that the shouts and ribald jokes of the company were heard to a considerable distance, attracting more helpers, who came from far and near, but none were allowed to come after 12 o’clock.  Between 12 and 1 came dinner, with copious libations of ale and cider, which lasted till 2, when reaping was resumed and went on without interruption except from the squabbles of the company till 5, when what were called ‘drinkings’, or more food and drink, were taken into the field and consumed.  After this the corn reaped was bound into sheaves till evening, when after the sport of throwing their reaping hooks at a sheaf which had been set up as a mark for a prize, all proceeded to supper and more ale and cider till the small hours.[609]

No wages were paid at these harvestings, but the unlimited amount of eating and drinking was very expensive, and about this date the practice of using hired labour had largely superseded this old custom.

The close of this period was marked by two Acts of great benefit to farmers:  the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 & 5 Wm. IV, c. 76), which reduced the rates,[610] and marked ’the beginning of a period of slow recovery in the labourer’s standard of life, moral and material, though at first it brought him not a little adversity’[611]; and the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 (6 & 7 Wm. IV, c. 71), which substituted for the tithe paid in kind or the fluctuating commuted tithe, a tithe rent charge equivalent to the market value, on a septennial average, of the exact quantities of wheat, barley, and oats, which made up the legal tithes by the estimate in 1836.  Thus was removed a perpetual source of dispute and antagonism between tithe-payer and tithe-owner.  The system hitherto pursued, moreover, was wasteful.  In exceptionally favourable circumstances the clergy did not receive more than two-thirds of the value of the tithe in kind.  The delays were a frequent source of loss.  In rainy weather, when the farmer desired to get his crops in quickly, he was obliged to shock his crops, give the tithe-owners notice to set out their tithes, and wait for their arrival; in the meantime the crop, perhaps, being badly damaged.[612]

FOOTNOTES: 

[585] Walpole, History of England, i. 161.

[586] Inquiry into Agricultural Distress (1822), p. 40.

[587] Walpole, op. cit. ii. 22.

[588] A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory, 1822.  The Committee on Agricultural Distress found that farmers were paying rent out of capital (Parliamentary Reports.  Committees, v. 71), and that leases fixed on the basis of the high prices of the war meant ruin to the farmer if held to his engagement.

[589] Parliamentary Reports, Committees, ix. 138.

[590] Cobbett, Rural Rides (ed. 1885), i. 3, 16.

[591] Report of the Committee on Agricultural Depression (1822), pp. 3, 4.