OF SCOTCH AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 



families, residing in cottages upon the farms which they are 

 hired to cultivate, and engaged by the year or half year. Of this 

 class and their average dietaries, good examples from different 

 localities will be found in Appendix A, Cases Nos. 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 

 24, 35, 36, 39, 43, &c. 



2. Ploughmen, young men (unmarried), similarly engaged to 

 Class 1, but sleeping in bothies on the farm, and boarding or 

 victualling in their master's kitchen. Cases of this class will be 

 found in Nos. 10, 48, 54, &c. 



3. Field labourers (male and female) living either in separate 

 cottages with married ploughmen's families as lodgers, or in 

 bothies (where females only), and, in point of social condition, 

 living similarly to Class I. Instances of this class are given in 

 Cases Nos. 3, 20, 23, &c. 



4. Occasional labourers employed in field-work, residing in 

 their own rented houses, not necessarily upon the farm where 

 they are employed, but frequently in adjacent villages or hamlets, 

 and having sometimes to travel two or three miles daily to and 

 from their work, and therefore carrying their mid-day meal or 

 dinner with them, or having it carried by one of their family, to 

 the scene of their occupation. Examples of this class occur in 

 Cases 11, 22, 25, 26, 27, 32, 34, 37, 38, 55, &c. 



Tabulating the weekly average amount of nutritive food con- 

 sumed by these classes, we find — 



Thus, as a rule, Class II. fare the best, and in many districts 

 consume more regularly butcher meat as a daily article of food. 

 They do not, however, remain long in their situations, chiefly 

 owing to their dislike to the supervision exercised over them, 

 and to the restraint laid upon their habits by their masters, 

 as must be the case when these evince any interest in and 

 care of those boarded under their roofs. This class is generally 

 found throughout the northern and north-eastern counties, and 

 chiefly in some of the districts of Aberdeenshire. Class I. may 

 be subdivided into two sections, — 1. Shepherds ; 2. Ploughmen. 

 Of these subdivisions the shepherds are the better fed ; indeed 

 they are a better paid class generally, if not the best paid 

 portion of the agricultural population, and are frequently men 

 of superior shrewdness and intelligence, and distinguished by 



