464 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
November  23,  1899. 
TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  WAGES. 
A  country  clergyman,  whose  favourite  recreations,  as  described  by 
himself,  are  “visiting  his  parishioners,  grumbling  at  the  weather, 
growing  Apples  and  Potatoes,  and  driving  an  old  horse  as  far  as  he’ll 
go,”  is  sure  to  be  one  whose  opinions  on  rural  life  and  its  different 
phases  are  well  worth  the  hearing. 
Dr.  Jessopp,  of  Seaming,  Norfolk,  is  such  a  one,  and  his  views  and 
comparison  of  the  relative  positions  of  town  and  country  labourers  are 
reviewed  by  the  Hon.  Percy  Wyndham  in  an  able  article  in  the 
October  number  of  the  “  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine.” 
Comparisons  of  actual  wages  paid  in  different  towns  and  in  their 
rural  equivalents  are  adduced  to  show  that,  from  one  end  of  England 
to  the  other,  the  net  earnings  of  the  day  labourer,  after  deducting  rent 
and  rates,  are  no  higher  in  the  town  than  in  the  country.  Two  pairs 
of  cases  from  the  west  country  show  in  one  an  annual  advantage  to 
the  countryman  of  £3  Os.  6d.,  in  the  other  an  advantage  to  the 
townsman  of  £1  7s.  6d. 
As  a  fact  it  is  very  seldom  that  the  young  fellow  of  twenty 
migrating  to  the  town  makes  any  immediate  improvement  in  his 
monetary  position.  A  good  second  waggoner  will  have  been  receiving 
at  least  £20  per  annum  besides  his  board  and  lodging,  and  it  is  not  often 
that  they  start  work  in  the  town  at  more  than  20s.  per  week,  say 
£o2  per  annum.  From  this  must  be  deducted  12s.  per  week  for 
board,  lodging,  and  washing,  leaving  a  balance  of  £20  16s.  as  against 
the  previous  wage  of  £20.  As  he  may  lose  time  from  illness  or 
enforced  holidays  his  net  earnings  may  very  easily  and  probably  be 
less  than  before. 
A  week  or  two  ago  we  were  travelling  by  rail  and  were  joined  at 
a  wayside  station  by  a  youth  of  eighteen  or  so  (apparently).  He  was 
very  full  of  conversation,  and  informed  us  that  he  had  left  his  place — 
t.e.,  situation,  and  thought  of  going  into  the  town.  It  appeared  that 
the  reason  of  his  leaving  his  place  was  his  having  had  a  few  words 
with  his  master  on  some  trivial  matter,  and  the  master  had  very  kindly 
let  him  go.  Now  this  youth  on  his  own  showing  had  left  £20  per 
annum  in  addition  to  board  and  lodging,  and  was  cheerfully  facing 
.own  life  in  anticipation  of  a  wage  of  £52  to  find  himself  in  food  and 
lodging.  A  suggestion  that  the  attractions  of  town  life,  the  theatre 
and  the  music  hall,  were  factors  in  the  case  met  with  a  cheerful 
response  in  the  affirmative ;  and  so  it  is,  the  more  highly  paid  life  of 
the  town  provides  attractions  which  are  lacking  in  the  country,  and 
the  lads  of  the  villages  having  been  educated  to  appreciate  the 
luxuries  of  modern  life  cannot  be  retained  where  the  so-called  “  life  ” 
does  not  exist. 
M  e  fear  that  in  many  country  parishes  the  clergy  have  much  to 
answer  for  in  allowing  their  parishioners  to  become  alienated  from 
the  charms  of  rural  life;  the  fact  that  they  have  not  been  country 
bred  themselves  having  had  much  to  do  with  their  non-appreciation 
of  the  needs  of  a  rural  parish.  But  we  are  running  away  from  our 
practical  subject — viz.,  town  and  country  labour. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  at  the  present  time  labour  is  very 
scarce  in  the  country  districts,  and  that  the  two  chief  causes  which 
attract  the  men  from  the  village  to  the  town  are,  cheap  and 
constant  amusement  in  the  evenings,  and  the  prospect  (not  always 
fulfilled)  of  a  better  living  wage. 
M  hat  can  be  done  to  keep  the  men  at  home  ?  There  appear 
to  be  only  three  antidotes  likely  to  have  any  influence  on  the 
complaint  in  question.  The  first  is  the  payment  of  better  wages 
and  the  certain  conviction  in  the  mind  of  the  labourer  that  he 
cannot  mend  his  position  by  going  to  the  town.  Well  !  The 
current  range  of  agricultural  prices  does  not  give  much  encourage¬ 
ment  to  the  idea  that  higher  wages  may  be  paid ;  in  fact  we  know 
that  the  price  of  labour  has  already  risen  to  a  point  which  presents 
almost  insuperable  difficulty  to  some  of  the  most  enlightened  and 
enterprising  of  farmers. 
The  second  factor  likely  to  keep  men  at  home  in  the  villages 
would  be  the  provision  of  similar  attractions  to  those  met  with  in 
the  towns.  Here,  again,  the  question  of  £  s.  d.  blocks  the  way. 
even  if  it  were  desirable  to  make  a  Capua  of  every  Sweet  Auburn. 
The  third  solution  is  the  certainty  of  a  fairly  good  wage  with 
the  prospect  of  a  small  holding,  leading  up  to  a  larger  one  and 
independence.  The  great  obstacle  to  the  taking  up  of  small  holdings 
has  been  the  uncertainty  of  tenure.  The  labourer,  having  been 
reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  uncertainty ;  having  seen,  either  in  his 
own  case  or  in  that  of  neighbours,  the  arbitrary  movements  of 
household  gods  at  the  whim  of  landlord  or  employer,  is  shy  at 
taking  up  land  whereon  he  will  have  to  gradually  put  together  the 
necessary  homestead,  unless  he  has  such  security  as  absolute  fixity 
of  teuure  alone  can  give  him. 
It  would  appear  to  us  that  there  is  little  prospect  at  present  of 
the  country  being  able  to  keep  its  sons  at  home,  and  the  scarcity  of 
labour  will  still  further  help  to  decrease  the  arable  area.  It  may 
thus  come  about  that  the  three  F.’s,  which  have  been  so  much  talked 
of  by  politicians,  may,  without  any  legislation  whatever,  become  the 
basis  of  a  new  departure  in  the  world  of  agriculture. 
The  landlord,  rather  than  reduce  the  rent  to  the  arable  tenant, 
who,  in  default  of  suitable  labour,  wishes  to  practically  turn  his 
farm  into  a  sheep  run,  may  be  induced  to  cut  the  farm  up  into 
small  holdings ;  but  he  must  either  provide  buildings  (the  expense 
of  which  would  be  prohibitive),  or  give  security  to  the  tenant  who 
would  and  could  provide  them.  This  would  mean  either  a  very  long 
lease,  or  such  compensation  for  buildings  as  would  really  mean  fixity 
of  tenure.  Freedom  of  cultivation  is  now  so  essential  to  small  as 
well  as  large  holdings,  that  the  third  F  may  be  taken  for  granted. 
WORK  ON  THE  HOME  FARM. 
With  Wheat  sowing  completed  and  the  Mangold  crop  taken  up  and 
stored,  all  the  Potatoes  having  been  in  the  pie  for  some  time,  we  are  able 
to  look  round  and  do  many  little  jobs  that  are  put  off  until  a  slack  time. 
Unfortunately  slack  times  on  a  farm  rarely  occur,  and  so  many  of  these 
trivialities  are  postponed  longer  than  they  should  be. 
One  very  necessary  piece  of  work  is  the  gathering  together,  cleaning, 
and  putting  in  shelter  of  the  many  implements,  both  small  and  large,  that 
may  not  be  required  until  spring  or  summer.  In  many  cases  a  coat  of 
paint  will  well  repay  the  cost.  Not  a  month  ago  wre  saw  a  horse  hoe 
standing  between  two  rows  of  Mangold  where  it  had  been  since  mid¬ 
summer.  How  much  better  it  would  have  been  in  the  shed.  We  have 
seeu  harrows  left  reared  up  to  stop  gaps,  but  uneconomical  as  such  a 
practice  was,  the  harrow  was  serving  a  useful  purpose,  whereas  the  horse 
hoe  was  suffering  deterioration  for  nothing. 
All  working  parts  of  machinery  not  in  use  should  have  been  well  oiled 
after  cleaning,  as  they  will  much  more  readily  be  again  fit  for  use  when 
wanted.  Ploughing  down  the  fallows  is  now  the  chief  work  of  the  horses. 
The  chilled  plough  is  not  only  the  best  for  this  work,  leaving  the  land 
looser  and  more  open  to  frost  action  than  the  ordinary  plough  does, 
but  the  work  is  more  economically  done.  The  double  or  treble  furrow 
ploughs  will  do  the  work  at  perhaps  as  small  a  cost,  but  they  will  not 
turn  as  deep  a  furrow  neither  will  they  so  thoroughly  cut  the  Thistles. 
Sheep  are  doing  well,  but  the  prospect  of  the  root  supply  does  not 
improve.  The  mild  weather  is  keeping  cattle  out  in  the  pastures.  The 
animals  are  doing  little  good,  but  every  week  of  time  spent  shortens  the 
winter  and  brightens  the  outlook. 
Barley  has  fallen  so  much  in  price  that  it  now  appears  to  be 
cheaper  than  cake  as  a  food  for  cattle,  and  we  have  little  doubt  that 
large  quantities  will  be  ground  and  used  to  mix  with  cut  straw.  With 
treacle,  barleymeal  and  malt  culms  or  grains  and  a  plentiful  supply  of 
straw  there  should  be  no  anxiety  about  the  growing  stock.  Butter  keeps 
a  fair  price,  and  eggs  are  dear  because  there  are  none,  but  fowls  are  cheap 
and  will  remain  so  as  long  as  pheasants  are  so  plentiful. 
The  Colour  of  Milk. — The  colour  of  milk  is  due  to  the  butter-fat 
which  exists  in  it  in  a  state  of  suspension.  The  rest  of  the  solid  matter 
contained  in  butter — on  an  average  of  about  8  per  cent. — exists  in  a  state 
of  solution.  The  butter-fat  of  the  milk  is  present  in  the  form  of  very 
small  globules,  and  it  has  been  advanced  by  such  a  well-known  authority 
as  Fleischmann  that  if  it  were  possible  to  remove  all  the  butter-fat 
globules  from  milk  the  remaining  liquid  would  be  almost  colourless  and 
transparent.  This  is  the  reason  why  very  poor  milk  is  so  apparently 
“  thin  ”  and  watery. 
