ON THE RUBAI. ECONOMY

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The two foregoing tables present a tolerably accurate view,of the rise in the value of labour, in this part of the kingdomwithin the last twenty years ; and as prices had been advan-cing for several years previous to 1790, there cannot be theleast doubt, taking one kind of labour with another, thatsince the year 1780, the value of every kind connected withhusbandry, has risen at least 100 per cent. It might at firstview be supposed, that those servants who are paid in kind,have not had the same advance upon their wages, as the otherlabourers in agriculture; but when the rise in price, with theadditional quantity, and superior quality, of the grain, is ta-ken into consideration, with the increased price of the produceof a cow, together also with the additional quantity of thatproduce, in consequence of the animal being better maintain-ed, (as a hind’s cow, forty years ago, on account of her po-verty, seldom had a calf oftener than once in two years), itwill then be evident, that the rise in the wages of this classof servants, has at least kept full pace with that of any otherdescription of labourers.

At the same time, as the rise in the value of labour hasbeen pretty uniform throughout the kingdom, the followingTable, extracted from the Survey of Ayrshire, will give someidea of the rates of labour, during the course of last centuryand at present, with the gradual rise in periods of twentyyears.