igo6.] Decline in Agricultural Population. 533 



become almost universal on all holdings of sufficient size to 

 make its use practicable. The substitution of mechanical for 

 horse or hand power for fixed machinery, e.g:, threshing machines, 

 chaff cutters, pumps, &c., has taken place largely, although it has 

 made, comparatively speaking, little progress for tractive pur- 

 poses. It may, indeed, be questioned if steam is so largely 

 employed in the cultivation of the land as it was twenty years 

 ago. But the displacement of manual labour arising from the 

 greatly extended use of drills, horse-hoes, mowers, binders, 

 manure distributors, and the like must have been in the aggregate 

 very great, and probably to this more than to any other single 

 cause the reduced demand for farm labourers may be attributed. 



It must be remembered, however, that some of the alterations 

 in agricultural practice which have taken place during the past 

 two or three decades have tended to check the reduction of the 

 demand for labour. The increase by nearly half a million in the 

 number of cows and heifers in-milk or in-calf during the past 

 thirty years is an inadequate measure of the great extension of 

 dairying, and particularly of milk selling, which has taken place. 

 The introduction of the centrifugal separator in 1879 and the 

 great improvement which has been made in machinery and 

 appliances for use in dairying have facilitated manual operations 

 and enhanced the value of the produce, although not perhaps 

 actually effecting much saving in the amount of labour required, 

 but the daily milking of so many more cows must have had 

 some influence in maintaining the demand for labour. Although 

 the serious decline in the acreage under hops has, in certain 

 districts, restricted labour, there has been some compensating 

 increase in demand by the extension of the cultivation of fruit 

 and vegetables and " market-garden farming " generally. 



Reduced Supply of Labour.— A\ougs\de the influences affecting 

 demand, and more than keeping pace with them, has been the 

 increasing desire of the labourers to leave the land. Most of 

 the reports allude to this impulse, and the varying explanations 

 offered for its existence are interesting. An absolute disinclina- 

 tion for work on the land on any terms is frequently noted as a 

 characteristic of the labouring class, particularly of the younger 

 generation, and complaints that the methods of education in the 

 rural elementary schools foster this distaste are made in many of 



