On an average the wheat crop in England is about a ton for every acre sown, or more than double the average for the United States or Canada. But wheat is not sown here except on land that suits it; and the average would soon go down, if wheat were sown on land that is less suitable. These people seemed to think that there would always be a ton an acre, however barren the land--or several tons an acre, if ‘Science’ were invoked. And they also seemed to think that wheat alone is ‘food,’ although our forefathers ate barley, oats and rye. These can be grown on land that is not good enough for wheat; and our island might perhaps grow food enough for the whole population--as these people said it should--but the population would have to be content with something less luxurious than wheaten bread.
They also put the claims of labour very high: unreasonably high, I thought. When a labourer comes to a farm, he finds fields fenced and drained and ready for cultivation, barns and stables, carts and ploughs and every needful implement, horses and food for the horses, and manures and seeds for the land. It is surely an abuse of language to talk of the crop as the produce of his labour. Suppose the crop fails utterly, as it sometimes will, from bad weather or other causes quite beyond control. As there is no crop, there is no produce of his labour; and (logically) he ought not to get anything at all. By accepting a fixed wage, he insures against that risk.
A maximum wage for agricultural labourers was fixed by the magistrates for Devon at Quarter Sessions, 13 April 1795. They were empowered to do this by the Acts of 5 Elizabeth and 1 James I, and “having made due enquiry of the wages of the labourers in husbandry in this county, and having had respect to the price of provisions and other articles necessary for the maintenance and support of such labourers at this time,” they made an order that “all manner of men labourers in husbandry shall take, with the meat and drink accustomed to be given in each district of the county respectively, the sum of fourteen pence per day and not above.” But piece-work was excepted--“all labourers in husbandry shall take by the great or task work as they shall agree.”