Recent Improvements in Haymaking. 57 
of paying for haymaking partly in money and partly in beer or 
cider, is one of which every farmer lias found the aimoyance. 
Does an accident occur ? — " It was the beer that did it." Are 
there quarrels in the field ; loud words and summary dismissals? 
— " The men had a drop too much." Does the work lag ? Do 
the hands run to the pump the first thing in the morning ? — 
The cracked lips and furred tongue tell the same; tale. " The 
great point on which most of us err is in mistaking stimulation 
for strength : a pint of ale produces a temporary effect, which, 
however, terminates in reaction, and the man is no further on 
than he was before. Nothing but substantial and nutritious food 
can effectively repair the waste of the system." 
Mr. C. Howard, whose letter we have already quoted, adds 
further : — " I hope you will show us how hay can be made 
without tlie use of so much beer. Endeavour to strike a blow at 
the system, which has caused so many misunderstandings between 
masters and men, and so much misery to families. Beer, Beer, 
BEER, is all the cry here in hay-time and harvest. I hope, how- 
ever, to live to see the day when money-payments will be entirely 
substituted." These remarks need no comment. 
From the same county, J. Tucker, Esq., Pavenham (late High 
Sheriff), favours us with the following : — 
" For the past eight years I have annually mov/n and made 
into hay from 40 to 50 acres of grass and clover, and I believe 
during the whole of that time not a drop of beer has been brought 
into the field. We supply both mowers and haymakers with 
coffee before dinner, and tea in the afternoon, milked and suf/ared, 
as a substitute for beer, with which they are well satisfied. With 
a little system, and small expense for apparatus, a large number 
of hands can be readily, supplied. 
" If the hands are at Avork late — which they often are, in carry- 
ing and stacking — we give them bread-and-butter, with an extra 
supply of tea, and with this they will work for any reasonable 
time. As a question of cost, I do not believe — as I do it — that 
there is any saving ; but even if more costly, I consider it a good 
investment, if only to teach the uselessness of strong drinks to 
working men." 
From Somersetshire (Mr. Jarvis, Kilmington, near Frome), 
we have similar testimony : — 
" I have now conducted my business eight years on strictly 
total-abstinence principles, and find it much better every way 
than the drinking system. It is not customary to give beer in 
part of wages in this locality from September to May. But in 
May it is usual to give men two pints of table-beer per day (until 
haymaking commences), instead , of which I pay them one shilling 
