3'30 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. [March 1895; 



[^Agricultural Labour in England in January. 



In the monthly report of the agricultural correspondent of the 

 Labour Department of the Board of Trade, published in the 

 Labour Gazette of February, it is observed that in January 1895 

 the state of employment in agricultural districts was, generally 

 speaking, of an unfavourable character, chiefly owing to the 

 snow and the severity of the frost, which in many districts 

 almost entirely prevented field work. But in some districts, the 

 scarcity of employment was also partly due to the forward state 

 of farm work up to Christmas. However, notwithstanding the 

 severity of the weather, employment is said to have been not less 

 satisfactory in the majority of cases than in the month of January 

 1894. It is pointed out that in comparing-the state of employ- 

 ment, it must be borne in mind that there was a most disastrous 

 harvest in 1893, and that consequently both the outdoor and 

 indoor work in the winter of 1893-4 was seriously curtailed, 

 while the harvest of 1894 was an abundant one, and notwith- 

 standing the low price of agricultural produce, and the inferior 

 quality of a considerable portion of the grain, farmers have had 

 a good deal more work for their men at threshing, dressing, 

 chaff-cutting, cleaning and pulping roots, delivering corn, feed- 

 ing stock, and manure carting. Again, it is important to 

 observe that in most districts a reduction of wages took place 

 in the autumn of 1894, which enabled farmers to curtail their 

 labour bills without discharging so many men, or giving such 

 irregular employment, as might otherwise have been the case. 

 In the low wage districts, such as Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hun- 

 tingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, 

 and parts of Cambridgeshire, there is reported to have been a 

 considerable amount of distress among those men with families, 

 whose employment has been interfered with by the weather for 

 several days in each week duriog the latter part of the month. 



Reports from some of the Northern Counties stated that a large 

 proportion of those who failed to obtain situations at the 

 November hirings had been able to find little or nothing to do. 

 In Northumberland and North Cumberland, drainers and road- 

 men were in irregular work in January owing to deep snow and 

 severe frost. In South Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lan- 

 cashire, employment of odd-rnen had been greatly interfered 

 with, though up to January they found employment in repair- 

 ing damages caused by storms. In Cheshire, odd-men had been 

 irregularly employed owing to frost, and in the county of Durham 

 agricultural labour is reported to have been somewhat scarce. 

 Numbers of odd-men are reported to have been in irregular 

 work near York owing to the severity of the weather. 



Reports from the Midland Counties were to. the effect that in 

 Shropshire the snow and frost interfered with the employment of 

 odd-men, bat not generally of regular men. In Warwickshire, 



