CLASSIFICATION OF LABOUR. 7 



required to see to the carting of the produce off the 

 farm to market, in short ; and for this purpose they, 

 very often, are required to undertake long journeys, 

 not unfrequently travelling during the night. 



The regular ordinary farm labourer is by no means 

 an unimportant " factor," so to speak, in the daily work 

 connected with agriculture. Of course, all the multi- 

 farious duties which fall to the lot of the " ordinary " 

 man cannot often be performed by the same individual : 

 so here again there is a subdivision of employment. 

 The list of things to do is not by any means inconsider- 

 able. There is ditching, draining, harvesting, hay- 

 making, hedging, potato and other root -lifting (although 

 a potato is not a root, but a " tuber "), singling, sowing, 

 thatching, threshing, and weeding. For all these 

 purposes the class of " ordinary " labourers has to be 

 split into divisions. The more skilled work, for instance, 

 is draining, hedging, ploughing, and thatching ; also 

 the management of machinery. For this superior work, 

 higher wages are paid, and the positions held by the 

 men are more permanent. Their special knowledge 

 makes them so necessary that their places cannot be 

 always and regularly filled. Thatching, for instance, 

 can only be done by specially skilled men, and, in some 

 districts, they are so scarce that farmers have great 

 difficulty in getting their ricks done, and are anxious 

 lest the weather should spoil the contents ere they are 

 covered. In villages where farmhouses and cottages 

 are of thatch needing, of course, periodic renovation, 

 although it really makes, if well and properly done, a 

 very durable roofing, lasting ordinarily a long time 

 the amount of work for the thatcher is largely increased ; 

 but after both hay and corn harvest there is a very 

 considerable " run " upon his services, and hence the 

 good pay. Very often in districts of small farms the 

 thatcher is not a servant, but a " master man," working 

 for various farmers, and as there is not much competition 



