Labor in the countryside was supplied by four groups of people--(1) the tenant who owed labor services to the master of the ground; (2) the cottars who were settled on the fermions, each with a cothouse and yard; (3) the unmarried laborers, of then the relatives of tenants and cottars; and (4) a group of skilled workers such as ploughmen, barnmen or threshers, shepherds, sawyers, and limeburners; and some of these needed alternative work out of season.