Page:The Laboring Classes of England.djvu/45

 AGRICULTURAL LABORERS OF KENT, SURREY AND SUSSEX.

The reader's attention is called in this letter to the condition of the agricultural laborers of the counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. I may here remark that I have resided in various parts of these counties, and superintended one estate of about twenty acres of land, and that many of the facts here related have come under my own observation.

The agriculture of these counties differs in many respects from that of other districts in England. These counties present a great variety of external features, when taken separately; but when collected and compared together, they exhibit a remarkable unity and sameness. The great formation of the wealden clay, the sand and the chalk, belong to each and all. This large and central tract of country is girt with a belt of chalk hills, a fringe of sand forms the union between the chalk and the wealden.

The employment of women is not so varied and promiscuous in these as in other counties of England. Generally speaking, there are few grain-growing or stock-rearing districts; hence corn, hay, turnip and potato work, is by no means common. Occasionally we find them at the hay-harvest, picking stones from the meadow land, dropping beans, or hoeing turnips, but very rarely at reaping, or potato lifting. The winter work is performed by the men and boys kept on the farms. The chief employment of the women is in the hop gardens and orchards, and in the former there is continuous work for the greater part of the year.