The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-09-03
SKILLED LABOR ON THE FARM.
workn,en Vine Command High Wage
and Who Are Never Begging for Some
thing to Do.

1t is the fact that skilled labor, with
temperate habits, generally commands
a high price and never goes begging for
something to do. In no department OF
industry does mere manual labor COM
mand better prices than on the farm,
when the fact is taken into consideration
that the individual is subject to less in
ducements to part with his earnings in
the country than are fellow-laborers in
the city. On the farm prices for labor
range from SIT to $50 per month with
board, only the more superior hands
getting the latter price. Really good
men, however, may command $25 by
the year, and fair men $50. All these
must be men of decent education, and
with direct practical knowledge in
dairying. tock-breeding, the manage
ment of farm machinery, or the cultiva-
ton of special crops. The man who
really understands the care and work
ing of machines, who can take apart
and put together again correctly any
farm machine as it comes from the
shop. VINO knows the proper location of
the fractional parts, who can subdue
tendency to heating, can properly grind
cutting surfaces, can correctly lay out
lands for blowing, run the initial swath
straight through q field of grass or
grain, who knows how to properly cure
hay or to shock grain, can build stack
or rick properly proportioned, who can
take the supervision of large farm as
working manager in the absence of the
owner-all such can and do get up to
| 81, 200 year and board if single man,
and up to 81, 500 year with house rent
and garden-spot free if married. How
| many can stand the test in actual
practice in this respectp Not many.
And yet, why not? 1t is simply skilled
labor.
| The reason is the farm laborer has no,
the means of application in early life to
carefully instruct himself in manual art,
thinks more of debasing pleasures than
of reading or study, and hence is all his
lite a drudge, more or less incompetent,
and never arrives to the dignity of even
twenty dollars a month until he has
settled down to serious thought of what
the true dignity of honest labor signi
fies.
The fairly capable man, able to man,
| age farm, has not heretofore con.
tented himself to work for others all his
life. Wild lands waiting for the settler
were plenty. As soon as he could pro,
vide team and few implements the
fertile West absorbed him, and a new
country found him growing up with it.
Area after area have thus been con-
verted from a wilderness of grass to
smiling farms 1t has made the prairie
region of the West the granary of the
world, and the products of her focks
and herds have found market wherever
civilization is known. But free and fer.
tile lands will not last always, and the
next generation must look to Other
channels of self-sustaining independ-
ence 1t must be found in broader
knowledge of agricultural art. rendered
yearly more necessary by the increasing
tendency to more perfect cultivation
of the soil, and more Intelligent thought
in the breeding, feeding, care and man
agement of livestock.
With increasing wealth and better
systems of cultivation, the young mar
of the day finds it more difficult to ''set
up for himself in business of any kind
and not less so in farming than in othel
pursuits in life. Patient application
however, with health, will always VIII
its way if combined with intelligen
industry. But, behind all lie
education. The sons of farmers
and the children of industrial
parents in the cities, have no difficult,
in acquiring all that is necessary TO
practical purposes. After leavin!
school self-culture must do what re
mains. The school training must Civ,
: place to intelligent application to th
art or profession chosen. A trade o.
profession must be learned after th
student leaves school or college. Here
in the son of farmer choosing tn
: same profession has more than a
| equal start with other professions. II
/ has also received manual instruction
| on the farm.
= The excellence of piece of plowin
, lies in the absolutely straight. equa
width, and the depth of the burrows, th
proper disintegration of the soils, an
the careful turning under of trash. TIL
i is manual art and as necessary to SUI
4 cess as intelligence to discriminate b.
s tween superior and inferior work. Tt
Q intelligence that discriminates betwee
Y varieties of soil and their availability fc
I certain crops, and when the one or ii
other is in proper condition for worl
ing, is expert knowledge of high orde
How many who call themselves e.
pert farm hands really can do thi.
How many actual working owners
e farms understand the subject perfectly
And yet is it not important and niece
A sary in a country where the measure
: success is decided largely by the hie
: character of farming? This and 9TH
q knowledge of like nature is what di
|; tinguishes the expert from the inexpe
O performer.
i The tendency of the age, as in man
a features, is to specialties in agrieultur
In manufactures this is comparative
J simple, since the finished parts of {
). implement or machine are simply par
|, of whole. Diversified agriculture
e analogous to this. One crop fits anoth
b in the rotation Horticulture, fioricu
ture, and the cultivation of crops sci
e.. Al L.