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CAMBRIDGE. The low price of agricultural produce lias pre- 

 vented farmers from paying the higher wages which town 

 industries offer and has, indeed, compelled them to curtail 

 their labour bill, and to rely more upon machinery. There 

 is also an increasing desire for independence on the part of 

 the labourers, and a disinclination to follow the plough. The 

 system of education is thought to increase the dissatisfaction 

 with country life. Mr. Jenyns considers that a better supply 

 of cottages with suitable gardens would tend to keep the 

 labourers on the land, but adds that the country can never 

 compete with the towns either in the excitements afforded 

 or the rate of wages offered. 



Do. (ISLE OF ELY). There is little evidence of decline in 

 this part of Cambridge. Land has not gone out of cultivation 

 and the great proportion is arable. Wheat and corn crops have 

 diminished, but potatoes, celery and market produce, for which 

 the land is well adapted and which require a good deal of 

 manual labour, are largely grown, and wages have increased to 

 a marked degree. 



SUFFOLK. The low price of produce, especially grain, has 

 led to a rougher system of farming and the laying of land to 

 grass. The higher wages and superior attractions of town 

 industries also draw men from the country. 



ESSEX. Unremunerative com land has gone out of cultiva- 

 tion and been laid down to pasture, therefore fewer hands are 

 required. Wages are higher and hours shorter in urban than 

 in rural districts, and farmers cannot afford to give higher 

 wages. Less labour is in fact employed than the land requires 

 for efficient cultivation. Town life presents -many other attrac- 

 tions. The system of education makes young men dissatisfied 

 with their surroundings, and in many cases trains them for 

 town occupations rather than for country life. In some districts 

 there is a lack of cottages, or the existing ones are in bad 

 condition or without gardens. In some localities cottages would 

 be built but for the stringency of the building laws. Mr. Eankin 

 remarks that many farm hands live rent and rate free, while 

 these two expenses often exceed 12s. per week in the town; 

 consequently rural labourers may be better off with 20s. a week 

 than they would be in the towns with 30s. 



HERTFORD. Adverse conditions have compelled tenants 

 to give up their holdings or to employ less labour. Higher 

 wages are given in the towns ; farm work is considered 

 monotonous, and holds out little encouragement for thrift 

 or hope of improvement even to an energetic man. 

 In many parts it is said to be impossible to get 

 a man, and more especially his wife, to accept a situation 

 which does not afford a certain amount of social life. The 

 education of their children makes illiterate parents so proud 

 of them that they put them to some trade or occupation other 

 than farming. There is a lack of good cottages near to the 



