4 INTRODUCTION. 



to draw as easily through the luscious dew-sprent grass as 

 the fiddle bow has been fashioned to draw music from the 

 strings of the violin. Think, too, of the delicate touch of 

 this toiler of the fields as he sharpens the blade and lightly 

 rubs it with that finishing silky touch on the ringing curve 

 of steel. 



Ever since the man with the hoe was immortalised by 

 Millet he has been the symbol of ill-paid, unskilled labour. 

 But hoeing is not unskilled labour. The man who knows 

 how to use his hoe is careful not to deprive his tender nurs- 

 lings of root pasturage and leave them to wilt in the sun. A 

 field of roots can be ruined by unskilled labour, or given a 

 new lease of life by the deft hand of the " ordinary " agricul- 

 tural labourer. 



He who is so glibly dubbed an ordinary agricultural 

 labourer, understands as a rule the skilled work which, if 

 sub-divided, would require a gardener to do one part and a 

 navvy to do the other. This is the work of hedging and 

 ditching. The technique of laying a hedge is not learnt hi a 

 day. The curve, the weight and the balance of the bill- 

 hook, the slasher, and the fag hook have been conceived 

 and fashioned by the artist-hands that have used them for 

 generations. Think of the deliberate stroke that goes to 

 the splitting of a branch so- that it is not sundered and lives 

 to break into leaf and fill a gap in the hedge. To be able to 

 lay a live hedge which will break into blossom and leaf is to 

 be able to thread a pattern the artistry of which delights 

 the eye of any live-stock keeper. 



As I look out of the window my glance falls upon a cot- 

 tage roof which shelters a farm worker who, to my know- 

 ledge, has not only ploughed, sowed and reaped corn for 

 his employer, thatched the farm ricks, painted the wagons, 

 and broken in the colts, but he has killed his neighbours' 

 pigs for them, doctored their sick cows, clipped their horses, 

 cleaned out and repaired their wells, mowed their orchard 

 grass with a scythe, planted fruit trees and driven bees 

 into empty skeps. He has a knowledge of wild life which 

 would make many a sportsman envious ; and with his 

 strong, deft hand he has led to the market many an un- 



