Agricultural Wages 105 



cheaper to give some employment on the 

 land rather than leave the families of the 

 men to come on the rates. Consequently, 

 preference was given to the men with large 

 families, partly, no doubt, because some 

 work was got out of the children, but 

 mainly on account of the saving to the 

 rates. In the same way some of the farmers 

 refrained from using new labour-saving 

 machinery, and threshing with the flail 

 was continued simply to give employment. 

 We also read that this employment of 

 surplus labour was in part regarded as an 

 insurance against rick-burning, at that time 

 the popular method of forcible persuasion. 

 Caird describes a similar state of things in 

 the English agriculture of 1850-1. In some 

 districts, he says, the farmers divided up 

 the surplus labour. In Wiltshire, in which 

 the wages have always been very low, 

 Caird says that both farmers and labourers 



