Farming of Lincolnshire. 



405 



ing birds, driving pigs, &c., — tlieir wages varying from Ad. to 

 Q)d., Sd., or lOd. a day ; girls about the same ; and women lOd. or 

 Is. per dav. The height of wages in Lincolnshire, as compared 

 with many other counties, and the general lowness of the poor- 

 rates,* intimate a comparative abundance of employment; and the 

 following testimony will confirm such an inference. Personal 

 observation and inquiry by the writer during a tour through the 

 county, and the statements contained in correspondence from up- 

 wards of twenty of the most intelligent farmers in all parts of it, 

 justify the conclusion that the labourers generally are regularly 

 employed and comparatively well paid. On the Wolds there is 

 full occupation for them ; in the central district " they are loell 

 employed'' " all are employed ;" on the Cliff and in the north- 

 Vv-estern district is plenty of work;" in the Isle of Axholme 

 '^the labourers are fully employed, — women, and children above 

 ten years of age, have nearly full employment at from ^dd. to 2s. 

 per day, viz., 2^. per day in harvest, \s. 4.d. per day when taking 

 up potatoes, and ^d. per day for weeding, planting, and assorting 

 potatoes ;" on the Heath and the districts east and west of it, gene- 

 ral employment is the rule. In some parts of the south-western 

 district there is " a superabundance " of labourers, that is, there 

 are more than the occupiers of the cold lands think they dare 

 employ, and consequently many are often out of work for a long 

 time together. By referring to the account of the management 

 of this land and the farmsteads upon it, it will be seen that many 

 improvements in tillage and in feeding a greater proportion of 

 stock, &c., might be instituted that would absorb this surplus of 

 industrial beings. In the clay district north-east of Louth a simi- 

 lar lack of employment appears to exist. From other parts of the 

 same tract the information is, that ''the condition of the labourers 

 has been hitherto good, there being generally employment for 

 them all ;" but here it is affirmed there has lately been a great 

 change for the worse, and they cannot be employed at any rate of 

 w^ages, excepting a few of the best hands at 9^. to lOs. per week." 

 This is a truly deplorable state of things, and one which demands 

 an instant remedy. It is attributed in the locality to the depres- 

 sion of prices ; if this be true, and if the occupiers are unable to 

 substitute an outlay of capital in improvements for a political 

 relief, why should they not seek for such an adjustment of their 

 necessary expenditure to the value of their produce as may enable 

 them to waste no longer the sinews and skill which earn them 

 profit? In most of the Fen and Marsh towns ''idle hands" may 



* The number of paupers in this county, as compared v/ith the total popuhition, is 

 only about six per cent. ; whilst in Norfolk and some other counties they amount to 10 

 per cent, ; and the Union Workhouses ai-e occupied by only one-third'the number of 

 inmates they could accommodate 



