The Farm Labourers of England and Wades. 663 
though not usually, by letting one horseman in turn do the 
racking-up for a whole stable. This remark applies also to 
feeding the horses on Sunday, in which, in many counties, all 
the horsemen take part. 
Wages and Earnings. 
It is extremely difficult, in some of the reports, to get 
at the ranges of nominal weekly wages and estimated average 
weekly earnings the year round. These details were by far the 
most important of all those embraced by the inquiry, as well 
as the most difficult to ascertain. A sufficient number of 
inquiries would have elicited the range of ordinary weekly or 
yearly wages for each class of labourers, and it is a pity that it 
is not given for each district ; but the variations in the value of 
payments in kind and other perquisites are so puzzling that an 
immense amount of research and calculation is necessary in 
order to give the total earnings during the year, and the weekly 
averages. Then the details under the several heads of inquiry 
were so numerous that it was almost too much to expect the 
same witnesses to give information upon all of them, and no 
stress was laid upon one subject more than upon another. 
Perhaps these reasons may account for the fact that in some of 
the reports the information relating to wages and earnings is 
not as full or so precise as could be desired. Again, there is 
no uniform method of stating wages and total earnings, the 
estimated averages being given in some cases and the range of 
amounts commonly paid in others, while possibly the extremes 
are shown in some instances. Thus it may be that comparisons 
to be drawn between the amounts set down for different counties 
are to some extent unfair. It is further to be observed that 
only one union in each county was visited, and in that particular 
union wages might happen to be lower or higher than in any 
other district of the county. 1 A more correct set of county 
returns might have been obtained by selecting for inquiry 
parishes in all the unions of each county. 
In the following table I have usually taken the estimated 
ranges of wages and average earnings as given in the several 
summaries when any are presented in the reports, though in a 
few cases in which the actual earnings of particular men are 
given I have included them in the ranges of amounts. Where 
1 At the meeting of the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture 
on October 31, it was complained that the selected districts of Bucks, Here- 
fordshire, and Monmouthshire were those in which wages were lower than in 
any other parts of the counties. 
