1922.] The Farm Worker in Scotland. 



657 



Hiring. — Vacc^ncies are usually filled as the result of in- 

 quiries or by advertisements in local newspapers. Most of the 

 new engagements which take place each term are made by 

 private bargaining, the basis of agreement being on the lines 

 advised by the organisations of -employers and workers. The 

 hiring fairs are still well recognised all over the country, but 

 they are used mostly as occasions for bargaining between 

 farmers who have not succeeded in filling all their vacancies 

 and workers who have been unable to obtain employment by 

 other means. Almost every market town of any importance 

 has its recognised hiring-fair day every half year, on which 

 occasions it is usual to grant a holiday, without deduction of 

 cash wages, to the whole staff of the farms in the neigh- 

 bourhood. 



Allowances. — Tn most counties there is a customary scale of 

 allowances, but often the individual worker makes a bargain 

 on a different scale according to the circumstances of his family. 

 As an almost universal rule, the married ploughman is pro- 

 vided with a cottage on the farm, free of rent and rates. Except 

 in a few counties a liberal supply of oatmeal forms an important 

 addition to a worker's wages, the quantity varying from county 

 to county, but the average being, at the time of the last in- 

 quiry, about 65 stones per annum. Perhaps the most valuable 

 allowance, however, consists of the fairly liberal supply of milk 

 usually provided to the farm worker's household. In general, 

 the married ploughman receives a daily supply of fresh milk 

 all the year round, sometimes as much as 4 pints per day in 

 the summer; a reduction to about 3 pints being made in the 

 winter months. In some areas it is not uncommon for the 

 married ploughman to be allowed the keep of a cow, but in 

 other districts the milk allowance itself has died out, although 

 the workers are sometimes allowed to purchase milk at reduced 

 prices. Potatoes or the produce of an allowance of potato 

 ground are almost universally provided in part payment of 

 wages. Coal is a common allowance in the counties north of 

 Perth and Forfar, and in a few counties 1 or 2 loads of firewood 

 are provided. The provision of free cartage of coal, firewood 

 and flitting, reckoned as equivalent to from £1 to £4 per 

 annum, is quite general. The allowances to single men are on 

 the same basis, but the quantities provided vary greatly, 

 the workers living in bothies being the most generously 

 supplied. 



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