Farm Servants. 77 



training servants or labourers to husbandry, is not in prac- 

 tice, but it has been adopted, for the purpose of educating 

 farmers for their professional duties. As this seems to be an 

 admirable plan, it is proper to select an example of it. Mi- 

 Walker, of Mellendean, an eminent farmer in Roxburgh- 

 shire, who rents about 2866 acres of arable land, and is dis- 

 tinguished for his skill in agriculture, takes young men un- 

 der him as apprentices, who, instead of receiving wages, have 

 uniformly paid him ten pounds each. Some of them re- 

 main with him two years, but the greater number only one. 

 They eat in his kitchen, where they have always plenty of 

 plain wholesome food. He takes none who are above living 

 in that way, or who will not put their hand to every thing 

 going forward on the farm. He has sometimes been offer- 

 ed ten times the above sum, to take in young gentlemen to 

 eat and associate with his own family, but that he has uni- 

 formly declined. These young men have an opportunity 

 of attending to every operation of husbandry, as practised 

 on Mr Walker's farm ; and are taught to hold the plough, 

 to sow, to build stacks, &c. He considers them, on the 

 whole, rather profitable, than otherwise, and in some sea- 

 sons, he finds them particularly useful (* 6 ). 



4. Female servants. These are principally employed in 

 the dairy, in which their skill and diligence are usually in 

 the highest degree praiseworthy. Men often milk the cows, 

 but are not so well calculated as females, for the manage- 

 ment of the interior of the dairy house, where so much de- 

 pends upon attention to cleanliness. Female servants are 

 likewise usefully employed in weeding, in hay-making, at 

 harvest, and in barn-work ; and are well entitled to the in- 

 ferior wages usually given them. 



SECT. V. Labourers in Husbandry. 



NEXT in importance to the ploughmen and other hired 

 farm servants, those labourers who are employed in execut- 

 ing the several branches of incidental works upon a farm, 

 are the most valuable to the arable farmer, for without a 

 sufficient supply of such hands, it is impossible for him to 

 carry on the various operations connected with an accurate 

 system of agriculture, either in a perfect manner, or in the 

 proper seasons of the year. It is evident indeed, that the 

 farmer, who depends entirely on his regular farm-servants, 

 whose chief employment is working with horses, must either 



