i9io.] 



The Corn Markets in November. 



777 



Glendale Rural District in Northumberland, and in several districts in 

 Lancashire and Yorkshire. At the hiring fairs for farm servants held 

 in these counties during November no general change in wages on the 

 previous year was reported in Northumberland. In Cumberland, West- 

 morland, and Lancashire the forward state of farm work lessened the 

 demand for men, and there was a downward movement in wages as 

 compared with a year ago. There was slackness in hiring for a similar 

 reason at several of the Yorkshire fairs, but wages in this county on the 

 whole showed little change compared with a year ago. 



Midland Counties. — Outdoor employment was interrupted to some 

 extent by frost, rain and snow in these counties, and day labourers and 

 piece-workers lost time in consequence. When the weather permitted 

 there was a fair demand for these men in many districts on account of 

 such work as getting up roots and threshing, and generally the supply 

 of and demand for extra labourers were fairly well-balanced; some 

 surplus in the supply, however, was reported from the Brixworth Rural 

 District in Northamptonshire, from the Crowmarsh, Witney, and 

 Woodstock Rural Districts in Oxfordshire, and from the Eaton Socon 

 Rural District in Bedfordshire. 



Eastern Counties. — Threshing, pulling, and storing roots, hedging, 

 ditching, &c, caused a fair demand for day labourers in most districts, 

 and except in a few districts in Norfolk and Suffolk, where rain 

 stopped work occasionally, these men were generally reported in 

 regular employment. The supply of men was usually equal to the 

 demand, but there was a slight scarcity in the Docking (Norfolk) and 

 the Wangford (Suffolk) Rural Districts; in the Samford and Thingoe 

 (Suffolk) Rural Districts there was some surplus. 



Southern and South-Western Counties. — Day labourers lost a few 

 days' employment in most districts on account of wet weather, which 

 seriously interfered with work on the root crops and threshing. The 

 supply of such men was generally well up to a somewhat moderate 

 demand, and in several districts, particularly in Kent and Sussex, 

 there was a surplus. Men for permanent situations were reported as 

 scarce in the Godstone (Surrey), Petworth (Sussex), Bromyard (Hereford- 

 shire), and the Camelford, Liskeard, Truro, and West Penwith districts 

 (Cornwall). 



THE CORN MARKETS IN NOVEMBER. 

 C. Kains-Jackson. 



November has been marked by corn exchanges almost uniformly 

 in favour of buyers, though at the very close of the month some fresh 

 vigour in inquiry, both retail and speculative, was to be noted. The 

 United States Government report on the maize crop in that country, 

 published on the nth, disclosed the ingathering of a record crop, 

 nearly two bushels per acre larger than in 1909, and on an extended 

 acreage. This anticipated abundance of the feeding stuff competing 

 most closely with oats prevented the news of a shortish yield of that 

 cereal from helping the market. 



Wheat. — The average price of British wheat for the first quarter 

 of the cereal year, September 1st to November 30th, has been 30s. 5^., 

 and the November average of 305. augurs a certain loss of ground since 



