Agriculture of Hertfordshire. 
299 
described are looking strong and well. The land is well 
drained, and there is not an open furrow in the field, neither is 
any required. Previous to my entry on this farm (eight years 
since) this class of land was miserably wet, ploughed four inches 
deep on small lands, about three yards wide, with water furrows 
innumerable. The remaining portion of fallow (the clean heavy 
land) is ploughed by horses, during the months of December, 
and January and February, at a time when the engine is wanted 
at the homestead ; if it be smashed by steam during the summer 
a good tilth will be the result. 
" A clean wheat stubble intended for a crop of spring com 
should be managed thus : Harrow the stubble to cause the seeds 
to vegetate, plough up by horses immediately after wheat sowing, 
do nothing more until the drilling in the spring. If the land be 
light the less you break up and expose it to the atmosphere the 
better. I have known many instances in which an extra plough- 
ing, or a too deep scarifying has ruined the chance of a crop. 
Heavy land might be advantageously smashed directly after 
harvest, and then treated as above. My engine ploughs, culti- 
vates, thrashes, and grinds the corn, cuts chaff, and sifts it, 
breaks oilcake, splits beans, crushes oats, and, in fact, makes 
itself generally useful." 
Miscellaneous. 
Harvest-work is done on several plans ; either both cutting 
and carting are done by the day, or else the cutting is done by 
the piece, and the carting by the day, the labourer receiving six 
or eight pints of beer ; more commonly the whole business of 
cutting and carting is let to a gang of men, allotting 10 or 12 
acres to each, and paying 10s. or lis. an acre. Under each plan 
a labourer's earnings in harvest amount to 57. 10s. or 6/. 10s. 
Though task-work is generally desirable, not only on the score 
of economy but for its influence on the habits of the labourers, 
still large gangs of men working together are objectionable. 
This is especially the case in harvest, when its tendency is to 
encourage extravagance in beer, and induce young labourers to 
make slovenly work in order to keep pace with the more prac- 
tised hands. 
Reaping is fast being abandoned ; three-fourths or more of the 
corn is now mown ; a large breadth is cut by reaping-machines. 
Shepherds who have only the care of a flock in winter make a 
harvest with the other men, and are paid ploughman's wages 
(12s. a week) at lambing-time, with beer as their only perquisite : 
their day-wages average 10s. a week. Near the grass-district 
double or treble the usual prices are often paid for mowing clover, 
the demands of the hay-farms causing a scarcity of hands. 
