152 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



specialists now called horsemen and they are numeri- 

 cally a large class may find their occupation gone 

 unless they can turn their hands to " ordinary labour." 

 They may, it is true, become " machinists " in large 

 farming regions in arable districts. There is not much 

 apparent danger of the shepherd and the cattlemen 

 losing their occupations in pastoral districts ; but, never- 

 theless, there is every possibility that the position of 

 the ordinary man will increase in importance, and it will 

 therefore be interesting to give in this chapter a glance 

 at the position from the " earnings " point of view of his 

 class, and in the ensuing table will be found a statement 

 of the average total remuneration of that class in every 

 one of the 118 counties of the United Kingdom re- 

 arranged from the Board of Trade returns, and for 

 convenience placed in alphabetical order. To make it 

 quite clear what is presented by the table, we affix the 

 explanatory note given in the Board of Trade Report, 

 which says : 



" The classes of agricultural labourers included in the 

 table are, in England and Ireland, ' ordinary labourers,' 

 that is, men not specially engaged in the care of animals, 

 as are shepherds, horsemen, and cattlemen ; in Wales 

 ' married labourers,' that is, the men who live in cottages, 

 and not the men hired yearly or half-yearly, who live in 

 the farmhouses ; in Scotland ' horsemen ' or ' ploughmen/ 

 who are the most important class of farm servants there. 

 The ' orramen ' in Scotland are a comparatively small 

 class, and their earnings do not differ much from those of 

 the horsemen. The classes selected in England, Scotland, 

 and Ireland are the largest class in each of those countries. 

 In Wales, however, the ' married men ' are not in the 

 majority, but they have been selected for the purpose of 

 this table because it is considered that their earnings, which 

 are generally higher than those of the hired men, are more 

 comparable with the earnings of the classes selected for 

 England, Scotland, and Ireland (many of whom are married 

 men) than with the earnings of the hired men, who are 

 unmarried and frequently comparatively young. In any 

 . event, it has not been found possible to ascertain with 

 sufficient accuracy the predominant rates of wages of the 

 hired men in all districts, on account of the wide range of 

 wages given in some of the returns." 



