Farming of CamherJand. 



239 



clipped, makes a close evergreen hedge. Gates are now in 

 almost universal use in place of the time-consumino: jzap-rails, 

 which are only admissible where the gaps are little used. 

 Pattern for gates is of small importance, provided they are 

 strong and firm, light at the fore-end, high-made and high hung, 

 work easy, fasten readily, and answer the purpose they are 

 placed for. All gates on the same farm should be of the same 

 length, and all hung and fastened in the same way, so that all 

 may fit any of the gateways on the farm^, and the weaker or old 

 ones removed to w^here they will be least in use. Where young 

 horses are depastured, the upper bars should have hoop-iron 

 nailed along them, to prevent their being gnawed ; and a bar, 

 laid fiat on the upper edge of the top bar, is found to add more 

 to the strength and stiffness of a gate than three or four up- 

 rights. 



The detailed census of 1851 not having yet been made public, 

 no correct means are at hand to show the number of hands em- 

 ployed in agriculture, or any of its branches. In 1841 the per- 

 sons engaged in the two great sources of production were stated*^ 

 as more than two-thirds of the entire population being employed 

 in agriculture. 



A^otwithstanding that in some parts of the county some small 

 farms have been thrown into larger ones, it is well known that 

 many more hands are now" employed on the same extent of land 

 than were so thirty years a2"o. At present the labourers are in 

 full employ, at wages rating from \s. lOd. to 2s. Qd. per dav ; 

 women at lOd. to Is. Cottage rents vary considerably, according 

 to their proximity to mines and other public works. In the 

 Abbey Holme, a purely agricultural district, ordinary cottage 

 rents are as low as 30^. to 50^. yearly. In the neighbourhood of 

 Cleator and Egremont, where hands are required for mining, 

 smelting, mill-work. Sec, rents vary from 505. to 84.?., and some 

 higher still : and by a singular anonialv, labourers' vv^ages are 

 highest vv'here cottage rents are lowest. The allotment of garden- 

 Jand is scarcely known here, for many of the labouring poor pos- 

 sess gardens along wdth their cottages ; and some a2:ree Vvdth their 

 employers for permission to plant a row" or two of potatoes, &c., 

 in the fields. 



Women-labourers are employed as in most other counties, in 

 pickmg weeds, hoeing turnips, hay and corn harvesting, pulling 

 and topping turnips, and a variety of lighter labours. Driving 

 carts has been a common employment for them till lately, but 

 they are now m.ostly relieved from that, and their whole out-door 

 work is much circumscribed, without any want of employment 

 for them being felt. The carelessness and incapacity of many 



* Blackwood. 



