264 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



Finally, as regards Wiltshire, the following interesting 

 communication was received from a correspondent, 

 who wrote : 



" We are now in all the hurry and drive attending upon 

 the get ting-in of the harvest, and not only all the regular 

 employes, but a goodly number of ' strappers ' are engaged 

 in this work, all of which is piecework. Most, if not all, 

 the wheat is being cut down by patent reaping machines, 

 so that the terribly trying work of cutting it down 

 with the scythe and reaphook has not now to be done by 

 the men ; but they and their wives and children tie up 

 and 'isle.' The work is paid for by the acre five shillings 

 being generally the minimum, and seven the maximum, 

 price paid per acre ; but some of the farmers in this neigh- 

 bourhood either from inability to pay or niggardliness 

 are giving only three and sixpence per acre. Others, 

 however, are giving four and sixpence and five and six- 

 pence per acre. When the scythe and reaphook are used the 

 price paid is ten shillings an acre for cutting, tying up, 

 and setting up into 'isles.' A man and his wife will tie 

 up and ' isle ' two acres in a day of some twelve or fifteen 

 hours. These harvest times are the halcyon days, in a 

 pecuniary sense, of the farm labourer, enabling him to 

 wipe off some long ' scores ' run up at the shopkeepers 

 during the year. When the peasants hired for piecework 

 are employed in turnip and swede hoeing, they are paid 

 for the former at six shillings an acre ; for the latter, or 

 swede hoeing, they are paid according to two rates, corre- 

 sponding to the two hoeings of swedes six shillings an 

 acre for the first, and four for the second. The regular 

 wages of the district of Wiltshire, to which reference has 

 just been made, for men employed by the week, and not 

 by the piece, is eleven shillings though twelve is the rate 

 paid by a few farmers ; carters and shepherds getting for 

 their extra attendance two and, in some cases, three addi- 

 tional weekly shillings." 



Dorsetshire wages had also gone up ; ordinary wages 

 ranging from ten to thirteen shillings. Two miles from 

 Shaft esbury, at a village called Melbury Abbas, wages 

 were ten and eleven shillings. In one case a father of 

 thirty-five was getting twelve shillings, a lad of thirteen 

 five, another aged twelve three and sixpence, total 

 family earnings, one pound and sixpence ; but there 

 were eight to keep on this, including two younger ones 

 at school and two at home, including a baby. Ten to 



