Mar<5bIS95.] 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



331 



employment, which was fairly good up to Christmas, was not 

 satisfactory in January, chiefly owing to frost, but partly also to 

 farmers having less work to be done. In Leicestershire, Not- 

 tingh3,n} shire, and Rutland, the employment of odd-men was 

 also alFected by the hard weather. In Huntingdonshire, reports 

 from nine parishes stated that employment had been irregular. 

 From two of these parishes, the numbers of unemployed were 

 returned as greater than in January 1894, in two parishes 

 about the same, and in five parishes less. 



In the Eastern Counties, irregular work was reported from 

 Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and parts of Essex and Norfolk. 

 This was attributed to severe weather, agricultural depression, and 

 the curtailment of labour bills. In Suffolk, the number of men 

 irregularly employed in January 1895 is said to have been about 

 the same as in January 1894. 



As regards the Home Counties, a number of men were 

 reported to be in irregular work in Berkshire, at Reading 

 and in the neighbourhood, but not in larger numbers than 

 in January 1894. In the Unions of Abingdon, Reading, and 

 Wantage, the state of employment is said to have been more 

 satisfactory than in the previous year, with the exception of 

 four parishes, but in three of these parishes a landowner provided 

 employment, and in another the town council gave work three 

 days a week at '2s. for a day of six hours. In the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Buckingham, no men were reported out of 

 work, though this was said not to be the case in some of the 

 surrounding villages. The reports from Hertfordshire, Surrey, 

 Sussex, Kent, and Oxfordshire, were not, on the whole, 

 unsatisfactory, especially in view of the state of the weather.* 



Reports from the Western Counties stated that in Wiltshire 

 employment was satisfactory in the neighbourhood of Colling- 

 bourne, Warminster, Bishopstrow, and North Bradley. But 

 in some districts the numbers of men in irregular work were 

 reported to have considerably increased in J anuary as compared 

 with the previous months. In Gloucestershire, the month of 

 January was unfavourable to odd-men, and this was attributed 

 partly to the weather and partly to agricultural depression. In 

 Herefordshire, employment was fairly satisfactory. In the Wells 

 district of Somersetshire, both the state of the weather and the 

 curtailment of labour made work irregular; while in the 

 Crediton Union of Devonshire, employment on the whole was 

 not unsatisfactory. In the St. Colomb Union of Cornwall, all 

 able-bodied men were employed, but in the Truro Union, a 

 considerable number were in want of work. 



Peach-growing in Belgium. 



Peaches form a large proportion of the exports of fruit from 

 Belgium, and the system of peach cultivation in that country 



