THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



473 



its stagnant waters, and the black moss made green 

 with, verdure — when the valleys on the hill sides 

 shall bear their burden for the food of man, and the 



very hill tops — as prophesied in holy writ — shall be 

 crowned with a golden diadem waving to the winds that 

 sweep their sides. R. S. B. 



THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER, AND THE PRIZE SYSTEM. 



The impertinent way in which we now meddle with 

 the labourer's rights, privacy, and privileges is 

 something quite monstrous ! Landlords are anxious to 

 build him better cottages. Agents tempt him with ac- 

 commodation land. Farmers publicly acknowledge his 

 good services; and clergymen and others insist on more 

 opportunity being allowed for the education of himself 

 and his family. It is a melancholy fact that we will 

 not leave him alone — that we are not content with paying 

 bis wages and then to have done with him. Acting on 

 the strictly commercial principle of supply and 

 demand, there is little doubt but we are wrong. It 

 should be a question of mere barter — of buying and 

 selling his labour, and no more. Instead of this, we are 

 continually prying about to know if he is comfortable ; 

 discussing, perhaps, amongst ourselves how his state 

 may be improved, and openly offering the same respect 

 to a good servant who has done his duty, that we 

 should to any other man, however high his pursuits 

 or his ambition. 



The long list of autumnal gatherings has about come 

 to an end, and Mr. Gibbs is whipping up attractive 

 names and entries for the opening of the winter season. 

 It is seldom that these local meetings have generally 

 gone off so well, and never before was the good they 

 are susceptible of so universally admitted. But there 

 may ha a flaw in the finest piece of workmanship, a 

 hole in the best of coats, and the agi-icultural character 

 not quite without a stain. In the midst of these pro- 

 ceedings, M'hen country squires and the neighbouring 

 farmers are mutually congratulating each other on the 

 progress their society is making, some such interlude 

 as this occurs : — The president of the association, 

 sheltering himself behind a corn stack, or perched in 

 all the pomp of place on the tail of a waggon, collects 

 around him a secretary and some few other such mani- 

 festly official personages. Backing those is a bevy of 

 labourers — to be called up in due turn to receive that re- 

 ward their merits have entitled them to. One is the best 

 ploughman, another a good shepherd, and the third fa- 

 mous as a hedger, or the neatest of thatchers. Then, there 

 are others who have lived a long round of years in the 

 same service, or fathers of families who have brought 

 up their childi'en with that best of all examples — self- 

 respect and self-reliance ever before their eyes. In 

 short, the business of these high days is not confined 

 only to distinguishing those who must be the chief 

 supporters of them — that is, the landlords and farmers 

 themselves. On the contrary, the labourer has equal 

 chance of a premium and honourable mention. And 

 it so often happens that the man who leads home the 

 prize bull, or the shepherd in charge of the best pen of I 

 sheep, has a prize to take on his own account. We | 



I can imagine nothing more gratifying or mutually 

 grateful than such a double triumph. 



And yet this is all very wrong. What right has the 

 farmer to interfere with the poor labourer in any such 

 way ? What does he mean by degrading and insulting 

 the man by calling him up before his fellows to receive 

 a (iew paltry pounds ? If a servant has been a faithful 

 one, it is his own master's duty to recompense him, 

 and certainly not that of an agricultural society. 

 Fancy giving a man three sovereigns for thirty years' 

 service ! Or paying your petty compliments to another 

 who has brought up his family without asking you to 

 help him ! while " prizes for hedging, draining, and the 

 like, can never be seriously regarded as affording any 

 reasonable expectation of inducing improvement." 

 Throw the money back in the face of him who offers 

 it you ; or if any be mean enough to receive it, let 

 every jolly, idle, independent, poaching vagabond 

 hoot and deride the prize-taker as he reaches homo 

 again. There are many who would want but little in- 

 ducement to do so ; and certainly for some years now 

 there has been no lack of such prompting, more or less 

 directly offered. 



The effect, however, of this continued hostility is both 

 curious and suggestive. There is no such dangerous 

 weapon, we are told, as ridicule; but for once at 

 least, it has failed. A certain portion of the Press — 

 the many, cameleon-like, taking their colouring 

 fi'om the one— have been systematically laugh- 

 ing these premiums for agricultural servants 

 out of use and repute ! And with this remark- 

 able statistical result — there are now more thriving 

 practical agricultural associations, such as those 

 whose real purpose is the advance of agriculture, than 

 ever there were, and there is scarcely one of these but 

 has a series of prizes for good conduct and workman- 

 ship ! There are gradually more and more men found 

 to be competing in these classes ; and there is not a 

 speaker at one of these gatherings — president or em- 

 ployer, j udge of work or country clergyman — but who 

 testifies to the good such a means has conduced to. Tho 

 essayist, then, v>'ho asserts that these rewards for skilled 

 work do not tend to improve the character of that work, 

 speaks with a whole country full of facts against him. 

 He who declares that tho best of the country gentle, 

 men do not give their support to such proceedings, 

 is as wilfully wide of the actual facts of the case. He 

 must shut his eyes to the more prominent points of every 

 report he reads. Then, again, as to the absurdity of 

 giving a man two or three pounds in return for twenty 

 or thirty years' servitude ! Why, we do nothing 

 of Ihe kind. Do we offer a medal to the soldier as the 

 pap for the battles he has fought ? The books or Degree 



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