decrease in the cash
transferred from the pocket of the agriculturist to that of the labourer
becomes something considerable. The same percentage on a hundred farms
would amount to a large sum. In this manner the fact of the corn-producing
farmer being out of spirits with his profession reacts upon the corn
village. There is no positive distress, but there is just a sense that
there are more hands about than necessary. Yet at the same moment there
are not hands enough; a paradox which may be explained in a measure by the
introduction of machinery.

As already stated, machinery in the field does not reduce the number of
men employed. But they are employed in a different way. The work all comes
now in rushes. By the aid of the reaping machine acres are levelled in a
day, and the cut corn demands the services of a crowd of men and women all
at once, to tie it up in sheaves. Should the self-binders come into
general use, and tie the wheat with wire or string at the moment of
cutting it, the matter of labour will be left much in the same stage. A
crowd of workpeople will be required all at once to pick up the sheaves,
or to cart them to the rick; and the difference will lie in this, that
while now the crowd are employed, say twelve hours, then they will be
employed only nine. Just the same number--perhaps more--but for less time.
Under the old system, a dozen men worked all the winter through, hammering
away with their flails in the barns. Now the threshing-machine arrives,
and the ricks are threshed in a few days. As many men are wanted (and at
double the wages) to feed the machine, to tend the 'elevator' carrying up
the straw to make the straw rick, to fetch water and coal for the engine,
to drive it, &c. But instead of working for so many months, this rush
lasts as many days.

Much the same thing happens all throughout arable agriculture--from the
hoeing to the threshing--a troop are wanted one day, scarcely anybody the
next. There is, of course, a steady undercurrent of continuous work for a
certain fixed number of hands; but over and above this are the periodical
calls for extra labour, which of recent years, from the high wages paid,
have been so profitable to the labourers. But when the agriculturist draws
in his investments, when he retrenches his expenditure, and endeavours, as
far as practicable, to confine it to his regular men, then the
intermittent character of the extra work puts a strain upon the rest. They