Contagious Abortion in Cattle. 



65 



ploughmen generally varied between 15s. and 19s. a week, 

 married men getting, in addition, allowances in kind. In 

 other parts of Scotland, at the hirings between March and 

 July, wages of men frequently rose at the rate of 20s. to 50s., 

 and sometimes as much as 60s., per annum. The wages of 

 women, lads, and boys also increased. At the later hirings 

 the old rates of wages were maintained in the great majority 

 of cases, and where changes took place increases were more 

 numerous than decreases. Generally speaking, there was a 

 rise in the coal-mining districts, the ranks of the farm servants 

 having been thinned by migration to the collieries. The 

 wages of women, whether employed as outworkers or in the 

 farmhouses, showed an upward tendency, and reports state 

 that as a class they were generally scarce. 



In Ireland, reports received from 81 correspondents show 

 that since 1898 there has been an upward tendency in the 

 wages of farm labourers, though, generally speaking, they 

 have not changed to an appreciable extent. The classes 

 most affected were casual labourers or odd men and hired 

 men lodged and boarded in the farmhouses. Many of the 

 Irish reports referred to a growing scarcity of labour. This 

 is chiefly attributed to emigration and to migration to 

 England and Scotland, but the war in South Africa is also 

 mentioned as an additional cause. 



Contagious Abortion in Cattle. 



The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction 

 for Ireland requested Professor Nocard, who has been con- 

 ducting the Department's investigation into the causes of 

 the mortality amongst calves in Munster, to furnish them, 

 for the benefit of Irish farmers and stock- owners, with his 

 latest conclusions on the subject of contagious abortion, and 

 these are reproduced below from the Journal of the Irish 

 Department of Agriculture : — 



As a general rule abortion (epizootic or contagious) makes 

 its appearance in a byre after the introduction of an in-calf 



F 



