The Farm Labourers of England and Wales. 665 
has been prepared after a careful and prolonged study of the 
reports. 
A good many of the estimates of average earnings are taken 
from farmers’ books, the actual weekly payments to certain 
men being counted up, and the value of payments in kind, 
including cottages, added. In most cases the allowance for a 
cottage is the rent of a similar cottage in the same district, and 
in some instances only Is. a week is allowed. Now, as Is. a 
week is a nominal rent, and not half the commercial value of a 
cottage in any parish, this plan of allowing for rent-free cottages 
makes the men’s earnings, for districts in which it was adopted, 
lower than they should be to compare fairly with the earnings 
of workmen engaged in other industries than farming. In my 
own estimates I adopted 2s. a week as the value of a cottage in 
all cases, seeing that fully that rent would have to be paid for a 
cottage let commercially in a village. 
In taking notes from farmers’ labour-books I have some- 
times been surprised at the number of small extra payments 
which would never be thought of when making an estimate of a 
labourer’s average earnings apart from the books. For this and 
other reasons I am persuaded that the average earnings are 
more likely to be under-estimated than over-estimated. But the 
lowest averages are not given in the reports, as a rule, any more 
than the highest, and for day labourers loss of time sometimes 
counts for a great deal. All the men represented in the tables are 
assumed to be in regular employment the year round, although 
some of them may lose time in wet weather or through illness. 
When average earnings are obtained from farmers’ books, such 
loss of time is allowed for, but in most other cases probably not. 
The plan of boarding most of the men on working days in 
the farmhouses, even when they dwell in cottages and have to 
provide food for their families, appears to be peculiar to Wales. 
A poor dietary for the men who are thus boarded, including 
the hired servants, also appears to be peculiar to the Principality 
or to parts of it. Farmers who say that they can feed their men 
for a week at 3s. to 4s. 6d. a head must either make bad calcu- 
lations or keep a very miserable table. In England the allow- 
ance to a foreman who boards men for a farmer is usually 8s. to 
10s., and the meals supplied in the farmhouses are most liberal, 
often including meat of some kind three times a day. 
With respect to the earnings of shepherds, they vary 
immensely, not only in different counties, but also in the same 
parish, in accordance with the sizes of flocks. No evidence is 
given as to the earnings of this class of men in some reports, 
and in some of the rest the information is not sufficient to 
[continued on p. 670 . 
