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 rid of
the slackers. Inefficiency and slacking are often due to a man's
enfeebled mental and physical condition, owing to neglect in his
bringing up as a child, or to insufficient or unwholesome food
provided by an improvident wife in his home.

I was fortunate in meeting with very few of these degenerates, but I
remember one tall, delicate-looking man who seemed unable to apply
either his strength or his attention to his work. He was denounced by
the foreman under whom he worked as not only useless, but "the
starvenest wretch as ever I see," intended to convey the impression,
and confirming my own conclusion, that cold and hunger were really the
cause of his inability to render a fair day's work.

I remember, too, when some elderly women, with a younger one, were
hay-making, one of the old ladies, dragging the big "heel-rake" behind
the waggon in course of loading--always rather a tough job--tried to
induce the younger woman to take her place with, "Here, Sally, thee
take a turn at it; thee be a better 'ooman nor I be." My bailiff,
overhearing, at once interposed: "Be she a better 'ooman than thee,
Betsy, ov a Saturday night [pay-night]?"

Hard-and-fast laws and fixed prices for agricultural labour will be
found very difficult to maintain as to piecework; no wage board can
fix just prices, because conditions are so variable. Of two men