CHAPTER X. 

 FOOD AND CLOTHING. 



THERE can hardly be more important matters, of great 

 interest to all who are concerned in the welfare of our 

 agricultural labourers, than the food and the dress of 

 this indispensable section of the working community. 

 Some information will be found in the Appendix to this 

 volume on the subject ; but it is obvious that the visits 

 of one observer, and the most exhaustive inquiries which 

 one person can make although, in our own case, those 

 visfts and inquiries related to one of the most extensive 

 and to a large extent typically representative of the 

 agricultural districts of the United Kingdom could 

 not compass, unless a very considerable time was taken 

 for the work, all that it is important to include in a com- 

 prehensive account of the conditions of life of the tillers 

 of our soil. Only the resources of a great Government 

 department, like our Board of Trade, with its army 

 of correspondents in all parts of the kingdom, could 

 enable us to give a rapid survey, which would be at the 

 same time simultaneous. If that survey should occupy 

 too long a time, there is the great danger that parts 

 of the account might get out of date, if kept back from 

 publication, until the materials were being obtainable 

 for other parts, when the process had to wait for the 

 investigations of one individual. It is possible, of 

 course, to imitate the action of a Government department, 

 and send round to correspondents a plan that we have 



ourselves adopted, as will be seen from subsequent 



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