Contemporary Agricultural Law. 139 



pit had been entirely for his own purpose, he had pnt himself 

 out of the ambit of his employment and that his widow w^as 

 not entitled to compensation under the Act. Tombs v. Bom- 

 ford (1912, W.C.C, 229) illustrates the liability of a farmer in 

 respect of casual labour. There a labourer, whose garden 

 adjoined the land of a farmer, complained that the garden was 

 injured by a hedge on the farmer's land and asked him to have 

 it cut. The farmer, to oblige the labourer, agreed that the 

 labourer should cut the hedge and be paid 10s. for the work, 

 and that the farmer should have the long poles from the hedge 

 for use in his hop-ground. While cutting the hedge the 

 labourer met with an accident to his eye, which caused him 

 to lose the sight of that eye. It was held that the labourer's 

 employment, though of a casual nature, was " for the purpose 

 of the employer's trade or business," and that he was therefore 

 a " workman " and entitled to compensation under the Act 

 from the farmer for the accident. In White v. Wiseman 

 (1912, W.C.C, 403 ; 28 Times L.R., 542) it was held that in 

 calculating the average weekly earnings of a workman for the 

 purpose of awarding compensation under the Workmen's 

 Compensation Act, 1906, the Court must not disregard days, or 

 parts of days, during the twelve months preceding the accident 

 in which there was a shortage of work so that the employer 

 was unable to find the workman any work to do. Polled v. 

 Great Northern Railway (1912, W.C.C, 379) shows that 

 where a man meets with a fatal accident his wife and child 

 can only recover compensation for the loss as " dependants " 

 if it is proved that they were in fact wholly, or in part, depen- 

 dent on his earnings at the time of his death. A wife who has 

 been separated from her husband for three years before his 

 death and has wholly maintained herself and her child, is not, 

 nor is the child, a " dependant " of the deceased workman. 



2. Stock. In Glover v. Robertson (10 L.G.R., 230 ; 106 L.T., 

 135) a curious point arose under the Diseases of Animals Act, 

 1894. Under that Act the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 has made an Order prohibiting the entry into a port in Great 

 Britain, excepting under license of the Board, of cattle, sheep, 

 goats, or swine " brought from " a port in any of the countries 

 named in a schedule to the Order, which includes France but 

 not India. A steamship took on board at Calcutta a number of 

 live sheep to be used as food by the Lascar crew. She put into 

 various ports on her voyage home, the last being Marseilles. 

 On leaving Marseilles she had a live sheep from Calcutta on 

 board, which was still on board when she berthed in the Albert 

 Docks. It was held that the sheep in question had been 

 " brought from " Calcutta and not from Marseilles, and the 

 master of the ship had not been guilty of a breach of the 



