The Farm Labourers of England and Wales. 661 
T Viltsk ire. — Ditto. 
Dorsetshire . — Usually all classes of regular men yearly, but subject to a 
fortnight’s notice to terminate engagement, 
Somersetshire . — All weekly. 
Devonshire . — All weekly or fortnightly except the few who live in 
farmhouses, and they are liable to be dismissed or to leave at a 
month’s not ice. 
Cornwall. — Ditto. 
Wales . — Unmarried men in farmhouses by the year or half-year ; most 
married men by the week, though usually with board in the farm- 
houses on working days. 
It must be explained that these statements apply to regular 
men, casual labourers everywhere being sometimes engaged by 
the day. Some of the Assistant Commissioners, learned in the 
law, insist that men hired by the week nominally are really hired 
by the day if they have to lose time in wet weather ; but, as far 
as that argument goes, it would show that they are engaged 
by the hour, as they frequently lose part of a clay. In some 
counties men hired by the year or half-year are boarded in the 
farmhouses ; in others, in cottages ; while in a few they have 
cottages rent free without board. 
With respect to regularity of employment all the year round, 
where men are hired by the week, there are great differences, 
not only in the several counties and districts, but also with 
different employers. But it is safe to say that the great majority 
of men in the country are regularly employed, not only because 
in many counties most of them are hii’ed by the year or half- 
year, but also because, even where this is not the case, horse- 
men, stockmen, and shepherds are kept on all the year round. 
The differences referred to above are quite as great in relation 
to loss of time in bad weather ; but in this respect also it 
may be confidently asserted that a large majority of the 
labourers do not lose any time unless from choice or illness. 
The men hired yearly or half-yearly and the weekly horse- 
men, stockmen, and shepherds, none of whom lose time from 
bad weather, would make a majority of all the classes of farm 
labourers, and a great number of employers, if not most of 
them, always find some kind of work for their day labourers who 
come to woi’k, whatever the weather may be, except when they 
are at piecework, and then the men’s time is their own. Others 
dock off wages for every quarter of a day lost through wet 
weather, and of course casual labourers lose a good deal of time 
from this cause. It is a fact, however, that only a small 
minority of farm workmen lose time necessarily, unless from 
sickness, when they are paid by time. 
With respect to hours of work, they vary greatly not only 
