arp frost is so far an advantage to the tenant
of meadow land that he can cart manure without cutting and poaching the
turf, and even without changing the ordinary for the extra set of
broad-wheels on the cart. In the next meadow the hedge-cutters are busy,
their hands fenced with thick gloves to turn aside the thorns.

Near by are the hay-ricks and cow-pen where a metallic rattling sound
rises every now and then--the bull in the shed moving his neck and
dragging his chain through the ring. More than one of the hay-ricks have
been already half cut away, for the severe winter makes the cows hungry,
and if their yield of milk is to be kept up they must be well fed, so that
the foggers have plenty to do. If the dairy, as is most probably the case,
sends the milk to London, they have still more, because then a regular
supply has to be maintained, and for that a certain proportion of other
food has to be prepared in addition to the old-fashioned hay. The new
system, indeed, has led to the employment of more labour out-of-doors, if
less within. An extra fogger has to be put on, not only because of the
food, but because the milking has to be done in less time--with a
despatch, indeed, that would have seemed unnatural to the old folk.
Besides which the milk carts to and fro the railway station require
drivers, whose time--as they have to go some miles twice a day--is pretty
nearly occupied with their horses and milk tins. So much is this the case
that even in summer they can scarcely be spared to do a few hours
haymaking.

The new system, therefore, of selling the milk instead of making butter
and cheese is advantageous to the labourer by affording more employment in
grass districts. It is steady work, too, lasting the entire year round,
and well paid. The stock of cows in such cases is kept up to the very
highest that the land will carry, which, again, gives more work. Although
the closing of the cheese lofts and the superannuation of the churn has
reduced the number of female servants in the house, yet that is more than
balanced by the extra work without. The cottage families, it is true, lose
the buttermilk which some farmers used to allow them; but wages are
certainly better.

There has been, in fact, a general stir and movement in dairy districts
since the milk selling commenced, which has been favourable to labour. A
renewed life and energy has been visible on farms where for generations
things had gone on in the same s