The Rural Labourer 



still I think much more could be done in this 

 direction than is being done. I do not believe 

 it is sufficiently realised on what easy terms 

 money can be obtained through the Board of 

 Agriculture. In the case of the ordinary mixed 

 farm, one cottage per loo acres is about the 

 usual ratio ; but I know of large farms where 

 the ratio has within recent years been raised to 

 one cottage to every 50 acres, thus benefiting 

 the landowner, the tenant and the labourer. 

 In such a case the labourers are nearly all 

 married men, who do not flit at the end of the 

 year as is generally the case with unmarried 

 men. 



Another and most important means of 

 directly interesting the labourer in the re- 

 sults of farming operations would be by ex- 

 tending the system of profit-sharing. A few 

 men, I believe, are doing this, with good 

 results, and Lord Rayleigh even goes so 

 far as to encourage his men to invest their 

 savings in the farm, thus securing a share in 

 the farm capital and a limited voice in the 

 management. I think this is an excellent ex- 

 periment and might prove most successful 

 where a landlord is farming, but it is hardly to 

 be expected that tenant farmers will follow this 

 lead. 



There is another development of the profit- 

 sharing system which I tried on one of my large 



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