Agriculture of Nottingliamsldre. 
165 
respect to the labourers and paupers, as the expenses and charp^es, 
exclusive of relief, are in such cases additional payments ; but in 
all populous ])arishes, and in agricultural jiarishes where employ- 
ment was not <;iven to the labouring population and where 
management in respect to the poor was defective, the new Poor 
Liiw has been very beneficial. 
In one year (about 1821) the parochial rates for the county of 
Surrey increased to one-third more than they had been in the 
previous ye,ar ; and at the same time the parochial rates for the 
county of Nottingham decreased one-tliird from the amount paid 
in the preceding year : which great difference was caused chiefly 
by the extremely low wages then paid in Surrey and consequent 
increase of pauperism, and the liberal wages paid in the county 
of Nottingham, and the general determination to find employment 
for labourers rather than leave them to become paupers, which is 
strict economy. A gentleman purchased an estate of about 700 
acres in the county of Surrey in 1846, which was in a very inferior 
state of cultivation. The farms were held on leases, and the 
tenants employed labourers at wages not exceeding 9^. a week, 
when the wages of labourers in the North-Midland counties and 
Lincolnshire were from 12s. to 14s. : in the former case the men 
employed did not perform half a fair day's work in consequence 
of weakness and inefficiency, whilst in the latter case the men 
earned their wages and were profitable to their employers. The 
owner of the property alluded to began to improve a farm, of 
which the lease had expired, by draining the wet land, grubbing 
up hedgerows which were very wide, building, and planting- 
fences, and by bringing the land into a good state of cultivation, 
which has caused it to produce abundant crOps ; and he so treated 
the remainder of the land, as the leases expired, with the like 
success. To enable him to accomplish the woi k in a proper manner 
he materially advanced the wages of the labourers employed, and 
insisted upon having work done in proportion to the money paid. 
His example has been followed by others in the neighbourhood, 
and the general cultivation in that district is improved, the 
labourers are in a far better condition, and poor-rates have conse- 
quently decreased. 
The most important among recent improvements in our farm 
management is the erection of suitable buildings and machinery 
for cutting fodder and straw, pulping roots and grinding corn 
for consumption by live-stock. That system is at present only 
partially adopted ; but the advantages derived from it are so 
obvious in the economy of fodder and roots, and the superiority 
of ground over unground corn, as shown by the improved condi- 
tion of stock so fed, that no extensive arable-land farmer should 
