316 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



the wagoner, stockman, or shepherd, earns in agricultural 

 counties like Herefordshire from 14^. to i8j. a week, and in 

 manufacturing counties like Lancashire from 20^. to iis. a 

 week, with extras such as $d. a lamb in lambing time. At 

 the lower wages he often has a cottage and garden rent free. 



The improved methods of cutting and harvesting crops have* 

 so enabled the farmer to economize labour that the once! 

 familiar figure of the Irish labourer with his knee-breeches and 

 tall hat, who came over for the harvest, has almost disappeared. 

 Women, who formerly shared with the men most of the farm 

 work, now are little seen in most parts of England at work in 

 the fields, and are better occupied in attending to their homes. 



The divorce of the labourer from the land by enclosure 

 had early exercised men's minds, and many efforts were 

 made to remedy this. About 1836 especially, several land- 

 owners in various parts of England introduced allotments, and 

 the movement spread rapidly, so that in 1893 the Royal 

 Commission on Labour stated that in most places the 

 supply was equal to or in excess of the demand. 1 However, 

 previous Allotments and Small Holdings Acts not being 

 considered so successful as was desired, in IQO^ an effort was 

 made to give more effect to the cry of ' back to the land ' by 

 a Small Holdings and Allotments Act 2 which enables 

 County Councils to purchase land by agreement or take it on 

 lease, and, if unable to acquire it by agreement, to do so 

 compulsorily, in order to provide small holdings for persons 

 desiring to lease them. The County Council may also 



1 ParL Reports (1893), xxxv. Index. 



2 7 Edw. VII, c. 54, amending the Allotments Acts of 1887 and 1890 

 and the Small Holdings Act of 1892. The Allotments Act of 1887 defined ; 

 an ' allotment ' as any parcel of land of not more than 2 acres held by a 

 tenant under a landlord ; but for the purposes of the Acts of I_8g2 and 

 1907 a ' small holding' means an agricultural holding which exceeds one 

 acre and either does not exceed 50 acres or, if exceeding 50 acres, is of 

 an annual value not exceeding .50. At the same time the Act defines 

 an allotment as a holding of any size up to 5 acres, so that up to that 

 size a parcel of land may be treated as a small holding or an allotment. 



