45 



DERBY. Mr. Waite writes that a majority of farmers now 

 live, work, and dress like labourers, and are either barely 

 holding their own or slowly losing their capital. Corn growing 

 does not pay, but is only practised for the sake of the straw 

 and as a change crop for roots. Farms are smaller, so that there 

 are more farmers, but they dispense with or employ fewer 

 regular labourers, doing as much as they can and leaving the 

 rest undone, to the detriment of the land; drains are unattended 

 to, fences are dying and being replaced by barbed wire. At 

 the same time cheap newspapers and education have taught the 

 labourers to try to earn a living with more personal liberty; 

 they are dissatisfied with the Sunday labour, the absence of 

 Saturday half-holiday, and the relatively long hours of farm 

 work. 



STAFFORD. In the first place less labour is now required 

 owing to the laying of land to grass and the use of improved 

 machinery ; secondly, a great proportion of tenant farmers 

 have come from the better class of farm labourers and do most 

 of the work with their own families. On this point Mr. Car- 

 rington Smith writes : " Many members of the families of 

 dairy farmers do not find their way into the classes named in 

 the schedule. As a matter of fact, sons and daughters of men 

 classed as farmers and graziers are often actually doing the 

 work of farm servants." 



Again, owing to low prices and consequent lack of means 

 only such work as is absolutely necessary is done, the rest is 

 left undone. The attractions of the towns and the prospect of 

 higher wages are an additional cause of the migration. 



WALES. 



DIVISION V. 



ANGLESEY. Mr. Nicholls Jones observes that a large number 

 of holdings have been turned into grazing farms, the tenants 

 having ceased to occupy them as homesteads, and the land in 

 many instances being let off by auction to the highest bidder; 

 in consequence of this, there is a decline in the number of 

 labourers employed. The decline is further attributed to the 

 low price of stock and grain and the high price of labour, owing 

 to the demand at the slate quarries in Carnarvonshire, on the 

 railways, and in the South Wales coal mines. The system of 

 education is also thought to create a distaste for agriculture. 



BRECON. Mr. Price attributes the decline in the agricultural 

 population to the following causes: 



(a) A reduction in the demand for labour due to the laying 

 of arable land to pasture and the great extension of sheep 

 farming, as well as to the use pf improved machinery. 



