[Footnote 425: Aikin, _ibid._, p. 47: “On the dairy farms (in Cheshire) one woman servant is kept to every ten cows, who is employed in winter in spinning and other household business, but in milking is assisted by all the other servants of the farm.”] This view is substantiated in the writings of Dr. Gaskell, which are of particular importance in regard to the question under consideration, as expressing the views of a man who intensely disliked the factory system, and who naturally was inclined to present the system which it displaced in as favourable a light as possible.[426] [Footnote 426: Dr. Gaskell’s views are contained in _The Manufacturing Population of England_ (1833) and _Artisans and Machinery_ (1836), the latter being a reprint of the former with additions.] He distinguished between three classes in the country districts who were affected by the transition in industry: the yeomen or small freeholders who apparently were entirely engaged in agriculture; a superior class of artisans, primarily engaged in manufacturing, but who commonly rented some land as an accessory; a secondary or inferior class of artisans entirely dependent upon manufacturing.[427] [Footnote 427: “The great body of hand-loom weavers had at all times been divided by a well-defined line of demarcation into two very distinct classes. This distinction arose from the circumstance of their being landholders or being entirely dependent upon weaving for their support.” (_Manufacturing Population_, p. 36).] Clearly, the members of this second class correspond to Radcliffe’s small farmers, and the members of the third to his cottagers. According to Gaskell, the yeomen were anything but an enterprising class; they cultivated their land as had their forefathers and regarded innovation as rank heresy, with the result that, in the agricultural changes of the eighteenth century which accompanied the industrial changes, they failed to keep pace with the march of events.[428] The farming of the second class was slovenly and definitely subordinate to their industrial activities; its importance in Gaskell’s view was that it gave to the members of the class opportunity for a healthy employment and raised them above the rank of mere labourers, and, as generally the weavers had much spare time on their hands owing to irregularity of work, it is evident that it would be useful in providing a subsidiary occupation.[429] The members of the third class, who merely had a garden, were especially prone to suffer from the scarcity of yarn and irregularity of work, and on occasion they underwent severe privation, the uncertainty of their livelihood engendering lack of forethought, improvidence, and carelessness in expenditure.[430] [Footnote 428: _Manufacturing Population_, p. 41.] [Footnote 429: _Ibid._, pp. 16, 34.] [Footnote 430: _Ibid._, p. 37.]