APPENDIX III. 383 



the number of outlying hamlets. This difficulty is felt 

 equally by the farmers, who, in the majority of cases, 

 find themselves situated far from a good school. In 

 only one place has anything like a cry for education 

 arisen, and that is on the extreme northern edge of the 

 country. The Vice-Chairman of the Swindon Cham- 

 ber of Agriculture recently stated that only one-half 

 of the entire population of Inglesham could read and 

 write. It subsequently appeared that the parish of 

 Inglesham was very sparsely populated, and that a 

 variety of circumstances had prevented vigorous efforts 

 being made. The children, however, could attend 

 schools in adjoining parishes, not farther than two 

 miles, a distance which they frequently walk in other 

 parts of the country. 



Those who are so ready to cast every blame upon 

 the farmer, and to represent him as eating up the 

 earnings of his men and enriching himself with their 

 ill-paid labour, should remember that farming, as a 

 rule, is carried on with a large amount of borrowed 

 capital. In these days, when 6 an acre has been ex- 

 pended in growing roots for sheep, when the slightest 

 derangement of calculation in the price of wool, meat, 

 or corn, or the loss of a crop, seriously interferes with 

 a fair return for capital invested, the farmer has to 

 sail extremely close to the wind, and only a little more 

 would find his canvas shaking. It was only recently 

 that the cashier of the principal bank of an agri- 

 cultural county, after an unprosperous year, declared 

 that such another season would make almost every 

 farmer insolvent. Under these circumstances it is 

 really to be wondered at that they have done as much 



