io BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



provision is made for all-round ordinary requirements : 

 but even on these there are " openings " for casual 

 labour not only at harvest, but during hoeing and 

 weeding and threshing times although in Norfolk 

 and in Suffolk the ordinary staff usually manages to 

 do all the harvest work by overtime. The mention of 

 weeding suggests that the amount of this kind of work 

 largely depends on the weather a close, rainy season 

 causing abnormal growths. It is astounding how 

 terrific, in a sense, is the exuberance of what the farmer 

 calls " weeds." The ground sometimes, between the 

 rows of corn, or other crops, is no sooner cleared than 

 it looks green again through the myriads of seeds that 

 seem to come almost miraculously out of the air. 

 Amongst other causes which have rather reduced the 

 demand for extra labour at harvest time has been the 

 introduction of the self-binding machine. The different 

 names for casual labourers are rather interesting. They 

 are " catch men," " datal men," " daymen," " jobbers," 

 " oddmen," " slingers," and " strappers." 



Hop growing, although confined to certain districts 

 of England, such as Hereford, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, 

 and Worcester, is an important branch of our agri- 

 culture, and affords a considerable amount of employ- 

 ment for labour. This is supplied, to an appreciable 

 extent, from neighbouring towns, and, besides that, 

 London furnishes a considerable contingent of " hoppers," 

 as the pickers are called ; and many of the Londoners 

 who go to the hop gardens in various parts of the 

 country, but chiefly to those of Kent, Surrey, and 

 Sussex, look upon the work as recreation, and indeed 

 use the occasions as for holidays. Casual labour, too, 

 is required at certain times of the year in certain flower 

 and fruit-growing districts, such as Cambridgeshire, 

 Kent, Lincolnshire, and Worcestershire. 



Upon the important and interesting question of 

 women labour, Mr. Wilson Fox corroborates our own 



