24 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



corn crops, peas and potatoes, hoeing and singling man- 

 golds, swedes and turnips, lifting potatoes, mowing 

 clover or other green crops, pulling mangolds, pulling 

 (topping and tailing) turnips, manure spreading, plough- 

 ing, sheep-shearing and washing, thatching and threshing. 

 On fruit and flower farms the picking for the market 

 of the flowers or fruit is also mostly done by piecework ; 

 and in all hop districts the work similarly lends itself 

 to the same arrangement. The counties in which it 

 is most generally adopted are : Beds, Berks, Bucks, 

 Cambridge, Dorset, Essex, Gloucester, Hants, Hereford, 

 Hertford, Kent, Lincoln, Norfolk, Northampton, Oxford, 

 Suffolk, Sussex, Warwick, Worcester, and Wilts. It 

 may be adopted within restricted areas, in some other 

 counties, but it is not easy to fix them, because systems 

 of agriculture often vary much within the same county ; 

 but, as already intimated, it is more prevalent where 

 large farms are, than where small ones are more the 

 rule. On such farms, which often have large fields, the 

 men can work in companies under the supervision of a 

 foreman who can distribute and regulate the labour. 

 There is a double advantage in this arrangement, for the 

 men, each knowing that his pay will depend upon the 

 amount of his work, is stimulated by a spirit of emula- 

 tion and a desire not to fall behind other men. The 

 foreman, or other supervisor it may be the farmer 

 himself must be experienced and skilled to enable him 

 to distribute the work properly, and see that it is pro- 

 perly performed. Of course, it must be noted that the 

 prices paid for piecework are subject to a good deal of 

 variation, depending largely, as they must, not only 

 upon the character of the crops dealt with, but upon 

 the nature of the ground. The time taken, for instance, 

 to gather in a light or scanty crop would be much shorter 

 than for a heavy one. On the other hand, a light soil 

 is much easier to work than a heavy clay one. 



As to prices for piecework not including piece harvest 



