Book I. OPERATIVE AGRICULTURISTS. 1077 



Sect. I. Of Operators or serving Agriculturists. 



6926. The lowest grade in the scale of this class is farm laborers, who may be either men, 

 women, or children ; and either local residents, periodical visitants for particular labors, 

 as hay-making, reaping, &c., or itinerant workmen for taking jobs, as ditching, stocking, 

 &c. None of this class of operators are supposed to have received any other professional 

 instruction than what they have derived casually, or from observing others. 



6927. Apprentices are little known in agriculture ; but they occur sometimes, either as 

 the children of other operators, whose parents bind them a certain number of years, dur- 

 ing which they are to work for their food and clotlies, and 51. or 10/. to be received at 

 the end of the term according to conduct ; or sons of richer persons, who pay a premium 

 for the instruction to be received, and for boarding with the master. The former class 

 of apprentices generally look forward to being ploughmen, shepherds, head ploughmen, 

 or inferior bailitls ; the latter to being first bailiffs, stewards of estates, or to farming on 

 their own account. Parish boys are sometimes bound apprentices of the first class, and 

 various noblemen's sons from almost every kingdom of Europe have been included in 

 the second. 



6928. The ierva. journeyman is as little known in agriculture as apprentice. Those 

 who answer to that term are the professional operators of a farm, such as ploughmen, 

 cattle herds, shepherds, and hedgers. These fank decidedly above laborers of all work. 

 A ploughman may not unaptly be considered as of the rank of an apprentice till he can 



fear or set out ridges, and after he can do this as of the rank of journeyman till he can 

 stack and sow. He may then be considered as a master of his art, entitled to work 

 the best pair of horses, and if twenty -five or thirty years of age, to enter into the mar- 

 riage state. 



6929. A hedger is a professional operator, who may be considered as ranking with a mas- 

 ter ploughman. His business is to plant, clean, prune, cut, lay, plash, and repair hedges ; 

 prune forest and orchard trees, and effect other operations with ligneous plants on the 

 farm. In Berwickshire hedgers are generally very intelligent men, and keep the fences 

 on the farms in the border counties in excellent order, and the hedge-row trees hand- 

 somely pruned. 



6930. A woodman is an operator employed to prune trees and manage hedges, 

 and is of the same rank and requires the same kind and degree of professional knowledge 

 as the hedger. Generally he is more conversant with barking trees for the tanners, con- 

 verting copsewood and measuring timber than the other, being more engaged with woods 

 than hedges. 



6931. A head ploughman, on small farms, is to be considered as the bailiff in the ab- 

 sence of the master. He works the best pair of horses, and assists the master in stacking and 

 sowing. On larger farms, where a regular bailiff is kept, there is also a head ploughman, 

 who acts as substitute for the bailiff in his temporary absence, as far as operatives and 

 overlooking operations ; but not in money matters or contracts. 



6932. A farm bailiff is, or should be, a person of tolerable education, who understands 

 accounts, measuring of work, land, and timber, and can draw up agreements for hiring 

 servants. He should have practised every part of farming himself, from tending poultry, 

 swine, and sheep, to "Stacking and sowing. When employed by a gentleman, or one who 

 has no skill in farming, he should not be under twenty-five years of agej but a 

 farmer's bailiff need not exceed twenty-one years, is to be considered as a sort of ap- 

 prentice, and will be directed in all leading matters by his master. 



6933. A bailiff and gardener, or gardener and grieve, as they are called in some places, 

 is a sort of hybrid upper servant, who seldom excels either as a farmer or a gardener, 

 and is only fit for situations of limited extent, and an indifferent style of performance. 



6934. The forester or head woodman is to the woods of an estate what the bailiff 

 is to the farm lands in hand. He directs and superintends the woodmen and their labor- 

 ers, in planting, rearing, and pruning plantations, and in the felling of timber or copse, 

 barking, charcoal making, and in short every thing connected witli timber, trees, copses, 

 or hedges. 



6935. The land steward (Factor, Scotch ; Facteur, Fr. ; Factor, Ger. and Fattore, 

 Ital.), is to a whole estate what a bailiff is to the demesne or a particular farm. His 

 business is to control the managers of the lands in hand, as the forester, gardener, bailiff, 

 &c. ; to see that farmers fulfil the covenants of their leases ; to attend to repairs, roads, 

 public and parochial matters in behalf of the landlord, and generally to receive rents. 



6936. Under stewards, or steward's bailiffs, as they are called, are assistants to the main 

 steward, or have the care of detached estates, containing a few farms or woods. 



6937. Demesne stewards, are such as are kept chiefly for regulating the affairs of 

 demesne lands, that is, lands surrounding the mansion in hand, or of an estate of small 

 size, where all the lands are in hand, but where an extensive establishment of horses, ser- 

 vants, a large garden, &c. are kept up. Here the steward performs the duties of bailiff, 

 forester, and in some degree of house -steward, by his connection with the atables and 

 irame-keeper, and other domestic rural matters. 



