The customary mode of employ being by the day, and not by the job, is the chief reason of this want of exertion. House servants have also raised their wages, near one half, since the above period. Boys, from fourteen to seventeen years of age, have two guineas, when formerly they got but one. Five reapers, and one to bind, can cut an acre of middling corn in a day. Heavy iron work stands in four-pence per pound, and fine work five pence.
Open stables are too much in use still, the horses being very apt to kick one another.
Thatching with straw, and securing the covering with netting of straw ropes, is particularly well done in this country. There are a few estates well supplied with offices and commodious barns. The mode of fencing, except on a few farms, is by banks built of sods or square spits of earth, to the heighth of five or six feet, which is a work at which the labourers here are remarkably expert. These fences stand in need of frequent repairs, the cattle and sheep climbing over them, either to eat the grass which grows on the hedge or to get into better pasture. Dry stone walls, where stones can be procured at a low rate, are used, and are considered the best fencing, as they last a long time, and are easily repaired.