796 l^RACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III 



counties the day- wages are regulated by the price of the best wheaten bread : thus the price of a half, 

 peck loaf forms the day-wages for out-of-door farm servants. Of late years this rule has been departed 

 from in favour of the labourers : thus, when bread is at Is. 8d. the half-peck, then wages are Is. lOrf. ; and 

 when at $., the wages are 2s. 4d. 



4908. Most descriptions of coxintry labour, performed without the aid of horses, may 

 be let by the job. Farey, in his excellent Report of Derbyshire, informs us, that besides 

 all ordinary labour, the late Johii Billingsley, of Ashwick Grove, in Somersetshire, let 

 his ploughing, harrowing, rolling, sowing, turning of corn when cut, hay-making, &c. 

 by the acre ; from which he found great advantages, even where his own oxen and horses 

 were used by the takers of the work. "Whether we regard despatch, economy, perfec- 

 tion of rural works, or the bettering of the condition of the labourers therein, nothing 

 will contribute so much to all these as a general system of letting works at fair and 

 truly apportioned prices, according to the degree of labour and skill required in each 

 kind of work. Few persons have doubted that despatch and economy are attainable by 

 this method ; but those who have indolently or improperly gone about the letting of their 

 labour, have uniformly complained of its being slovenly done, and of the proneness of 

 the men to cheat when so employed. Such frauds are to be expected in all modes of 

 employment, and can only be counteracted, or made to disappear, by competent 

 knowledge and due vigilance in the employer, or his agents and foremen, who ought 

 to study and understand the time and degree of exertion and skill, as well as the 

 best methods, in all their minutiae, of performing the various works they have to 

 let. At first sight these might seem to be very difficult and unattainable qualifications 

 in farmers' bailiffs or foremen, but it is nevertheless certain, that a proper system and 

 perseverance will soon overcome these difficulties. One of the first requisites is, the 

 keeping of accurate and methodical day-accounts of all men employed; and, on the 

 measuring up and calculating of every job of work, to register how much has been earned 

 per day, and never to attempt abatement of the amount, should this even greatly exceed 

 the ordinary day's pay of the country; but let this experience gained operate in fixing 

 the price of the next job of the same work, in order to lessen the earnings by degrees, of 

 fully competent and industrious men, to \\ox\\ times the ordinary wages when working 

 by the day. 



4909. Form the men into small gangs , according to their abilities and industry, and always set tlie best 

 gang about any new kind of work, or one whose prices want regulating : encourage these by liberal prices 

 at first, gradually lowering them ; and by degrees introduce the other gangs to work with or near 

 them at the same kind of work. On the discovery of any material slight of or deceptions in the work, 

 at the time of measuring it, more tlian their' proportionate values should be deducted for them,> 

 and a separate job made to one of the best gangs of men, for completing or altering it : by which means 

 shame is made to operate, with loss of earnings, in favour of greater skill, attention, and honesty in 

 future. When the necessity occurs of employing even the best men by the day, let the periods be as 

 short as possible, and the prices considerably below job earnings ; and contrive, by the oiler of a desirable 

 job to follow, to make it their interest and wish to despatch the work that is necessary to be done by the 

 day, in order to get again to piece-work. The men being thus induced to study and contrive the 

 readiest and best methods of performing every part of their labour, and of expending their time, the work 

 will unquestionably be better done than by the thoughtless drones who usually work by the day. And 

 that these are the true methods of bettering the condition of the labourers, Malthus has ai)ly shown in 

 theory ; and all those who have adopted and persevered in them have seen the same in practice. {Farej/'s 

 Derbyshire, vol. iii. 192.) 



Sect. III. Arrangement of Farm Labour. 



4910. The importance of order and system we have already insisted on (3370), and the 

 subject can hardly be too often repeated. To conduct an extensive farm well is not a 

 matter of trivial moment, or one to the management of which every man is competent. 

 Much may be effected by capital, skill, and industry ; but even these will not always 

 ensure success without judicious arrangement. With it, a farm furnishes an uninter- 

 rupted succession of useful labour during all the seasons of the year ; and the most is 

 made that circumstances will admit of, by regularly employing the labouring persons and 

 cattle, at such works as are likely to be the most profitable. Under such a system it is 

 hardly to be credited how little time is lost, either of the men or horses, in the course 

 of a whole year. This is a great object ; for each horse may be estimated at three 

 shillings per day, and each man at two shillings. Every day, therefore, in which a 

 man and horse are unemployed occasions the loss of at least five shillings to the 

 husbandman. 



4911. As the foundation of a proper arrangement, it is necessary to have a plan of the 

 farm, or at least a list of the fields or parcels of land into which it is divided, describing 

 their productive extent, the quality of the soil, the preceding crops, the cultivation given 

 to each, and the species and quantity of manure they have severally received. The 

 future treatment of each field, for a succession of years, may then be resolved on with more 

 probability of success. With the assistance of such a statement, every autumn an 

 arrangement of crops for the ensuing year ought to be made out ; classing the fields or 

 pieces of land, according to the purposes for which they are respectively intended. The 

 number of acres allotted for arable land, meadow, or pasture, will thus be ascertained. 

 It will not then be difficult to discover what number of horses and labourers will be 



