do not find so much to do, the pay is insensibly decreasing, and they
obtain, less casual employment meantime.

In the olden times a succession of bad harvests caused sufferings
throughout the whole of England. Somewhat in like manner, though in a
greatly modified degree, the difficulties of the arable agriculturist at
the present day press upon the corn villages. In a time when the
inhabitants saw the farmers, as they believed, flourishing and even
treading on the heels of the squire, the corn villagers, thinking that the
farmer was absolutely dependent upon them, led the van of the agitation
for high wages. Now, when the force of circumstances has compressed wages
again, they are both to submit. But discovering by slow degrees that no
organisation can compel, or create a demand for labour at any price, there
are now signs on the one hand of acquiescence, and on the other of partial
emigration.

Thus the comparative density of the population in arable districts is at
once a blessing and a trouble. It is not the 'pranks' of the farmers that
have caused emigration, or threats of it. The farmer is unable to pay high
wages, the men will not accept a moderate reduction, and the idle crowd,
in effect, tread on each other's heels. Pressure of that kind, and to that
extent, is limited to a few localities only. The majority have sufficient
common sense to see their error. But it is in arable districts that
agitation takes its extreme form. The very number of the population gives
any movement a vigour and emphasis that is wanting where there may be as
much discontent but fewer to exhibit it. That populousness has been in the
past of the greatest assistance to the agriculturist, and there is no
reason why it should not be so in the future, for it does not by any means
follow that because agriculture is at present depressed it will always be
so.

Let the months roll by and then approach the same village along the same
road under the summer sun. The hedges, though low, are green, and bear the
beautiful flowers of the wild convolvulus. Trees that were scarcely
observed before, because bare of leaves, now appear, and crowds of birds,
finches and sparrows, fly up from the corn. The black swifts wheel
overhead, and the white-breasted swallows float in the azure. Over the
broad plain extends a still broader roof of the purest blue--the landscape
is so open that the sky seems as broad again as in the enclosed
countries--wide, limitless