Lodging and Boarding Labourers. 



379 



the animal framework is built. It appears impossible to give 

 any other than a qualitative answer to this question. To state 

 the ages at which the different breeds may be profitably disposed 

 of to the butcher would not only be an invidious and probably 

 inaccurate performance, but it would, to do each of them justice, 

 require a specification of the mode of feeding and treatment 

 proper to each, which it would be impossible to give with accu- 

 racy or without great tediousness. — This, then, is all I have to 

 offer on the subject of our supplies of animal food. 



XVII. — Oil Lodging and Boarding Labourers, as -practised 

 on the Farm of Mr. Sotheron, M.P. By Thomas Dyke 



AcLAND. 



To Mr, Pusey. 



Dear Pusey, — The arrangement made by Mr. Sotheron for his 

 farm servants at Bowden Park, near Chippenham, so fully comes 

 up to the account we had heard of it, that I cannot refuse to 

 comply with your desire that I should send you a description of 

 it to be inserted, if you think fit, in the Journal. Mr. Sotheron 

 has given his consent to my doing so, and furnished me with the 

 details of the plan and of its results. 



When Mr. Sotheron took his farm in hand about four years 

 ago, he found, as usual, a barn of double the size required, and 

 divided one end of it into three compartments, a dining hall, a 

 sleeping room containing six beds, a washing room with a loft 

 over it, for keeping chests of clothes, and a sink communicating 

 with the tank in the yard. The barn doorways are walled up 

 with brick and fitted with glass casements, a large window with a 

 swing sash is opened over the sleeping apartment, one of the 

 threshing floors forms the dais of the dining hall, on which stand 

 a plain large table and some wooden chairs. A lamp, and a long 

 pole for drying clothes, are let down by pulleys from the tie-beams 

 of the roof, a plain hearth and chimney corner have been added 

 at the end, and a cupboard completes the furniture. In this 

 building from five to seven lads have been housed and fed during 

 the last four years. Their wages commence at 4Z. and rise gra- 

 dually to 8/. 10s. per annum. They purchase their own clothing 

 out of their wages. The married man is a good workman and 

 manages the steam-engine. Several of the bovs have become ex- 

 cellent ploughmen and have won prizes. After work they occa- 

 sionally amuse themselves with cricket or other games, or with 

 reading and writing, playing the flute. See. The weekly expenses 

 of their board per head are as follows : — 



