oCO Condition of the Enr/lish Agricultural Labourer, 1871. 
and where savings-bank deposits of no small amount have been 
accumulatated by old pupils during the earlier years of farm 
service, nearly all of which were commenced at school, or after 
the first year's service, and continued in consequence of the 
personal attention of the managers or teachers, and the confi- 
dence reposed in them by their pupils. 
The following extract from the letter of a Yorkshire clergyman 
on this subject illustrates its working: — "I find that, in 1856, I 
began taking'small moneys from the children in school, and taking 
care of their pence. This was sometimes drawn out to buy a 
prayer-book or other little thing, sometimes ceased altogether, but 
generally ran on to 17s. 6rf., when it went into the savings-bank. 
Soon after, I began to look after the farm-servants at Martinmas. 
Farm-servants now earn at eighteen what their fathers did at 
twenty-three. A man before he is twenty-five should easily save 
50/. I had in my care twelve or fourteen savings-bank books 
the other day. Several of my old scholars deposit independently 
of me, and others near Leeds prefer building societies. You may 
safely say I average 80/. a year from those who have been here at 
school. In seven years one of my old boys, whom you may take 
as a good specimen of a steady fellow, now twenty-four years of 
age, has saved 55/. 14s. 6c?., another, who went out in 1864, has 
31/. Is., another, who went in 1867, has 37/. 14s. 8e?., and one^ 
who commenced in 1858, has 109/. 3s. 8f/., besides helping his 
mother." 
In considering the position of the agricultural labourer we 
cannot omit from our notice the question of his rising to become 
the occupier of land. Many writers of the present day have 
lamented the tendency of landowners to enlarge the size of farms, 
and consider that thereby the labourer is losing the opportunity 
of leaving the ranks of those supported by manual labour, and of 
rising into the position of a tenant-farmer. The last agricultural 
statistics present returns which certainly show a larger number 
of small holdings than we had anticipated. In England, of the 
total acreage under crops about 10 per cent, is in farms of from 
20 to 50 acres, and 15 per cent, in farms of from 50 to 100 ; 
thus one-fourth of the cultivated land of England is held in small 
farms, in addition to 7 per cent, in occupations of from 5 to 20 
acres. We have before alluded to the great advantages which 
belong' to the small grass holdings enabling one or two cows to 
be kept, and there is also a general concurrence of opinion in 
favour of the garden or field-allotment system, provided that the 
allotments do not take a man away from his wage-earning work. 
In fact, this system has taken deep root in every county, and is 
now looked upon with favour by the farmers themselves, if the 
allotments do not exceed a quarter of an acre in extent. 
