264 
Farming of Oxfordshire. 
Woodstock in making gloves and other articles in leather for 
which that town is famous. 
The wages of the common labourer are now 10s. or lis. per 
week, carters and shepherds receive 12s. or i3s. Although the 
wages are recently advanced, great privations are endured at this 
inclement season by the poor from tlie high price of all the 
necessaries of life. The weekly pay is nearly all consumed by a 
large family in bread alone. The Scotch system of paying 
labourers in kind is worthy of the attention of employers. On 
the Eynsham-Hall farm it is partially adopted, the men receiving 
for the winter half-year 2 quarters of wheat and 1 of barley, 1 
ton of coals delivered, and 5/. in cash. Tlie 16 bushels of wheat 
(red) was valued at 11. ; the barley, which is for the pig, at 36s. ; 
and the coals at 20s. : these, together with the money payment, 
cost the farmer lis. per week, but to the labourer are fully 
equivalent to 13s. 
Fuel commands high prices almost all over the county. In 
the .north there is little fire-wood, and in the south, from the 
absence of canals and railways, coals are very dear. No district, 
Avithin the like distance of London, is so badly off for railway 
accommodation as the south of Oxfordshire, 'i'here is a rich 
agricultural country, 30 miles in width, between the Great 
Western and North Western Railways : both companies express 
a great desire to form a direct Oxford line ; but the general im- 
pression is, that Ijetween these two august bodies the scheme will 
tail to the ground. 
Perliaps in no county of England is the love of beer among 
the labouring poor so general or so extravagant as in Oxfordshire. 
If anything out of the common routine on a farm is to be done, 
" a drop of beer" is wanted to make it go off pleasantly. It is 
a usual thing for men at some easy job by the day to club to- 
gether for beer, and so spend 2d. or ?>d. of their wages before 
they have earned it. There are many operations of agriculture 
in which beer is doubtless of much service to the labourer; it 
washes down the dust, quenches the thirst, cheers him, and 
stimulates his flagging energies. A moderate quantity will do 
all this, while an excess makes him drowsy and unfit for work. 
Men, when mowing by the acre, generally allow themselves a 
gallon of strong beer a day. At harvest cart the beer is handed 
round every two hours. Some excellent farmers give their men 
Is. per day instead of beer : this is a good plan, but it shows the 
inordinate quantity that is commonly allowed. Most unfortu- 
nately, the rage for beer when at work is only second to the 
love of it at the alehouse. This miserable infatuation produces 
wretchedness, poverty, and crime. 
The cottages in this county are as commodious and well 
