648 LABOUR AND WAGES. 



a-half acres and thirty-one roods at a cost of 13 6s. 9^., or 

 at about 195. 8d. an acre. In Arthur Young's time (Eastern 

 Tour, vol. i. p. 444) the cost of paring and burning is set at 

 i an acre. 



In 1671 a Wiltshire labourer in a barn works for more 

 than four months at Js. a week. In 1601 Lord Spencer pays 

 3.$-. a week for mowing vetches, and in 1668 King's College qs. 

 for the same labour. In 1645 men making roads get Js. 

 In 1586 a mole-catcher gets u. a dozen for his catch. 



The work of planting trees was paid for at about the same 

 rate as the gardener's labour. In 1592 the wages are 4s. a 

 week, between 1637 and 1676 they vary from 5^. to 8s., the 

 average being 6s. 6\d. 



The unskilled labourer, by whom I mean one not appren- 

 ticed to any special craft, was a good deal occupied in the 

 numerous woods and coppices which formed a very important 

 source of income to the landowners of the seventeenth century. 

 It is not however always easy, except in certain forms of this 

 calling and the modes of paying it, to estimate the actual 

 wages which woodmen earned. It is easy to interpret work 

 by the day, but it is by no means easy always to make out 

 what piece-work is. 



Men engaged in wood-cutting and felling timber, and paid 

 by the day, are generally paid more than agricultural work 

 is and less than artisans' work, though sometimes a wood- 

 cutter gets as much as a carpenter. Thus in 1583 Oriel Col- 

 lege pays $s. a week for wood-cutting in its own woods near 

 Oxford, from which it generally obtained its fuel ; while Cor- 

 pus Christi College pays 6s. for felling timber. But in 1584 

 Magdalen College pays 4^., the ordinary rate of agricultural 

 labour, for wood-cutting. Again, in 1585 cutting timber is 

 paid at 4^., splitting at 4s., cutting and splitting at 6s. In 

 1586 Oriel College pays 4s. and 5^. a week for cutting wood ; 

 and in 1587, 6s. for felling timber. In 1588, 1590, 1591, wood- 

 cutting is paid at 45-. ; and in 1591, felling timber at 5^., the 

 price given for cutting wood in 1594. In 1595 Eton pays 



