The Labour Bill in Farmimj. 
119f 
lown his throat what he ought, in the form of money wages, to 
v arrv home to his family for such food as would give himself and 
them greater strength and stamina. In the harvest-field, too, 
le cannot help thinking that so much heer must tell upon many 
men, depressing their energies and hindering work instead of 
I expediting it. 
The produce of the garden or allotment, or both, can hardly 
be called a perquisite, though it is certainly a privilege, and a 
I -valuable one. The labourer uses his leisure to raise vegetables, 
I' or sometimes a patch of corn, and he cultivates his quarter of an 
acre, more or less, to a profit. I am glad to say that, with some 
exceptions, allotments in the Eastern Counties are let at a mode- 
rate rental. Occasionally the men have a potato-plot rent-free, 
and this, of course, is a supplement to wages, representing a small 
addition to the labour bill. I have met with cases in which the 
farmer ploughs his men's land without charge. 
Sometimes the farmers object to pig-keeping. There is a 
special objection to this bit of thrift in the case of horsemen or 
carters, because of the access these men have to the corn and 
tiieir opportunities of peculation. The temptation, it is said, is 
so great in such cases, that men ought not to be exposed to it. 
Where the farmer does not allow pig-keeping he often gives 
manure for the allotment. Sometimes corn is sold for the use 
-of the pig at market rates. Straw is given for the same purpose. 
!Milk is occasionally given or sold at a nominal price, but is not 
always valued as it should be, perhaps because it has to be fetched. 
Brushwood or underwood is given or sold at nominal rates. 
Then there are the Christmas gifts of beef or money, and the 
farmer's subscriptions to the boot or clothes clubs of the parish. 
These are voluntary gifts, no doubt, and their value is not easily 
assessed. i\ either would the farmers wish such gifts to be 
regarded as more than good-will offerings, which help the labourer 
to tide over the winter and tend to promote kindly relations. 
There remains for notice the help given to the poor from the 
farm-house in illness- — help freely given, and looked for almost 
as a right by the recipient. Wine, brandy, arrowroot, and other 
medical comforts, are asked for and given, with very little sense 
of dependence on the one hand or of patronage on the other. In 
remote country parishes, where the nearest surgeon probably lives 
miles away, the great house, the vicarage, and the farm-house are 
<lispensaries, and something more. In the towns, labouring men 
•or mechanics would never dream of asking for such help, and 
many of them perhaps would spurn it with some indignation if 
it were offered. The same independence is hardly possible in 
the country. The farmer or the farmer's wife does not grudge 
this relief, but it has a money-value, and though no farmer would 
