12 AUGUST 1899, Page 12

RURAL DEPOPULATION.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Agricultural labour is scarce in most parts of the country ; but the writer of "The Future of Hodge" exagge- rates enormously when he says that "there are no men left under fifty who can do any manner of field work." If there is a single parish in the country of which this is true, which I doubt, it is certainly quite exceptional. My experience is not small, and I have never been in a parish in which some young labourers were not seen working on the land.—I am, Sir, &c.,