uous rattle of the mowing machine, yet the hay smells as
sweetly as ever. While the mowing machine, the haymaking machine, and
horse rake give the farmer the power of using the sunshine, when it comes,
to the best purpose, they are not without an effect upon the labouring
population.

Just as in corn districts, machinery has not reduced the actual number of
hands employed, but has made the work come in spells or rushes; so in the
meadows the haymaking is shortened. The farmer waits till good weather is
assured for a few days. Then on goes his mowing machine and levels the
crop of an entire field in no time. Immediately a whole crowd of labourers
are required for making the hay and getting it when ready on the waggons.
Under the old system the mowers usually got drunk about the third day of
sunshine, and the work came to a standstill. When it began to rain they
recovered themselves, and slashed away vigorously--when it was not wanted.
The effect of machinery has been much the same as on corn lands, with the
addition that fewer women are now employed in haymaking. Those that are
employed are much better paid.

The hamlets of grass districts are not, as a rule, at all populous. There
really are fewer people, and at the same time the impression is increased
by the scattered position of the dwellings. Instead of a great central
village there are three or four small hamlets a mile or two apart, and
solitary groups of cottages near farmhouses. One result of this is, that
allotment gardens are not so common, for the sufficient reason that, if a
field were set apart for the purpose, the tenants of the plots would have
to walk so far to the place that it would scarcely pay them. Gardens are
consequently attached to most cottages, and answer the same purpose; some
have small orchards as well.

The cottagers have also more firewood than is the case in some arable
districts on account of the immense quantity of wood annually cut in
copses and double-mound hedges. The rougher part becomes the labourers'
perquisite, and they can also purchase wood at a nominal rate from their
employers. This more than compensates for the absence of gleaning. In
addition, quantities of wood are collected from hedges and ditches and
under the trees--dead boughs that have fallen or been broken off by a
gale.

The aspect of a grazing district presents a general resemblance to that of
a dairy one, with the difference that in the grazing everything seems