74 Farm Servants. 



where the farms are small ( 34 ). On moderate-sized, and on 

 large farms, they are usually sent to a separate table ; but 

 of late a custom has been introduced, of putting them on 

 board-wages. This is a most pernicious practice ; which 

 often leads them to the ale-house, corrupts their morajs, and 

 injures their health ( 3S ). It is a better plan, with a view of 

 lessening trouble, to board them with the bailiff; but it is 

 still more desirable for the farmer, to have them under his 

 own eye, that he may attend to their religious and moral 

 conduct. He will find much more useful assistance, from 

 the decent and the orderly, than from the idle and the pro- 

 fligate ( 3<s ). 



In consequence of the great advance in the price of pro- 

 visions, and the difficulty of pleasing persons with the fare 

 prepared for them, (a clamour being often made about a tri- 

 fling alteration in diet, arising from circumstances perhaps 

 unavoidable), it is the practice, in the vicinity of the metro- 

 polis, to diminish the number of domestic servants of every 

 description, and instead of annual servants, to hire day-la- 

 f bourers ( 37 ). But these occasional servants are unsteady, 

 continually wandering from one master to another ( 38 ), and 

 are very precarious supports of a tillage farm ; for they may 

 quit their service at the most inconvenient time, unless 

 bribed by higher wages ; and the farmer may thus lose the 

 benefit of the finest part of the season ( 39 .) Where day-la- 

 bourers, however, are married, they are more to be depend- 

 ed upon, than unmarried domestic servants, more especially 

 when the labourer has a family, which ties him down to re- 

 gular industry ( 4 ). 



The following plan of maintaining the hinds, or plough- 

 men, in the best cultivated districts in Scotland, is found by 

 experience to be greatly superior to any other mode hither- 

 to adopted. 



1. Proper houses are built for the farm- servants, conti- 

 guous to every farmstead ( 4I ). This gives them an oppor- 

 tunity of settling in life, and greatly tends to promote their 

 future welfare. Thus also the farmer has his people at all 

 times within reach, for carrying on his business. 



2. The farm-servants also, when married, receive the 

 greater part of their wages in the produce of the soil, which 

 gives them an interest in the prosperity of the concern in 

 which they are employed. Under this mode of payment, 

 they are certain of being supplied with the necessaries of 

 life, and a rise of prices does not affect them. Whereas, 

 when their wages are paid in money, they are exposed to 



