292 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



himself admits that even during the height of it they were 

 often only lis. and 12s. With the bad times, about 1879, 

 wages began to fall again, and men were leaving the Agri- 

 cultural Union; by 1882 Arch says many were again taking 

 what the farmer chose to give. From 1884 the Union 

 steadily declined, and after a temporary revival about 1890, 

 practically collapsed in 1894. Other unions had been started, 

 but were then going down hill, and in 1906 only two remained 

 in a moribund condition. Their main object, to raise the 

 labourer's wages, was largely counteracted by the acute de- 

 pression in agriculture, and though there has since been 

 considerable recovery, there are districts in England to-day 

 where he only gets us. and 12s. a week. 



The Labourers' Union helped to deal a severe blow to 

 the * gang system ', which had grown up at the beginning 

 of the century (when the high corn prices led to the breaking 

 up of land where there were no labourers, so that * gangs ' 

 were collected to cultivate it^), by which overseers, often 

 coarse bullies, employed and sweated gangs sometimes 

 numbering 60 or 70 persons, including small children, and 

 women, the latter frequently very bad specimens of their sex. 

 These gangs went turnip-singling, bean-dropping, weeding^ 

 &c., while pea-picking gangs ran to 400 or 500. Though 

 some of these gangs were properly managed, the system was 

 a bad one, and the Union and the Education Acts helped its 

 disappearance. 



^ Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 193, et seq. The Gangs Act (30 & 31 Vict. c. 130) 

 had already brought the system under control. 



