The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1885-08-06
SKILLED LABOR ON THE FARM.
Workmen Who Command High Wage
and Who Are Never Begging for Some,

1t is the fact that skilled labor, with
temperate habits, generally commands
4 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 ow-laborers in
the city. On the farm prices for labor
range from 81 to $50 per month with
board, only the more superior hands
getting the latter price. Really good
men, however, may command S25 by
the year, and fair men $40. All these
must be men of decent education, and
with direct practical knowledge in
dairying. stock-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, who knows the proper location Of
the fractional parts, who can subdue q
tendency to heating. can properly grind
cutting surfaces, can correctly lay out
lands for blowing. run the initial swath
straight through a 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
$1,000 a year and board if single man,
and up to 81, 800 year with house rent
and garden-spOt free if married. How
many can stand the test in actual
practice in this respect? Not many.
And yet, why notP 1t is simply skilled
labor.
The reason is the farm sborer has not
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 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 new
country found him growing up with it.
Area after area have thus been con-
verted from 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 fiocks
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 a 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 man
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 other
pursuits in life. Patient application,
however, with health, will always win
its way if combined with intelligent
industry. But, behind all lies
education. The sons of farmers.
and the children of industrial
parents in the cities, have no difficulty
in acquiring all that is necessary for
practical purposes. After leaving
school self-culture must do what re-
mains. The school training must give
place to intelligent application to the
profession must be learned after the
student leaves school or college. Here
in the son of farmer choosing the
same profession has more than an
equal start with other professions. He
has also received manual instruction
on the farm.
The excellence of a piece of blowing
lies in the absolutely straight. equal
width, and the depth of the fnrrows, the
proper disintegration of the soils, and
the careful turning under of trash. This
is manual art and as necessary to sue
cess as intelligence to discriminate be-
tween superior and inferior work. The
intelligence that discriminates between
varieties of sol and their availability for
certain crops, and when the one or the
other is in proper condition for work
ing, is expert knowledge of high order.
How many who call themselves ex-
pert farm hands really can do this?
How many actual working owners of
farms understand the subject perfectlv2
And yet is it not important and neces-
sary in a country where the measure of
success is decided largely by the high
character of farming? This and other
knowledge of like nature is what dis
tinguisheS the expert from the inexpert
performer.
The tendency of the age. as in manu-
features. is to specialties in agriculture.
In manufactures this is comparatively
simple, since the finished parts of an
implement or machine are simply parts
of whole. Diversified agriculture is
analogous to this. One crop fits another
in the rotation. Horticulture, floricul-
ture, and the cultivation of crops sent
AWAY HOHl Iuc ldi III hAuSC OlIHS PIOht
sufficient to allow return to the soil in
the shape of manure, of the fertility
carried away. else the business is in the
end losing one to the owner. Accu-
rate knowledge in this direction is
what makes the expert manager or the
expert laborer He who has this
knowledge will receive profit or wages
in accordance with that knowledge.
The statistics of wages for the average
farmland. so far. show him to be well
in advance of his brethren in other de-
partments of labor. at least so far as the
mora ability IN nerfOrm labor i cOn-