30 LXT.LISII AGklCUL'iTKAL LABOURER. 



class, and knew that it would be a great upheaval. Mr. 

 Ldwards says it was Mrs. Arch who persuaded her husband 

 to respond to the call. Hi- hesitation was natural, for he- 

 tells tis that as he walked the inuddv lanes towards \\Ylles- 

 bournc he recalled the transportation of the six nun who 

 formed a labourers' union in Dorsetshire. Perhaps he 

 also imaged the brutal hangings of iSji on manufactured 

 evidence, and the end of many a village Hampdeii who had 

 left his bones on the shores of IJotany Hay. Hut just as 

 starving mm were willing to ri-k hanging for sheep-skaling, 

 so half-starving men, as Arch described them, were uilling 

 to risk the boyeott, the lock-out, and e\vn imprisonment to 

 raise them-elvcs above the line of abject poverty. X'o 

 one knew the trials of the farm \\oiker better than Arch. 

 He had lived on barley bread in the year that Cobbeti du d, 

 because his father had nfu:-ed to sign a petition against the 

 abolition of the Corn Laws, and but for his mother's earnings 

 he might have starved outright. He said he had often 

 thought about the conditions of labourers whilst thrashing 

 a hedge with a h<>ok, or tramping many a mile in search of 

 work, though, as for himself, he had left o-. a week behind 

 him for many a year, since he was famed for his skill as a 

 hedge-cutter. 



During the golden years dating from i<\=j_', v, hich accord- 

 ing to some authorities ran on until J. S 7-), ihe P>riti-h farmers 



prospered exceedingly, assisted largely by good seasons." 1 

 It was the period of which ("dad-tone said the prosperity of 

 the country was advancing by " leaps and bounds." 



During the 'fifties and 'sixties, not only did good harvests 

 succeed ea< h other with clockuork regularity, but farmers 

 had the benefit ol their field- hieing diained by pipes, \vhich 

 Peel was re-pon-ible for in jS.|f in hi- measure of Govern- 

 ment Drain;: iv I.o.m to land!' >rd- at >!- p ( r ci nt. ; and hind- 

 lord- were not behindhand in rai-ing tin ir i> nt-, which they 

 increa-ed by jo per cent.- 



'1 he fanner-, too, bi gan to reap the buiefn i,j 

 in fertilisers such a.- ground bones, guano, MipeijiL 



II. U. C: 



