, Sussex, Warwick,
and the East Riding of York; the grass section, or western group,
included the remaining counties.

[683] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1894), xvi. (1), App. B.
ii.

[684] Ibid. App. B. iii.

[685] Ibid. (1895), xvi. 169.

[686] Ibid. p. 164.

[687] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1895), xvi. 187-8.

[688] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (2nd ser.), xxiv. 538

[689] Ibid. (1894), p. 681.

[690] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 22. Cf. p.
319 n.

[691] Ibid. pp. 30-1.

[692] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 31.

[693] Ibid. p. 37:

NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS
IN ENGLAND AND WALES.

1871. 1881. 1891. 1901.

996,642 890,174 798,912 595,702

The figures for 1901 are from Summary Tables, _Parliamentary Blue
Book_ (C, d. 1, 523), p. 202, Table xxxvi.

[694] According to the Report of the Royal Commission on Labour,
1893-4, the labourer was 'better fed, better dressed, his education
and language improved, his amusements less gross, his cottage
generally improved, though generally on small estates there were many
bad ones still'.--_Parliamentary Reports_, 1893, xxxv. Index 5 et seq.

[695] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 53, 85. Sir
Robert Giffen suggested that the decline in the price of wheat pay be
partly attributed to the great increase in the supply and consumption
of meat.

[696] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. App. iii.
Table viii. From an examination of the accounts of seventy-seven
farms, the average expenditure on labour was found to be 31.4 per
cent. of the total outlay.

[697] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 106. But see
above, p. 271.

[698] 59 & 60 Vict., c. 16; I Edw. VII, c. 13.

[699] _Rural England_, ii. 539. Yet the census returns of 1871, 1881,
and 1891 gave no support to the idea that _young_ men were leaving
agriculture for the towns. See _Parl. Reports_ (1893), xxxviii. (2)
33.

[700] The author speaks from information derived from answers to
questions addressed to landowners, farmers, and agents in many parts
of England, to whom he is greatly indebted.

[701] It is, however, a fallacy to assume, as is nearly always done,
that the ordinary farm labourer, at all events of the old type, is
unskilled. A good man, who can plough well, thatch, hedge, ditch, and
do the innumerable tasks required on a farm efficiently, is a much
mo