CHAPTER XV. 



ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 



THE evidence collected as to actual payments made for 

 several different kinds of labour in the second volume, pp. 

 374-328., of farm wages pp. 329-334, and of exceptional ser- 

 vices in pp. 576-583, will, it is hoped, be sufficient to enable us 

 to determine with precision the rate of wages in the period 

 before us. 



Two of the classifications of labour given in the first tables 

 are for the most part day labour, and the payment has been 

 reckoned by the day. The other two are piece labour, and indi- 

 cate the payment made for threshing a quarter of the different 

 kinds of grain, and for mowing and reaping an acre of grass and 

 corn. These kinds of labour, of which indeed the evidence is 

 very copious, have been selected because they form the greatest 

 contrast, the former being chiefly winter work, and carried on 

 in the barn or grange, the latter being summer work, and 

 raised by the demand for such services to the fullest point 

 with the competition of the market and the supply of labour 

 allowed. We know indeed that the inhabitants of the towns 

 migrated into the neighbouring villages during the autumn, in 

 order to engage in harvest occupations; and we learn inci- 

 dentally from the Statute of Labourers, that this periodical 

 immigration was carried on to a considerable extent from the 

 northern to the southern counties. % On the other hand, 

 threshing was done by labourers who resided on the spot, was 

 occasionally performed by the regular servants of the farm, and 



