io8 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



between the ages of twelve years and sixty, not being otherwise 

 occupied, * nor being a gentleman born, nor having lands of 

 the yearly value of 40^-., nor goods to the value of ;^io,' should 

 be compellable to serve in husbandry with 'any person that 

 keepeth husbandry ' by the year, and the hours of work were 

 re-enacted. 



The rates of wages of artificers, husbandmen, &c., were to 

 be ascertained yearly by the justices and the sheriff, ' if he 

 conveniently may, ' at quarter sessions, * calling unto them 

 such discrete and grave persons as they shall thinck meete and 

 conferring together respecting the plentie or scarcitie of the 

 tyme and other circumstances necessary to be considered,' 

 and the wages fixed were to be certified into Chancery. 

 Then proclamations of the wages thus determined were to 

 be made in the cities and market towns. Every person who 

 gave higher wages than those established by the proclamation 

 was to be imprisoned for ten days and fined £5, every re- 

 ceiver to be imprisoned twenty- one days. The importance still 

 attached to the harvest season is shown by the section that all 

 artificers and others were compellable to work in harvest or 

 be put in the stocks two days and a night. For the better 

 advancement of husbandry and tillage every householder 

 farming 60 acres of tillage or more might receive an appren- 

 tice in husbandry, but no tradesman or merchant might take 

 an apprentice save his own son, unless his parents had free- 

 hold of the annual value of 40s. ; and no person was to use 

 * any art mistery or manual occupation now in use ' unless he 

 had served seven years' apprenticeship to it. There can be no 

 doubt that the clauses last quoted confined a large portion 

 of the population to agricultural work, but as we know that 

 the people were deserting the country and flocking to the 

 towns, this must have seemed to the framers of the law very 

 desirable. 



This method of fixing wages was in force until 1814, and its 

 repeal then was entirely contrary to the opinion of the artizan 

 class ; but it may be doubted if the magistrates extensively 



