The Labour Bill in Farming. 
85 
wages, which would have brought his labour, supposing he had 
no steam-plough, up to 44.';. 6f/. 
The cost of labour on Mr. Stephenson's land is 36s. 2>d. per 
acre on 864 acres of arable (384 light and 480 stronger soil). 
' He also rents 162 acres of heath and 50 of pasture, not employ- 
ing any appreciable amount of labour. 
,j A neighbour of Mr. Long's, farming similar land, but doing 
i no steam-ploughing, has sent me his account, which is accurately 
kept. He farms 10 acres grass and 277 arable land. Charging, 
as in the foregoing cases, all the labour to the arable land, it 
amounts, during the same period, to 43s. 6rf. per acre, viz., 
588/. 4s. 10c?. ; but the nominal rate of wages on this farm was 
only lis. %d. per week, and the men earned, in a rather short 
harvest, 8/. without beer. In order, therefore, to draw a fair 
comparison with Mr. Long's farm, 13 per cent, (the difference 
between lis. %d. and 13s.) should be added to the 588/. 4s. lOd., 
which would make 663/. Thus, supposing an equal rate of 
Avages, this calculation would show, upon the small heavy-land 
farm without steam-ploughing, an outlay of 48s. Id. against 38s. 6c?. 
upon the large heavy-land farm with steam-ploughing. 
A comparison of the actual amounts paid on any farm for 
labour, during different years, cannot be wholly trusted to show, 
with accuracy, the tendency of the labour bill either to rise or 
fall, because the amount of work necessary on a farm varies from 
year to year according to the seasons or other causes. Comparing, 
however, the nominal rate of wages for the year ending Lady- 
day, 1874, with that of four or five yearn ago, the increase of 2s. 
a week, from lis. to 13s., paid throughout the greater part of the 
Eastern Counties, is equal to a rise of more than 18 per cent. 
Mr. Stephenson adds: — "I paid harvestmen, in 1873, 9/. 16s. 
and malt, in place of 11. and malt in 1869, equal to a rise of 40 
per cent. Working out these figures I find therefrom that, had 
I paid last year at the same rate as in 1868 and 1869, my labour 
bill would have amounted to 1186/. instead of 1453/., showing a 
rise on the year's outlay of 22|^ per cent. Then turning to my 
old labour books, I find, as a matter of fact, that my labour bill 
for the year ending Lady-day, 1874, stands 36 per cent, higher 
than the year ending Lady-day, 1869 (a year of drought), and 
20 per cent, higher than that ending Lady-day, 1870. So my 
experience goes to show that there is no truth in the opinion so 
often expressed, that we can make up for the rise in wages by 
economising labour. Paying, as I do, about 270/. more for 
labour than I should have done 4 or 5 years since, means a de- 
duction from a farmer's profits of from 2^ to 3 per cent, per 
annum on his capital. In some parishes the proportionate 
increase of wages is even more than in my case. In these places 
