It is, in fact, ridiculous for townspeople, lawyers, and manufacturers to legislate for the labour of the farm; they do not understand that indoor labour in the workshop or factory, under regular conditions and with unvarying materials, is totally different from labour out of doors, in constantly changing conditions of season, weather, and the resulting crops dealt with.  An old maxim of the Worcestershire labourer who, without a fixed place, took on piece-work at specially busy times, will confirm this:  “Go to a good farmer for wheat-hoeing, and to a bad one for harvesting.”  I may explain that the fields of the good farmer are clean and nearly free from weeds, so that hoeing is a comparatively light job; but the same, or nearly the same, price per acre is paid by the bad farmer, whose corn is overrun with weeds, entailing much more time and harder work.  On the other hand, the good farmer’s wheat crop is much heavier than that of the bad, and, the prices for cutting being again very similar, more money per diem can be earned at harvest on the farm of the latter.

It is a sound old Worcestershire saying that “the time to hoe is when there are no weeds”—­apparently a paradox, but the meaning is simple:  when no weeds are to be seen above ground there are always millions of tiny seedlings just below the surface ready to increase and multiply wonderfully with a shower of rain; if attacked at the seedling stage, these can be slaughtered in battalions, with far greater ease and efficacy than when they become deep-rooted and established, and dominate the crop.

I have heard of farmers to whom pay-night was a sore trial; one such was frequently known to mount his horse and gallop away just before his men appeared:  how he settled eventually I do not know.  Some farmers will pay out of doors on their rounds, having a rooted objection to business of any kind under a roof; and one small farmer, I was told, always passed the cash to his men behind his back so that he might not have the agony of parting actually before his eyes.

A labourer is supposed to come to work in his master’s time and go home in his own, thus sharing the necessary loss, and, as a rule, they are fairly punctual; but one defaulter in this particular will waste many moments of a whole gang working together, as it seems to be etiquette not to begin till they are all present.  I have often heard, too, sarcastic comparisons made between the day-man and “the any-time-of-day man.”

The cottagers have their feuds, and the use of joint wash-houses or baking-ovens between two or more adjoining cottages is a frequent source.  I have had excited wives of tenants coming to me at unseasonable hours to settle these differences, and I found it a very difficult business to reconcile the disputants.  I could only visit the locus in quo and arrange fixed and separate days and regulations; but though the wisdom of Solomon may administer justice in a dispute, it is impossible to ensure a really peaceful solution that will endure.