THE FARMEiVS MAGAZINE, 



lai 



^'1,200 a- year in wages, or £-2 per acre on the arable 

 lanil. Mr. Doc'is, of Auick Grange, near Heshaca, 

 occupying 310 acres arable and 100 pasture, employs 7 

 men and 9 women annually, and extra for a month 7 

 men and 7 women. His wages cannot amount to more 

 than £500, or not much more than 32s. an acre on the 

 arable. 



And, as a last instance, I will take the farms of Mr. 

 Edmonds, of Eastleach, near Lechlade, Wilts, 2,000 

 acres arable and 430 acres pastures, employing on the 

 average, and taking harvest into account, about 120 men 

 and 20 to 40 women. His labour bill must, I should 

 suppose, from his rates of wages, which he has kindly 

 given me, amounted to at least £3,200 a-year, which is 

 32s. an acre. It must be admitted then, that on a com- 

 parison of these figures, the labour paid for upon 

 steam-cultivated farms is even more than on farms 

 where steam-power is used only to drive tho thrashing- 

 mill. 



Agriculture is, in fact, experiencing the truth taught 

 in the history of all other manufactures — that machinery 

 is, in the long run, the best friend of the labourer. 

 This truth is taught even more impressively by a review 

 of agriculture generally, than it is by the case of any 

 individual farm. Here are we, twenty-one millions of 

 people, poducers and consumers, living in this island, 

 on a great farra which wc may, by the help of such 

 statistics as v,-c possess, describe as nearly 19,000,000 

 arable acres, and probably nearly as much grass, em- 

 ploying as farm labour, in-door and out, about 950,000 

 men and 120,000 women, besides 300,000 lads and 

 70,000 girls, or averaging them by their probable wages, 

 as has been done before, let us say equal in all to 

 1,150,000 men, or one to every 17 acres of arable, and 

 nearly as much pasture. We feed and use some 

 1,500,000 horses, of which probably 800,000 are strictly 

 for farm purposes. We are annually inventing and 

 manufacturing labour-saving machines at an extraordin- 

 ary rate, and every year at least 10,000 horses are 

 added to the agricultural steam-power of the country, 

 certainly displacing both animals and men to some ex- 

 tent. We have taken the flail out of the hand of the 

 labourer, and the reaping-hook is going ; on matiy a 

 farm he no longer walks between the handles of the plough 

 — he no longer sows the seed — he does but a por- 

 tion of the hoeing and the harvesting — and yet, so far 

 from being able to dispense with his assistance, he is 

 more in demand than ever he has been. 



I have had returns sent to me by all the leading manu- 

 facturers of steam-engines for agricultural purposes. 

 Within the past ten years upwards of 40,000 horse- 

 power has been added to the forces used in agriculture 

 in steam alone. If I may single out Messrs. Clayton 

 and Shuttleworth, of Lincoln; Garrett, of Saxmand- 

 ham ; Hornsby, of Grantham ; Ransome, of Ipswich ; 

 and Tuxford, of Boston, they alone are furnishing 

 10,000 horse-power annually to the farmer. Messrs. 

 Tuxford, among the first to start the locomotive agri- 

 cultural steam-engine, inform me that for the earliest 

 suggestion of it they are indebted to Mr. John ^lorton, 

 of Gloucestershire, then agent to the late Earl of Ducie, 

 who 20 years ago recommended them to put these little 

 engines upon wheels, thus foreseeing the fitness of these 

 powers made locomotive to the circumstances of Eng- 

 lish agriculture. Messrs. Ransome, of Ipswich, were, I 

 believe, the earliest to receive the commendations and 

 the prizes of the Agricultural Society of England for 

 their engines, and now the leading manufacturers of 

 them, Messrs. Clayton, of Lincoln, send out ten of them 

 each week, or 4,000 horse-power per annum. 



Of reapers, again, .since 1851 Burge&s and Key have 

 sold upwards ol 1,000 of their improved M'Cormick's 

 reaper, of which 771 were sold last year j and thoy now 



hold four times as many orders as they did 12 months 



ago. Crosskills have .sold 500 of Bell's reaper, and 80!) 

 ofHussey's; Messrs. Dray have sold COO of their im- 

 proved Hussey'.s reaper ; Messrs. Garrett have sold (iOO 

 ofHussey's; 250 of Wood's clever little .reaper have 

 been sold last year; and the Cuthbcrts, of Bedale, who 

 have just begun the manufacture of their equally 

 clever machine, sold 100 before last harvest, and could 

 have sold four times as many. In all, probably 4,000 

 reaping machines wore at woi-k last harvest, capable of 

 cutting more in a day than 40,000 labouring men, 

 and yet there never was such a harvest as the last for the 

 difficulty of procuring harvest men. Notwithstanding 

 all this a^lditinn to the forces and the machinery of 

 agriculture, more labourers than ever are required, 

 and, as more labourers aro not forthcoming, wages 

 rise. 



It is, indeed, possible that some of this general rise 

 in wages of the past two or three years is owiu'j to the 

 labourers in agi'iculture being, if anything, rather a 

 diminishing than an increasing body; to that I shall 

 refer directly : it is sufficient for the present to de- 

 clare, what ample experience confirms, that the need 

 of their assistance is increasing. 



Of the truth of this, the following is periiapsan extra- 

 vagant illustration. It is from a gentleman well known 

 in the agricultural world, who has known East Kent 

 for 50 or 60 years. He says : — 



" I should he pleased to give you any informtttion in my 

 power, but I cannot answer one of your 12 questions. We 

 have no custom in East Kent as to farming, and no fixed 

 prices for any labour. For instance the price of cutting wheet 

 laat hurvest was from 123. to 353. per BCte. If our labourers 

 can only work half their time the ensuing winter, the prude'it 

 ones have saved sufiicient to keep them during the winter. 

 Almost all our labour costs us double, and in many instances 

 treble to what it did tea years ago. Neither servants nor 

 labourers seam to care about anything but thciiiselves, end not 

 one farmer in 100 in East Kent can get his work d ne at a 

 seasonable and proper time. The labour market will ulti- 

 mately beat us all. I have seen round here one, two, three, 

 and four sacks an p.cre lost iu the stubbles for want cf hands. 

 There are hundreds of acres of land around here, which lie as 

 they did after harvest, such as I have not known but once 

 for the last 60 years ; and that was ia 1816 or 1817. I care 

 nought about a man's capital, it will all go. The farms are 

 all taken as they fall, by bankers, brewers, butchers, chemists, 

 jobbers, grocers, publicans, doctors, drapers, builders, &c. If 

 I occupied a poor-land farm, and was oblir/ed to hold it, I 

 would have a aheep-walk, and my son and I would manage it 

 ourselves." 



Whatever discount may properly be deducted from 

 this gloomy picture, and, however plain it is that 

 its remedy is to be found in steam-power and 

 reaping - machines and such like, it may in the 

 meantime be quoted as one of many illustrations of the 

 fact that the increase of steam-engines and machines 

 need create no fear for the agricultural labourer. 



Here, however, I would say, it is no part of my 

 business to fear or to lament the progress of events, 

 however they may happen to develope. Even if the 

 result should bo that agricultural labourers are to form 

 a diminishing class — that at most only one of the la- 

 bourer's family is trained to take his father's place, it 

 may certainly be doubted whether his lot in future life, 

 or that of his brother who has gone as a carpenter, me- 

 chanic, a soldier or a sailor, is to he preferred. The man 

 will do his best to bring up his family for their good 

 and, as he best knows how— and if wages fall, most of 

 them will naturally endeavour to obtain a maintenance 

 iu some better way. 1 confess my belief to bo that 

 there arc natural safeguards enough in human na- 

 ture to make the natural result within a Christian 

 country, and in a matter so exclusively ono of mere 



