422 A FARMER'S YEAR 



conspicuously failed in the management of their own affairs, would 

 be rejoiced to obtain such a place, where they have light work, no 

 risk, a position of authority, enough to live on and a good house 

 to live in. It is the labourer who is scarce, not the overseer who 

 looks after him. 



One of these letters shows so extraordinary a misapprehension 

 of the facts connected with English farming that I cannot refrain 

 from comment. 



The writer, who appears to have passed through agricultural 

 colleges &c., says that finding a post as an estate agent difficult 

 to obtain, he has decided to take up ' ordinary agriculture,' any 

 branch of which he is ready to follow. His suggestion is that 

 I should employ him, I suppose as an ' ordinary agriculturist,' 

 and in return for his services pay him 1501. a year, although he 

 intimates that to begin with he might take a smaller wage. 



Now, this gentleman must have known perfectly well that I 

 was speaking of the scarcity of skilled labouiers, for in his letter 

 he has written ' farm labourers,' although it is true that he has 

 altered the words to ' farm managers.' What wage, then, does 

 he suppose that we pay labourers in the Eastern Counties ? 

 Even if it is a post as manager that he seeks, his ideas are 

 liberal. \Vith the exception of one very great estate, I know of 

 none which pays so much as he asks, or indeed more than loo/. a 

 year. These are not the times when even an ordinary working 

 bailiff can expect to draw 3/. a week. 



Talking of post-bags, I wonder if everybody in my modest 

 station is the recipient of quite so many begging letters and appeals 

 of all sorts as fall to my lot, among them such trifles as requests 

 to do literary work for nothing — these are frequent — or to entirely 

 re-write the lengthy novels of strangers. 



I imagine that nearly half the correspondence I receive, which 

 is considerable, comes from people who want things of one sort 

 or another ; indeed, I am beginning to believe that a very large 

 proportion of the world is engaged in a perpetual and frantic 

 struggle to get something for nothing out of the remainder. Nor 



