THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



127 



equal to nine men, the number usually taken to represent 

 in England 45 souls. These men lived, he undertook 

 to say, bettor than the peasant cultivators of France and 

 Germany. Were this farm divided into six-acre farms, 

 it would probably support double the number of peasant 

 proprietors ; it would keep no sheep, a goat or two, no 

 ox-beef, but an occasional supply of the flesh of a worn- 

 out milch cow. There would be, as surplus, a little 

 wheat, rye, and perhaps, flax. The arable would be 

 fallow every third year. But witii hand-power, horse, 

 and steam-power, he (Mr. Sidney) would undertake to 

 say that the Woolston farm, being never in naked 

 fallow, produced 6 quarters to the acre, but say 5 

 quarters on 27 acres, or 135 quarters of wheat, 135 

 quarters of barley, and with clover and other green 

 crops, roots and beans, at least seven thousand pounds 

 of mutton irom 100 sheep, two thousand pounds of 

 pork, from say 10 pigs, and an increase on cattle, pur- 

 chased or reared, of five thousand pounds of beef; in 

 all, fourleen thousand pounds of meat, besides feeding 

 the family of the farmer himself. These calculations, 

 very much under the mark, would show, not only that 

 full-sized farms were necessary to support agricultural 

 progress, but that it was on large farms, as distinguished 

 from five-acre farms, that the nation must be fed. Mr. 

 Morton's paper had conclusively shown that this progress 

 had been obtained with positive benefits to the labour- 

 ing classes, who had not been sacrificed, as was once 

 feared, to machinery. He (Mr, Sidney) thought that 

 the distressed classes now were the farmers, hard driven 

 for labour, with high wages and low prices. He be- 

 lieved their only safety and resource lay in adopting 

 steam cultivation, and tempting labourers to stay and 

 increase by improved cottage accommodation. The 

 wages question settled itself, and was beyond the power 

 of laws. 



Mr. Edwin Chadwick, C.B., had rather ex- 

 pected that the discus.^ion would have turned upon the 

 points which the Chairman had suggested, namely, 

 upon the comjiarative value of mechanical foi'ces; but 

 he was glad to find that it had been directed to the so- 

 cial and economical effects either already obtained or 

 promised by the introduction of machinery into agri- 

 culture. It was most important to discuss the effects 

 of machinery upon the great mass who had to use it 

 — the labourers. In the statistics given by Mr. 

 Morion of the rise of wages, he (Mr. Chadwick) 

 submitted that one large and important fact was 

 omitted. Mr. Morton had stated the progress of wages 

 in difTerentcountie:*, but ho had not mentioned another 

 progress, viz., the progress of the efficiency of the 

 labourer; because, according to his own inquiries, the 

 efficiency of the labourer had borne its relation to the 

 improved forces introduced. The farmer in Dorsetshire 

 only paid 8s., and the farmer in Lancashire and some 

 of the northern districts paid IGs. a-week, and the latter 

 got his vv'ork done cheaper at the higher wages than it 

 could be done at the lower. Moreover, there was yet 

 room for further improvement by the advance of waaes 

 to the operative class. Some time ago there was a 

 notion of getting up a Land Improvement Company, 

 the object of which was to improve particular districts, 

 and to put the land into better condition, by employing 

 a better class of labourers. Those who were engaged 

 in that project were good judges of labour, and they 

 proposed, as the cheapest plan, to employ, not the 

 argicultural labourer of the district, where the law of 

 settlement and low wages prevail, but navvies whose 

 wages were 3s. per day. Truly efficient labour, he 

 submitted, could only be obtained by the advance of 

 wages. The increased development of labour which 

 the improved circumstances of the country would pro- 

 duce, would effect this object. The extensive emigra- 



tion that annually took place, and the demand for 

 labour in manufactures would raise wages ; and he ex- 

 pected and hoped that it would bring this country into 

 the condition of the Amei ican labour market, and give 

 an immense stimulus to the introduction of machinery. 

 With respect to what had already been done, he would 

 take the opportunity of congratulating his friend, Mr. 

 VV^rcn Hoskyns, that in the introduction of steam for 

 ploughing, which he had so long laboured for, tlie 

 corner in the shape of profit over manual labour had 

 been turned. He might mention, by way of contrast, 

 looking to the state of things abroad, that in many 

 parts of the south of France the constant price of 

 ploughing by oxen was at the present time five francs 

 a day for the men and the oxen to do the work, whilst 

 the am.ount of work done was a quarter of an acre 

 per day. That was paying at the rate of 20 francs 

 per acre, but it was a mere scratching of the surface 

 of the soil some three or four inches deep, whereas 

 steam-ploughing did the work much better at about 

 one-third or one-fourth that price ; in other words, the 

 light land which the firmer in France paid 20 franca 

 an acre for ploughing in that way, could be done by the 

 steam-ploughs now in use at (5s. per acre, and instead 

 of being ploughed three or four inches deep, it would be 

 ploughed seven inches deep. The economical, as well 

 as the social part of the question was, he thought, well 

 resolved by a labouring man on one occasion when he 

 (Mr. Chadwick) went to see Mr. Smith's plough at 

 work on the far n of the Prince Consort. Upon his 

 asking the man how those steam-ploughs answered, 

 the reply was that they answered exceedingly well, as 

 be (the labourer) got half-a-crown a day wages. He 

 (Mr. Chadwick) was extremely desirous to see the use 

 of steam culture extended, because he was sure wherever 

 the steam implement went two shillings or half-a-crown 

 wages per day would go with it. But in contemplating 

 tlie extended introduction of machinery, one important 

 point must be considered^ viz., the state of education 

 of the class of agricultural labourers upon whom iho 

 management of these new steam implements would de- 

 volve. In the larger use of that same power in the 

 manufacturing districts, it was the frequent remark of 

 Mr. Fairbairn upon coroners' inquests, when accidents 

 occurred by the bursting of steam boilers, that for the 

 proper management of the steam-engine a higher degree 

 of education was required than had yet been applied to 

 the labouring classes. If that were so in places where 

 they were paying 20s. or 25s. a-week wages for the 

 management of an engine, what must be the case in 

 the agricultural districts, where the wages are so much 

 lower ? It was only by the exercise of intelligence and 

 watchfulness that they could reach the highest order of 

 economy. 1 hat had been peculiarly displayed in the 

 case of the Cornish engine, in the use of which men 

 were put upon piece-work, which was not the case in 

 the north. There had been great improvements in the 

 steam-engine in Manchester, but in Cornwall they did 

 as much work with 2.jlbs. of coal as was done in Man- 

 chester with lOlbs. It was found that farmers were 

 frequently dissatisfied because their engines did not re- 

 alize all the promises of the manufacturers of them. 

 The answer to that was, that the fault was not with the 

 engine, but with themselves, in not employing more 

 intelligent men to superintend it, and in order to do 

 tiiat they must pay better wages. But unfortunately, 

 in the present state of education in the agricultural 

 districts, if higher wages were offered, the men were 

 not to be found to do the work with the greatest 

 amount of economy ; and in order to attain this end, 

 their education must be imjiroved. It was true that 

 prodigious advances in that direction had been made. 

 On going into one of the district schoeds that day. 



