lying-in wards. Such an institution as has been
suggested would be gladly welcomed by the agricultural poor. Most
cottages have but two bedrooms, some only one; a better class of cottage
is now being gradually erected with three, but even in these the third
is very small. Now, take the case of a labouring man with seven or eight
children, and living in a cottage with two bedrooms, and whose wife is
confined; and let it be remembered that large families are common
amongst this class. The wife must certainly have one room to herself and
her attendant. The father, then, and his children must crowd into the
other, or sleep as they can on the ground-floor. In the case of nearly
grown-up children the overcrowding is a serious matter. The relief
afforded by a lying-in hospital would be immense; and the poor woman
herself would be restored to her family with her health firmly
re-established, whereas now she often lingers in a sickly state for
months.

In the soft, warm summer-time, when the midsummer hum of the myriads of
insects in the air sheds a drowsy harmony over the tree-tops, the
field-faring woman goes out to haymaking, and leaves her baby in the
shade by the hedge-side. A wooden sheepcage, turned upside down and
filled with new-made hay, forms not at all a despicable cradle; and here
the little thing lies on its back and inhales the fresh pure air, and
feels the warmth of the genial sun, cheered from time to time by visits
from its busy mother. Perhaps this is the only true poetry of the
hayfield, so much talked of and praised. The mother works with her rake,
or with a shorter, smaller prong; and if it is a large farm, the women
are kept as much as possible together, for their strength and skill
will not allow them to work at the same pace as the men, and if they
work in company the one hinders the other. A man can do the work of two
women, and do it better in every way, besides being capable of the
heavier tasks of pitching, cock-making, &c., which the women cannot
manage. Before the haymaking machines and horse-rakes came into vogue,
it was not uncommon to see as many as twenty women following each other
in _echelon_, turning a "wallow," or shaking up the green swathes left
by the mowers. Farmers were obliged to employ them, but were never
satisfied with their work, which was the dearest they paid for. Somehow,
there was no finish to it. Large numbers of women still work in the
hayfield, but they are not used in gan