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 his labour … of food than the other members of the family, including in the poorer districts nearly all the meat and bacon.… The quantity of food obtained by the wife and also by the children at the period of rapid growth, is in many cases, in almost every county, deficient, and particularly in nitrogen.” The male and female servants living with the farmers themselves are sufficiently nourished. Their number fell from 288,277 in 1851, to 204,962 in 1861. “The labour of women in the fields,” says Dr. Smith, “whatever may be its disadvantages,… is under present circumstances of great advantage to the family, since it adds that amount of income which … provides shoes and clothing and pays the rent, and thus enables the family to be better fed.” One of the most remarkable results of the inquiry was that the agricultural labourer of England, as compared with other parts of the United Kingdom, “is considerably the worst fed,” as the appended table shows:

Quantities of Carbon and Nitrogen weekly consumed by an average agricultural adult.