198 WAGES OF LABOUR. 



The wages of labour for farm-servants employed by 

 the year, besides board, lodging, and generally wash 

 ing, vary in the different counties, as I have shown 

 in a previous chapter. The highest wages paid are 

 28, 16s. sterling (36 currency,) and the average 

 16, 16s. sterling (21 currency.) It is very custo 

 mary to hire labour in summer at the rate of 3 cur 

 rency a-month in hay-time and harvest, and 2 during 

 the other summer months, and to discontinue it during 

 winter a method convenient enough for the farmer, 

 but unlikely to retain in any neighbourhood a perma 

 nent body of satisfactory labourers. 



These wages 6s. 6d. to lls. a-week, with board 

 are certainly higher than the average of all England, 

 but 14 to 16 a-year, with board, is the price now 

 paid (1850) in these depressed times in the North of 

 England for young able-bodied farm-servants, who can 

 take charge of a pair of horses. The price of labour in 

 the colony, therefore, does not seem alone sufficient to 

 render farming unprofitable, where the crops are good, 

 prices fair, taxes light, and the land unburdened with 

 rent, tithes, or poor-rates. Of course skill, energy, and 

 prudence are supposed to be applied along with the 

 capital of the farmer, and are certainly necessary to 

 success in agriculture, as in every other pursuit. 



In this opinion I found myself sustained by that of a 

 large number of the most energetic agriculturists in the 

 province. I put the question u Can farming, in your 

 opinion, be profitably carried on by means of paid labour 

 in this province?&quot; through a printed circular, to 

 intelligent parties in every county. I obtained fifty 

 replies, more or less extended, to this question, twenty- 

 five of w T hich were in the affirmative, and twenty-five 

 in the negative. The positive testimony came from 

 those who did make, or had made, money by the 

 employment of paid labour ; the negative from those 



