HOW TO CONQUER THE CLIMATE 57 



what they are to-day. A high price for farm 

 products was an assured thing, as also were low 

 wages and a plentiful supply of rural labour. 



In those days there was little loss from what the 

 writer has called " ineffective days," viz., the days 

 when, through stress of weather conditions, it is 

 not possible for the farm hands to carry on anything 

 in the nature of land cultivation or harvesting. If 

 weather conditions were bad, the rural labourers, 

 who w T ere paid in either cash or kind, were simply 

 sent home and received no wages for the idle days. 



Indeed, in Lord Townshend's time there still 

 prevailed, in many parts of these counties, a system 

 of modified feudalism, by means of which the large 

 land-owner could commandeer the services of the 

 small farmer and his family, and other rural 

 labourers, without any payment. Again, the small 

 farmer and labourer, whose labour could not be 

 commandeered in the manner indicated, had other 

 rural industries, such as spinning, weaving, etc., to 

 which they could turn their attention when weather 

 conditions prevented them from working on the land. 



To-day, irrespective of the kind of work performed, 

 and even if it is impossible to carry on any work on 

 the farm, the farmer is obliged to pay the same daily 

 wage to his workers. Again, no matter how well 

 an agricultural labourer is paid to-day, he will not 

 work the frightfully long hours or at the same pace, 

 as did his eighteenth-century prototype. 



SLACKNESS OF LABOURERS 



This comparative slackness of the present-day 

 agricultural labourer, compared even with the last 

 generation, is the subject of much criticism amongst 



