of manure 
 
 September. 
 
 i 
 
 „ ploughing the land 
 
 
 10 
 
 „ two double turns of the harrow 
 
 
 4 
 
 ,„ drilling the beans 
 
 
 2 . 
 
 „ horse-hoeing twice 
 
 April 
 
 2 
 
 „ earthing up 
 
 May. 
 
 2 
 
 „ canymg crop 
 
 July. 
 
 3 
 
CALENDAR Off FARM LABOUR. 
 
 141 
 
 These ten acres of No. 2 require thirteen days' work of 
 two horses in August, twenty days in September, two days 
 in April, two days in May, and three days in July. 
 'So. 2 continued. — 10 acres in Carrots. 
 
 The kind of work required for Carrots. 
 
 Time when 
 
 the work should 
 
 be done. 
 
 Days', work 
 
 ofaman 
 
 and 
 
 two horses.- 
 
 To carting 250 loads of manure 
 
 ,, ploughing in the manure 8 inches deep 
 
 „ cultivating twice across 
 
 ,, harrowing two double turns 
 
 „ rolling and drilling 
 
 „ horse-hoeing 
 
 „ carriage of crop 
 
 October. 
 
 March. 
 
 April. 
 
 June and July. 
 
 October. 
 
 5 
 10 
 4 
 4 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 
 This crop of ten acres requires eighteen days' work of 
 a pair of horses in October, and eight days in March, 
 three days in April, one day in June, and two days in July. 
 
 No. 2 continiied. — 10 agebs in Potatoes. 
 
 
 
 Days' work 
 
 The kind of work required for Potatoes. 
 
 the work should 
 
 and 
 two horses. 
 
 
 be done. 
 
 To carting 250 loads of manure 
 
 September. 
 
 5 
 
 ,, ploughing in the manure 
 
 )) 
 
 10 
 
 „ ploxighing the laud the second time ... 
 „ harrowing a double turn 
 
 February. 
 
 10 
 
 April. 
 
 2 
 
 „ cultivating twice across 
 
 >) 
 
 5 
 
 ,, harrowing double turn 
 
 »» 
 
 2 
 
 ,, drilling for and covering the potatoes 
 
 )) 
 
 6 
 
 ,, horse-hoeing twice 
 
 May. 
 
 2 
 
 ,, moulding up the potatoes 
 
 June. 
 
 3 
 
 ,, carting off produce 
 
 October. 
 
 ' 
 
 This crop requires fifteen days' work in September, ten 
 days in February, fifteen days in April, two days in May,! 
 three days in June, and two days in October. | 
 
 In all. No. 2 requires ten days' work in February,' 
 
142 
 
 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 eight days' work in March, twenty days in April, four 
 days in May, four days in June, five days in July, thirteen 
 days in August, thirty-five days in September, and twenty 
 days in October. 
 
 No. 3. — 30 AOEES IN Wheat. 
 
 The kind of work required for Wheat. 
 
 The months when 
 
 the work 
 should he done. 
 
 Days' work 
 
 of a man 
 
 and 
 
 two horses. 
 
 Clearing up land 
 
 To ploughing the land after the roots are off 
 „' a double tarn of the harrow J.. 
 
 ,, drilling the seed 
 
 „ a double turn of the harrow _. 
 
 „ carriage of crop 
 
 October. 
 
 Oct., Nov., Dee. 
 
 December. 
 
 August. 
 
 5 
 30 
 6 
 3 
 6 
 6 
 
 This crop of wheat requires twenty days' work of a pair 
 of horses in October, fourteen or fifteen days in November, 
 eighteen or nineteen days in December, and six days in the 
 following August. 
 
 No. 4. — 30 AOKES TUBNIPS AND SwEDBS. 
 
 The kind of horse labour required for Turnips. 
 
 The mopths when 
 
 the work 
 should he done. 
 
 Days' work 
 
 of a man 
 
 and 
 
 two horses. 
 
 To ploughing 
 
 „ carting 450 loads of manure 
 
 ,, ploughing in the manure 
 
 ,, double turn of harrow 
 
 „ cultivating the ground with three horses 
 „ double turn of the heavy harrow 
 
 ,, rolling and harrowing 
 
 „ carting 300 loads of short prepared dung 
 „ cultivating deep to mix the dung on the 
 
 surfate 
 
 „ a double turn of the harrow 
 
 ,, rolling ... 
 
 „ ribbing 
 
 „ horse-hoeing swedes 
 
 „ carrying off half the crop 
 
 Nov. ftud Dec. 
 
 Feb. and March. 
 
 April and May. 
 
 May. 
 
 May. 
 June. 
 
 July & August. 
 Oct. and Nov. 
 
 30 
 
 30 
 ^39 
 
 6 
 6 
 6 
 6^ 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 15 
 
 33 
 
 18 
 10 
 
CALENDAR OF FARM LABOUR. 
 
 ]43 
 
 This is four days in February, five days in March, five 
 days in April, fifty-two days in May, thirty-nine days in 
 June, nine days in July, nine days in August, five days in 
 October, twenty days in November, fifteen in December ; 
 in all, 157 days. 
 
 No. 5. — 30 AOBES IN Barley. 
 
 The kind oflabour recLUived. 
 
 The time when 
 
 the work 
 should be done. 
 
 Days' work 
 of a man 
 
 and pair of 
 horses. 
 
 To ploughing the land with a shallow furrow 
 
 ,, a double turn of the harrow 
 
 ,, drilling the seed 
 
 ,, a double turn of the harrow 
 
 „ carrying the crop 
 
 Jan. and March. 
 March. 
 AprO. , 
 
 August & Sept. 
 
 30 
 6 
 3 
 6 
 6 
 
 This field requires fifteen days of two horses in January, 
 twenty-one days in March, nine days in April, three days in 
 August, and three days in September. 
 
 No. 6. — 30 ACRES IN Clovee. 
 
 The Hnd of work required for the Qover crop. 
 
 The time when 
 
 the work 
 should be done. 
 
 Days" work 
 of a man 
 
 and 
 two horses> 
 
 To be rolled 
 
 One half to be mown and carried as hay ... 
 To be mown and carried green 
 
 April. 
 
 July. 
 Jane,July,Aug., 
 and September. 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 This crop requires the labour of a pair of horses two days 
 in April, three days in June, eight days in July, two days in 
 August, and two days in September. 
 
144 
 
 LABOUB ON THE FARM. 
 
 No. 7. — 30 AOEps IN "Wheat. 
 
 The kind of work rcixuiied for a crop of Wheat. 
 
 The months when 
 
 the work 
 should be done, 
 
 Days' work 
 
 of a man 
 
 and 
 
 two horses. 
 
 To ploughing 
 
 ,, harrowing it three double turns 
 
 ,, drilling the seed 
 
 „ harrowing the land after the seed 
 
 double turn 
 
 „ carrying the crop 
 
 Sept. and Oct. 
 October. 
 
 August. 
 
 30 
 
 18 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 6 
 
 This crop requires six days' work of two horses in August, 
 thirty-seven days' work of two horses in September, and 
 twenty days in October. 
 
 No. 8. — 30 ACKES IN Maugold-wttezel. 
 
 
 
 Bays' work 
 
 The kind of work required for 
 
 The time to do the 
 
 of a man 
 
 Mangold WuTzeL 
 
 work. 
 
 and 
 two horses. 
 
 To ploughing first time 
 
 Oct. 10, Nov. 10, 
 
 
 
 Dec. 5, Jan. 5. 
 
 30 
 
 „ harrowing — double turn 
 
 FebiTiary. 
 
 6 
 
 ,, carting i50 loads manure 
 
 
 9 
 
 „ ploughing in dressing 
 
 „ harrowing twice 
 
 Feb. 10, March 20. 
 
 30 
 
 ApriL 
 
 12 • 
 
 „ cultivating and harrowing 
 
 >> 
 
 15 
 
 „ ribbing land for drilling 
 
 April and May. 
 
 9 
 
 ,, horse-hoeing four times 
 
 May 6, June 6, July 6. 
 
 18 
 
 „ carrying off crop 
 
 Oct. and Nov. 
 
 20 
 
 This crop thus needs fifteen days' work of a man and two 
 horses in October, twenty-five days in November, five 
 days in December, five days in January, twenty-five days 
 in February, twenty days in March, thirty-one days in 
 April, eleven in May, six in June, and six in July. 
 
CALENBAR OF FAEM LABOUB. 
 
 145 
 
 The following table then gives the results of the horse 
 labour ascertained above, and distributed thi'ough the 
 months : — 
 
 Months of the Ybae. 
 
 No. of Crop 
 
 Acres. 
 
 3 <i 
 
 ■ll 
 
 O 35 
 
 
 an 
 
 it 
 
 
 1,^ 
 
 1 
 11 
 
 
 1 
 
 II 
 
 nn 
 
 1. -Wheat .. 
 
 2. Carrots.. 
 Beans .. 
 
 - Potatoes ^ . 
 
 3. Wheat .. 
 
 4. Turnips 
 Swedes .. 
 
 6. Barley .. 
 6. Glover .. 
 r. Wheat .. 
 8. MangoM- 
 wurzel , 
 
 Total .. 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 80 
 
 10 1 
 
 20 f 
 
 30 
 
 SO 
 
 30 
 
 SO 
 
 15 
 S 
 
 ib 
 
 4 
 25 
 
 8 
 
 S 
 
 21 
 
 20 
 
 s 
 
 2 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 2 
 
 81 
 
 67 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 52 
 
 11 
 
 67 
 
 i 
 it 
 
 39 
 '3 
 
 6 
 
 62 
 
 '2 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 's 
 
 6 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 6 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 6 
 
 45 
 
 20 
 15 
 
 3 
 2 
 
 37 
 
 77 
 
 is 
 
 "2 
 20 
 
 6 
 
 20 
 15 
 
 SO 
 
 20 
 
 14 
 20 
 
 25 
 79 
 
 3D 
 
 19 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 69 
 
 
 20 
 
 39 
 
 64 
 
 677 days of a man and pair of horses are, according to 
 this table, all that this farm of 240 acres of arable land 
 requires for its annual cultivation. But there are sixty 
 acres of pasture besides, which involve considerable labour 
 in dressing with manure during winter, and carrying hay in 
 July ; for which the distribution of the arable labour gives 
 ample means during January and July, when the horses are 
 not fully employed. And there is also a considerable 
 quantity of cartage in marketing, and in carriage of manures 
 and seeds, and food for cattle, of which no account is taken 
 in the table. Taking, however, the monthly figures here 
 given to be pretty nearly accurate, we find that the greatest 
 provision of horses for the labour of the farm must be in 
 'March, April, May, September, October, November, and 
 December. If we take October as the month of greatest 
 labour throughout the year, we find that eighty days of a 
 
146 LABOUR ON THE FARM. 
 
 team are needed, and as only twenty-two or twenty-three 
 days fit for field work can be expected during that month, 
 three and a half teams must be provided, or seven horses, 
 three men, and a lad ; and these must be maintained and 
 paid throughout the year, notwithstanding that it is only 
 during a few months that they are all needed. It is, as 
 we have already pointed out, in the power of steam cultiva- 
 tion to reduce the demands made by the autumn cultivation 
 and spring ploughing on the horse-power of the farm ; and, 
 by its assistance at these two periods, to reduce the number 
 of horses needed throughout the year. 
 
 The next table gives an estimate of the cost of hand- 
 liABOxiK employed upon the crops in the different months of 
 the year : the wages for man, woman, and child being taken 
 at an ordinary amount ; and the operations whose cost has 
 been accounted for, including filling and spreading manure, 
 hand-hoeing and weed-gathering, reaping and mowing corn 
 and grass, haymaking, and harvesting grain crops and green 
 crops, help in threshing the former, and work in consuming 
 the latter. The table gives in shillings the sum paid per 
 acre in this way in the several months. 
 
 A detailed examination of the figures in this table veill 
 not be attempted ; but the figures in one case may be ex- 
 plained in illustration of the whole. Take that of the 
 wheat crop No. 1 : — " During the months of winter and 
 spring, about 5s. per acre, in all, are spent in labour on 
 threshing ; during November and December, Is. or Is. Qd. 
 an acre (or say three weeks of a boy for a ten-acre field) are 
 spent in scaring birds at seed time, and the same is needed 
 before harvest in July ; 3s. and 4s. an acre are needed in 
 April, May, and June, for hoeing and weeding the young 
 £rop ; and lOs. or 12s. an acre are needed in August and 
 
CALENDAR OF FARM LABOUR. 
 
 147 
 
 September for cutting, carrying, stacking, and threshing the 
 crop. A root crop might be taken, and the figures in its 
 case similarly justified. The only point, however, then 
 requiring explanation is the charge of 6s. or 8s. a month 
 on account of them duriag the winter months, which 
 includes all the labour of managing the manure for those 
 crops, and of attendance on the live stock fed upon them. 
 
 Crop. 
 
 1 
 
 Nmnher of Shillings per Acre Monthly. 
 
 Total Cost. 
 
 4 
 
 r® 
 h 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 t 
 
 ! 
 5 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 Per 
 Acre. 
 
 Of Crop. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 & s. d. 
 
 1. Wheat ... 
 
 30 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 H 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 u 
 
 2 
 
 15 
 
 37 10 
 
 2. Beans ... 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 >•• 
 
 i! 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 17 
 
 13 10 
 
 Carrots 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 a 
 
 
 S 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 2 11 
 
 26 10 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 30 
 
 3. Wheat ... 
 
 .80 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 H 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 14 6 
 
 36 15 
 
 4. Turnips 
 Swedes 
 
 10 1 
 20) 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 2 18 
 
 37 
 
 5. Barley... 
 
 30 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1* 
 
 (J 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 1 6 
 
 32 5 
 
 6. Clover... 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 J 
 
 
 i 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 24 
 
 7. Wheat ... 
 
 SO 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1* 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 2* 
 
 1 
 
 15 
 
 37 10 
 
 8. Mangold- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 wurzel 
 Total ... 
 
 30 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 3 6 
 
 99 
 
 240 
 
 630J630|6S0 
 
 740|610620 
 
 650 
 
 390 
 
 880 
 
 860 770 
 
 600 
 
 1 16 1 
 
 423 
 
 From this table it would seem that the constant 
 upon the farm, besides the team-men, should be equal in 
 point of wages to about £30 a month, and that extra labour 
 worth something like £15 or £20 a month, will be needed 
 during the season of corn and root harvest. These wages 
 will not, however, represent so many additional hands, 
 because the extra work will be let to the constant hands of 
 *-he farm as far as possible, and they will earn their extra 
 wages by extra labour during extra hours. 
 
 The total wages=£423, must be increased by the labour 
 on sixty acres of pasture land, costing about £15, and by 
 
148 LABOtTR ON THE FARM. 
 
 the wages of the team-men, or £117; perhaps also by 
 something for shepherd and cowman, for although a charge 
 has been made per acre on the roots for winter preparation 
 and consumption, yet this expense wUl hardly have been 
 covered. Let us then put the whole wages of the farm at 
 £540, or £560, and this will amount to 46s. an acre on the 
 arable land, or somewhat less than this over the whole 
 farm, if 5s. an acre be added for the permanent pasture. 
 
 Let me add here, that if on comparing the figures in 
 these tables with those given under the several crops in 
 Chapter V., discrepancies be found to exist — as may very 
 probably be the case, for they have not been founded on 
 one another — a,n explanation may to some extent be found 
 in the fact, that the cost of shepherding and cattle feeding 
 is here almost or entirely included in the acreable charges 
 on the several crops. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 AsES of agricaltuial labourers, 17 
 Allotments, 19 
 Annua.! labour, SO 
 Average labour on farm, 9 
 
 East Lothian farm, i 
 Economy of hand-power, 71 
 Examples of labour, 135 
 Examples of cnltiration, 63 — 68 
 Extras in horse expenditure, 53 
 
 Bable7, cost of, 126, 143 
 Beans, cost of, 128, 141 
 Blacksmith's bill, 56 
 Boarding labourers, 82, 87 
 Bondagers, 84 
 I Bothy system, 85 
 
 0. 
 
 Oabb^qes, cost of, 131 
 Calendar of operations, 137 
 Carriage, cost of, 113 
 Carrots, cost of, 130, 141 
 Cheshire farms, 7 
 Classification of labour, 32 
 Clover, cost of, 133, 143 
 Cost of steam-power, 34 
 Cost per cwt. of draught, 68 
 Cost per acre of horse-power, 60 
 County reports, 18 
 
 Dairy farm, labour on, 7 
 Draining, cost of, 117 
 
 E. 
 Eabthwosk, cost of, 116 
 
 Fallow work, 25 
 
 Farm operations, cost of, 97 
 
 Farrier's bill, 56 
 
 Fen farm, 30 
 
 Flax, cost of, 132 
 
 Food of horse, 48 
 
 a. 
 
 Gloccesiesshibe farm, 4 
 Grain crops, labour cost, 134 
 Green crops, labour cost, 134 
 Grubbing, cost of, 102 
 
 H. 
 
 Hanp-power, cost, 97 
 Harrowing, cost of, 101 
 Harvesting, cost of, 105, 108 
 Hiring and paying labourer, 80 
 Hoeing, cost of, 103 
 Horse labour, 25 
 Horse labour on crops, 141 
 Horse-power, 29, 48 
 Horse-power, cost, 98 
 
 Implements, 57 
 
 Incidence of farm labour, 74 
 
150 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Laboub cost of crops, 124 
 Labour per month, 146 
 Labourer, the, 71 
 Light soil, labour on, 1 
 Lire stock management, 118 
 
 M. 
 
 MANAaxMENi of steam-engine, 37 
 Mangel-wurzel, cost of, 130, 144 
 Manure heaps, 118 
 Master and servant, 92 
 Medium soil, labour on, 4 
 Midlothian farm, 30 
 Mowing, cost of, 107 
 
 N. 
 National statistics, 11 
 
 Oats, cost of, 126 
 Oxfordshire farm, 5 
 
 FASTnKE land, cost of, 133 
 Pease, cost of, 127 
 Peill's windmill, 46 
 Perquisites, 80 
 Piece-work, 90 
 Ploughing, cost of, 99 
 Potatoes, cost of, 131 
 Price of labour, 78 
 Prices of operations, 120 
 
 Rafb, cost of, 132 
 
 KoUing, cost of, 102 
 Eoot crops, cost of. 111 
 Kye, cost of, 128 
 B^ grass, cost o^ 133 
 
 Saddles bill, 56 
 Shepherding, cost of, 133 
 Sherwood forest farm, 1, 136 
 Sowing, cost of, 103 
 Statistics of agriculture, 19 
 Statistics of labour, 1 
 Steam ploughing, 26 
 Steam-power on the farm, 23 
 Steam-power, cost, 98 
 Steam : water : wind, 22 
 Stiff soil, labour on, 6 
 Stifle burning, 117 
 
 Threshinq, cost of, 114 
 Tilth, production of, 28 
 Turbine, the, 44 
 Turnips, cost of, 129, 142 
 
 V. 
 
 / 
 
 Yahjatioh of horse labour, 62 
 Vetches, cost of, 131 
 
 W. 
 
 Waoes, 76 
 Water-power, 42 • 
 Wlieat, cost of, 124, 142 
 Whitfield farm, 30 
 "Whittlesea mere, 34 
 Wiltshire farm, 5 
 Wind-power, 46 
 
MORTON'S HAPBOOKS OF THE FARM. 
 
 THE aim of the Series is to display the means best calculated to secure an 
 intelligent development of the resources of our soil, and, with the assistance 
 which advanced Chemical investigation provides, to direct those engaged in 
 Aerioultural Industry towards the most successful results. The Series will be 
 helpful equally to the Teacher and the Student in Agriculture, no less than 
 to the Farmer— dealing in its course with the CHEMISTRY OF THE FARM ; 
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 TILLAOB ; and the EQUIPMENT OF THE FARM OR THE ESTATE. 
 Each book is complete in itself, and the short Series of handy volumes, by 
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 BT W. T. CARRINGTON, G. GILBERT, J. C. MORTON, GILBERT MURRAY, 
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 No. IV. THE SOIL. 
 
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 No. VI. EQUIPMENT. 
 
 BY WM. BURNBSS, J. C. MORTON, AND GILBERT MURRAT. 
 
 No. VII. THE DAIRY. 
 
 BY. JAMES LONG AND J. 0. MORTON. 
 
 No. Viii. ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
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