DOI article:
Perkins, John A.: Harvest technology and labour supply in Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire 1750-1850, 1
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49000#0051
HARVEST TECHNOLOGY ■ LABOUR SUPPLY
49
reaped with the sickle, and the other half
mown with the scythe’. In the wheat-harvest
of Holderness and the Vale of York in the late
1840s it was said that ‘the use of the sickle
nearly equals that of the scythe’. But in the
fens of Lincolnshire, where area drainage pro-
jects commencing in the late eighteenth cen-
tury resulted in an enormous acreage of perio-
dically-inundated pasture land being conver-
ted to permanent tillage and cereal-growing,
perhaps the majority of the corn-harvest was
gathered by the sickle as late as the 1850s.
(Tuke 37-38; LAO Yarborough Mss 11/12, 1
Oct. 1838; British Husbandry II 139; Legard
in)-
At least in the opinion of the farmers, arable
farming in most districts of Lincolnshire and
the East Riding, from the later eighteenth cen-
tury to the 1850s, was characterized by a
growing excess of demand for labour, espe-
cially during harvest. Of Lincolnshire in the
1830s, an assistant poor law commissioner tes-
tified that the farmers, who formed the major-
ity of the boards of guardians, ‘assured one
they find great difficulty in procuring a suffi-
cient number of labourers to perform the
work required upon the land’ (Publ. Rec. Off.
MH. 12. 6738, 22 July 1837). Yet there would
appear to be grounds for doubting that, in
fact, a shortage of harvest labour was a normal
condition of farming in either of the two coun-
ties , or that the supply was steadily ‘deteriorat-
ing’ from the standpoint of the farmers over
the course of the first half of the nineteenth
century. There was also no definite correla-
tion between the districts in which complaints
of shortages of harvest workers were most
frequently made and those in which the scythe
was earliest and most widely adopted as a
corn-harvesting implement. Partners in both
the fens and the uplands claimed to suffer
from the most serious shortage of labour. Yet
the former was the last and the latter was the
first farming region to adopt the scythe; and
the claylands, from which such complaints
were rarely heard, employed the scythe as a
corn-harvesting implement earlier and more
widely than the fens.
As a consequence, in particular, of vari-
ations from year to year in climatic conditions
causing wide variations in the bulk of the ce-
real crops, it is not possible to identify any
trend in the demand for harvest labour over
the course of the first half of the nineteenth
century. In 1841 a Lincoln mechanic esti-
mated that the average area of wheat cut by a
harvest worker in a day ranged from half an
acre during a “heavy” harvest to two-thirds of
an acre during a “light” harvest. According to
this estimate, therefore, random variations in
the bulk of straw to be gathered during harvest
could account for a difference of up to 33 per
cent in the volume of labour required.
Theoretically, and to some extent in practice,
the additional demand for labour during a
“heavy” harvest could be met by prolonging
the harvest period; and according to the me-
chanic, ‘a heavy harvest lasts six, and a light
only four weeks’ (LRSM 30 July 1841). But
the resulting overlap of harvest with other
essential operations to be performed on farms,
and the increased risk of rain spoiling the
grain, motivated farmers wherever possible to
employ extra labour to gather “heavy” crops.
The fortuitous timing of harvest, and of
other agricultural activities of summer and
early autumn, could have a crucial effect upon
the market for harvest labour. In 1839, for
example, haysel in Lincolnshire was delayed
and coincided with a late harvest, and the
result was an exceptionally heavy demand for
labour during the harvest period. Early in Sep-
tember in the Lincolnshire harvest, according
to one report:
Labourers are not in sufficient numbers to
carry out the work in hand; so much being
cut, so much ready to cut, and so little carried.
Very little good hay has been got any where,
49
reaped with the sickle, and the other half
mown with the scythe’. In the wheat-harvest
of Holderness and the Vale of York in the late
1840s it was said that ‘the use of the sickle
nearly equals that of the scythe’. But in the
fens of Lincolnshire, where area drainage pro-
jects commencing in the late eighteenth cen-
tury resulted in an enormous acreage of perio-
dically-inundated pasture land being conver-
ted to permanent tillage and cereal-growing,
perhaps the majority of the corn-harvest was
gathered by the sickle as late as the 1850s.
(Tuke 37-38; LAO Yarborough Mss 11/12, 1
Oct. 1838; British Husbandry II 139; Legard
in)-
At least in the opinion of the farmers, arable
farming in most districts of Lincolnshire and
the East Riding, from the later eighteenth cen-
tury to the 1850s, was characterized by a
growing excess of demand for labour, espe-
cially during harvest. Of Lincolnshire in the
1830s, an assistant poor law commissioner tes-
tified that the farmers, who formed the major-
ity of the boards of guardians, ‘assured one
they find great difficulty in procuring a suffi-
cient number of labourers to perform the
work required upon the land’ (Publ. Rec. Off.
MH. 12. 6738, 22 July 1837). Yet there would
appear to be grounds for doubting that, in
fact, a shortage of harvest labour was a normal
condition of farming in either of the two coun-
ties , or that the supply was steadily ‘deteriorat-
ing’ from the standpoint of the farmers over
the course of the first half of the nineteenth
century. There was also no definite correla-
tion between the districts in which complaints
of shortages of harvest workers were most
frequently made and those in which the scythe
was earliest and most widely adopted as a
corn-harvesting implement. Partners in both
the fens and the uplands claimed to suffer
from the most serious shortage of labour. Yet
the former was the last and the latter was the
first farming region to adopt the scythe; and
the claylands, from which such complaints
were rarely heard, employed the scythe as a
corn-harvesting implement earlier and more
widely than the fens.
As a consequence, in particular, of vari-
ations from year to year in climatic conditions
causing wide variations in the bulk of the ce-
real crops, it is not possible to identify any
trend in the demand for harvest labour over
the course of the first half of the nineteenth
century. In 1841 a Lincoln mechanic esti-
mated that the average area of wheat cut by a
harvest worker in a day ranged from half an
acre during a “heavy” harvest to two-thirds of
an acre during a “light” harvest. According to
this estimate, therefore, random variations in
the bulk of straw to be gathered during harvest
could account for a difference of up to 33 per
cent in the volume of labour required.
Theoretically, and to some extent in practice,
the additional demand for labour during a
“heavy” harvest could be met by prolonging
the harvest period; and according to the me-
chanic, ‘a heavy harvest lasts six, and a light
only four weeks’ (LRSM 30 July 1841). But
the resulting overlap of harvest with other
essential operations to be performed on farms,
and the increased risk of rain spoiling the
grain, motivated farmers wherever possible to
employ extra labour to gather “heavy” crops.
The fortuitous timing of harvest, and of
other agricultural activities of summer and
early autumn, could have a crucial effect upon
the market for harvest labour. In 1839, for
example, haysel in Lincolnshire was delayed
and coincided with a late harvest, and the
result was an exceptionally heavy demand for
labour during the harvest period. Early in Sep-
tember in the Lincolnshire harvest, according
to one report:
Labourers are not in sufficient numbers to
carry out the work in hand; so much being
cut, so much ready to cut, and so little carried.
Very little good hay has been got any where,