Farm Capital. 
181 
I consider for my own part that, taking the average wages usually 
paid here to the best man for the twelve months at lis. (5r/. per 
week without beer, adding Is. per week or 21. 12.9. per annum for 
beer (although the calculation above made shows that the beer 
actually costs more), and also Qxi. per week or 2Gi-. per annum 
lor extra beer, making in the whole 13s. a week, and setting it 
all against the overtime, for which I do not pay, my labour does 
not actually cost me more than other people pay for theirs. And 
if a man is able out of his lis. %d. a week to clothe and maintain 
himself and his family, and pay his rent also, then I consider 
that the extra Is. 6r?. a week, which is spent entirely on food as I 
arrange it, ought to give me a man physically more fit to do his 
work. And in practice I find this to be the case. I have not 
only the gratification of being told by the vicar, that my men, 
both married and single, are amongst the most respectable and 
well-conducted in the village, but I have been repeatedly told by 
the neighbouring farmers : " I can't think what you do with your 
men. As soon as my back is turned I have little work done, but 
come by your farm when I will, your men are always at work." 
A labourer who feels himself well used will soon repay his 
master 2c?. a day, or Is. a week, by working with a will and not 
idling. 
I should not be doing justice to the men themselves if I 
closed this part of my Essay without stating that, independently 
of a good day's work being given for a good day's pay, there 
is such a good feeling amongst them, that several times in the 
course of a year, when it has been a very wet day, I have found 
them not come to work, preferring to forfeit their wages rather 
than ask me for work when they knew that there was none of a 
nature immediately profitable to me to be done. And this they 
have done notwithstanding that they are well aware that I am 
bound to pay them, wet or fine, if they come, and that I always 
contrive to have some jobs which can be done under cover at 
such times. I also pointed out to them the best way of buying 
their beer. Each man now buys for his own consumption one 
l8-gallon cask of ale at Is. a gallon, and another 18-gallon cask 
of beer at Grf. per gallon, direct from the brewer, instead of pur- 
chasing it at double that price in small quantities at the public 
house. This again gives them to spend in extra beer or anything 
else they like, 25s. per annum, being the difference between the 
actual cost of the beer they buy, and the 21. 12s. I allow for it. 
The first year I guaranteed payment to the brewer, but ever 
since that time they have easily obtained credit. But I fancy 
they have seldom availed themselves of that facility since I 
showed them that by paying cash they could get 5 per cent, 
discount upon it. During the late very untoward season I secured 
all my hay (more than 30 acres) in first-rate condition during 
