cance to a
peculiarity in the field itself, or its position with reference to its
surroundings, and it has always been a hobby of mine to trace their
derivations. The word "Signhurst" presented no clue to its origin
except the Anglo-Saxon "burst," signifying a wood, but there was no
appearance or tradition of any wood having ever occupied the spot, and
the land was so good, and so well situated as to aspect, that it was
unlikely to have been such a site, even in Anglo-Saxon days. I
stumbled upon a passage in May's _History of Evesham_ which mentioned
the "Seyne House," meaning "Sane House," the equivalent of the modern
word "sanatorium," and I saw at once the origin of the corrupted word
"Signhurst"--the field near the Seyne House.

Wages are, of course, the crowning reward of the working-man's week;
throughout the whole of my time 15s. a week was the recognized pay for
six full summer days--"a very little to receive, but a good deal to
pay away," as a neighbour once said. During harvest, and at piecework,
more money was earned, and it always pleased me that I could pay much
better prices for piece-work among the hops than for piece-work at
wheat-hoeing or on similar unremunerative crops. The reason is
obvious: the hoeing of an acre of wheat, a crop which might possibly
return a matter of L10 per acre, takes no more manual effort than the
hoeing of an acre of hops, where a gross return of L70 or L80 per acre
is not unusual, and is sometimes considerably exceeded.

As wages must eventually always depend upon prices of produce raised
by the labour for which such wages are expended, when the agricultural
labourer buys his bread he is only buying back his own labour in a
concrete form plus the other relative expenses on the farm, and the
cost of milling, baking, and distribution, so that when he gets a high
price for his labour he must expect to pay a high price for his food;
and when the price of food is reduced the price of his labour also
falls. Here, again, the rudiments of economics, taught in the schools,
would conduce to his understanding the position, and the eradication
of discontent.

It is impossible, economically speaking, to defend the system of equal
wages to the most capable and industrious men on the one hand and to
inefficient slackers on the other; and as a graduated scale of
payment, according to results, is not practicable without arousing
ill-feeling and jealousy, the farmer's only remedy is to get r