342 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



Formerly, the laborer lived in the family of the employer, and 

 sat at the same table. This custom is now almost entirely done 

 away with ; and laborers, instead of being members of the same 

 family, live wholly by themselves. It used to be much more 

 the custom than now to pay the laborers in kind ; and then the 

 laborer had a special interest in the crop, and high prices were 

 quite as much for his advantage as for that of his master. This 

 practice still prevails to a degree in Scotland, but nowhere, that I 

 have found, in England. Under present arrangements, however, 

 where wages are paid in money, the two interests, as in all 

 other cases of commercial trading, become distinct, and, I may 

 add, opposed to each other. What one receives, lessens, of 

 course, the gains of the other. The employer gives as little as 

 possible ; and where labor is abundant, and competition severe, 

 it is obvious he has the laborer very much at his mercy. The 

 laborer, on the other hand, will not be likely to return any more 

 than the strictest interpretation of his obligation requires. This 

 may be the occasion of a matter to which I have before alluded 

 that, in my opinion, an English laborer does not accomplish 

 nearly so much in the same time as an American laborer. I 

 speak of cases in which the American is working for himself, 

 the Englishman for another. In cases where work is taken by 

 the piece or job, as in harvest for example, there seems to be no 

 want of application or success, on the part of the English 

 laborer. 



Philanthropic minds are now every where anxiously at work 

 devising means or schemes for the benefit of the laborers, and 

 to mitigate the evils of their condition, which otherwise are 

 likely to be increased rather than diminished, as the population 

 increases. In Austrian Poland, where the peasants are them 

 selves occupiers of land, the landlord or proprietor of the soil 

 claims from them a certain number of days work, each week, 

 exclusively for himself ; but no such arrangement would be pos 

 sible in England nor would it obviate the difficulty to which I 

 have referred. 



1. EXPERIMENT IN GERMANY. A German baron, with whom 

 I have the pleasure of a friendly acquaintance, has given me an 

 outline of his arrangement with his laborers, which, as far as it 

 is practicable, deserves much consideration, as, according to his 



