Hook V. MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS. 79; 



Sect. II. Management of Servants. 



4900. Informer limes, farm servants lived at the same table with their masters, and 

 that is still the practice in those districts where the farms are small. On moderate-sized, 

 and on large farms, they are usually sent to a separate table ; but of late a custom lias been 

 introduced of putting them on board-wages. This is a most pernicious practice ; which 

 often leads them to the ale-house, corrupts their morals, and injures their health. It is a 

 better plan, with a view of lessening trouble, to board them with the bailiff; but it is still 

 more desirable for the farmer to have them under his own eye, that he may attend to 

 their moral conduct. He will find much more useful assistance from the decent and 

 the orderly than from the idle and the profligate. 



4901. The best mode of managing yearly mai~ried servants, whether ploughmen or 

 labourers, we conceive to be that already referred to (4870) as practised in Northumberland, 

 and other northern counties. Marshal (Review of Bailey's Northumberland) calls it a 

 remain of feudal times ; but certainly, if it be so, it appears one of those remains which 

 should be carefully preserved. We may challenge the empire to produce servants and 

 farm operations equal to those where this system is adopted. The great excellence of the 

 system consists on its being founded in the comfort of the servant. 



4902. The permanent labourers on a farm ought to be treated in the same manner as 

 the ploughmen ; and indeed it is much to be wished, for the sake both of humanity and 

 morality, that all married labourers, who live in the country, should have gardens attached 

 to their cottages, if not a cow kept, and a pig and fowls, in the manner of the Scottish 

 ploughmen. Some valuable observations on this subject will be found in The Husbandry 

 of Scotland. 



490:3. Temporary labourers, or such as are engaged for hay-making, reaping, turnip- 

 hoeing, &c. are for the most part beyond the control of the farmer, as to their living and 

 lodging. It is a good practice, however, where hay-making and reaping are performed 

 by the day, to feed the operators, and to lodge on the premises such of them as have not 

 homes in the neighbourhood ; providing them with a dry loft and warm blankets. Piece 

 or job-work, however, is now becoming so very general, in all farm operations performed 

 by occasional labourers, that attention to these particulars becomes unnecessary, and the 

 farmer's chief business is to see that the work be properly done. 



4904. A day's work of a country labourer, is ten hours during the spring, summer, 

 and autumn quarters. Farmers, however, are not at all uniform in their hours of 

 working during these periods. Some begin at five o'clock, rest three hours at mid- 

 day, during the more violent heat of the sun, and fill up their day's work by beginning 

 again at one o'clock, and ending at six in the evening. Others begin at six, and end 

 at six, allowing half an hour at breakfast, and an hour at dinner. But although these 

 are the ordinary hours, both for servants and labourers, during the more busy sea- 

 sons of the year, yet neither of them will scruple to work either sooner or later, when 

 occasion requires. In regard to the winter months, the hours of labour are from the 

 dawn of morning, as long as it is light, with the allowance of about half an hour at mid- 

 day for dinner. 



4905. That the rate of labour must in a great measure depend upon the price of grain, 

 is a general principle. In England, the value of a peck of wheat, and in Scotland, of a 

 peck of oatmeal (being the principal articles of subsistence of the lower orders of the 

 people in the two countries), were long accounted an equivalent to the daily pay of a 

 labourer. In both countries, however, the price of potatoes has, of late years, had a 

 considerable influence on the rate of labour ; and in England, the effects of the poor 

 laws have tended to keep down that rate below the increased price of provisions, and 

 thus have deranged the natural progress of things. It has been ascertained, that a 

 man, liis wife, and from two to three children, if wheat is their habitual food, will 

 require ten gallons weekly. When they live on bread, hard-working people ought to 

 have the best kind, as that will furnish the most nutrition. How, then, could a 

 labourer and his family exist upon wages of from 6s. to 9s. per week, when wheat is 

 from 8s. to 10s. or 12s. per bushel? The difference is compensated by the poor-rates, 

 a most exceptionable mode of making up the deficiency ; for labour would otherwise 

 nave found its own level, and the labourer would have obtained the price of a bushel and 

 a half of wheat weekly. 



4906. In Scotland, the rate of labour has increased beyond the price of provisions. Prior to 1792, the 

 average price of a peck of oatmeal was Is. Id., and the average price of a day's labour in summer Is. lid., 

 which nearly corresponded with the principle above stated: but the average pi ice of a peck of oatmeal 

 in 1810 was Is. SJrf ., whilst the average price of a day's labour was Is. lOJrf. ; which shows, in a most satis- 

 factory manner, the very great improvement that has taken place in the lot of the labouring classes in 

 that part of the United Kingdom. {Gen. Rep. vol. iii. p. 262.) 



4907. The practice of giving labourers grain, SfC. at a cheap rate was adopted by George III., who car- 

 ried on farming operations to a considerable extent, allowing his labourers flour at a fixed price, whatever 

 wheat might sell for. This benevolent system has been practised by several gentlemen farmers, some of 

 whom have allowed bread, and others a daily quantity of milk, at moderate prices. The same system is 

 general in several of the western counties, as in Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, where the labourers have 

 a standing supply of bread-corn ; of wheat at Gs. and of barley at 3s. per bushel. In some of the midland 



