96 

 SCOTLAND. 



DIVISION VI. 



Temporary Counties of Aberdeen, Ban/, Berwick, Clackmannan, Elgin, Fife, 

 -j. ^ n , Forfar, H adding ton, Kincardine, Kinross, Linlithgow, Mid- 



Labour. lothian, Nairn, Peebles, Perth, Roxburgh and Selkirk. 



ABERDEEN. Labourers employed at harvest have declined, 

 partly owing to the high rate of wa-ges and partly to a lessened 

 demand owing to the use of machinery. 



BANFF. Mr. Livingstone writes : " There has been less 

 difficulty in getting harvest hands for the past year or two, 

 but fewer are required now since binders are used, and it 

 depends, too, whether or not the harvest is likely to commence 

 before the herring fishery is finished." 



BERWICK. It is stated that the number of Irish harvest 

 labourers has greatly declined, owing 'to the perfecting of 

 harvest machinery. 



ELGIN. The introduction of self-binding reapers has ap- 

 parently had the effect of reducing the number of labourers 

 temporarily employed during harvest. 



FIFE. The operations for which temporary labour is re- 

 quired are the corn and potato harvests, turnip-thinning, and 

 turnip-pulling. As there is a scarcity of female labour, the 

 number of those 'temporarily employed at these times may, 

 it is thought, be slightly increased, but the seasons are now 

 very much shortened. Owing to greatly improved machinery, 

 the harvest is finished in shorter time with about the same 

 number of people as ten years ago, but a good many fewer 

 than twenty years ago. 



FORFAR. Mr. Duncan states that harvest labourers have 

 declined to an even greater extent than resident labourers. 

 Mr. Hume, also, says that the number has declined enormously 

 during the last 10 or 20 years. " Nowadays," he writes, "the 

 use of self-binders, &c., has practically done away with at 

 least three-fourths of the extra staff that used to be required 

 for harvesting operations." 



HADDINGTON. Mr. Shields considers that casual labourers 

 for harvest have decreased to a greater extent than the resident 

 labourers during the last ten years, but that prior to that date 

 the reverse was the case. Mr. Hope observes that many Irish- 

 men are employed at turnip-thinning and potato-lifting. 



KINCARDINE. Owing to the use of harvesting machinery, it- 

 is considered that temporary labour has declined to quite as 

 great an extent as the resident population during the past 

 twenty years. 



