Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

PREPARING THE LAND. 15 The wages paid to such a man are generally made up by privileges and per- quisites of old standing, and may be indicated somewhat as follows : Weekly wage 14s., equal to ^36 8s. per annum; harvest—overtime, etc.—money at Michael- mas, £5 ; house and good garden, Z4; is. every journey with corn, etc., say 20, £\ ; fuel carted, say, 10s.: in all, ^46 18s. His wage averages 18s. a week, which is equiva- lent to at least 25s. in a town. The work of a farm is continuous through being in permanent pasture, temporary pas- ture, root crops, fodder crops, etc. It includes over 51,000 acres of hops, 73,000 acres of fruit, and 308,000 acres of bare fallow. The capital employed is enor- mous, and may be roughly estimated at ^227,000,000, while the amount paid in wages has been estimated at ^30,000,000 per annum. There are at least 1,000,000 men, women, and boys employed in agri- cultural pursuits in Great Britain who not cut the year, and reflects the seasons as they pass. It is fascinating, poetical, scriptural, classical, and idyllic. It has been less in- fluenced and modified by modern inventions than any other industry; and remains as an illustration of cultivated and regulated Nature. Agriculture is neither an art nor a science, nor is it a trade. It is an occupation and a craft. Its maxims are a lore, rather than set rules, and must always be altered according to circumstances. Britain may be viewed as one farm extending' from county to county, interrupted by towns it is true, but surrounding them like the ocean surrounds an archipelago of islands. If we view our farming in this way we may grasp its wide extent and endless variety. Great Britain possesses a total area of 32,437,389 acres of cultivated land, of which 7,325,408 acres are under corn, the rest only cultivate the ground, but attend to 1,500,000 horses, 6,805,000 cattle, 26,500,000 sheep, and 2,381,000 pigs, besides countless poultry. Such is John Bull’s farm. Let us glance at the various operations which this enormous area necessitates. I purposely laid stress on the ploughmen, because the plough is the principal instru- ment for preparing land. Harrows, rollers, cultivators, and drills are all employed, but the principal act of cultivation is the breaking up of the land, either by horse or steam ploughs, and steam cultivators. The plough, like the spade, turns over the soil and exposes it to the winter’s frost, to the air, and to changes of temperature. The implement has been improved, but retains its more primitive form and function. The single-furrow plough is mostly employed, and one man and two horses will turn over one acre in one day, although the avciage