The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-07-11
Skill Labor on the Farm.
Chicago Tribune.

Chicago Tribune
1t is fact that skilled labor, with temperate
habits, generally commands high price and
never goes begging for something to do. In no
department of industry does mere manual labor
command better prices than the farm, when
the fact is taken into consideration that the in
dividual is subject to less inducements to part
with his earnings in the country than are fellow
laborers in the city. On the farm prices for la
Dor range from SIT to $50 per month, with board,
only the more superior hands getting the latter
price. Really good men, however. may COM
mand go by the year. and fair men $40. All these
must be men of decent education, and with di-
rect practical knowledge III dairying, stock
breeding, the management of farm machinery,
or the cultivation of special crops
The man who really understands
the care and working 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 a tendency TO
heating, can properly grind cutting surfaces, can
correctly lay out lands for blowing, run the
initial swath straight through field OF grass or
grain, who knows how to properly cure hay or
to shock grain. can bulk stack or rick properly
proportional, who can take the supervision OF a
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, 800 year, with house rent and garden
spot free, if married. How many stand the
test in actual practice in this respect! Not
many. Any yet, why not! 1t is simply skilled
labor.
The reason is the farm laborer has not the
means of application in early life to carefully
instruct himself in manual art, thinks more of
debaSlng pleasures than of reading or study,
and hence is all his life drudge. more or less
incompetent and never arrives to the dignity of
even $40 month until he has settled down to
serious thought of what the true dignity Of hon
est lab Dor signifies.
The fairly capable man, able to manage
farm, has not heretofore contented himself to
work for others all his life. Wild lands waiting
for the settler were plenty. AS soon as he could
provide team and a few implements the fertile
West absorbed him. and new country found
him growing up with It, Area after area mas
thus been converted f rom a wilderness of grass
to smiling farms 1t has made the prairie re-
gion 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 fertile lands Will not last
always, and the next generation must
look TO other channels of selfsustaining indie
pendence 1t must be found in a broader knowl-
edge Of agricultural art, rendered yearly more
necessary by the increasing tendency to a more
perfect cultivation of the soil, and more inteli
gent thought in the breeding, feeding, care and
management Of live stock
With increasing wealth and better systems of
cultivation, the young man OF the day hnds 1t
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, how
ever, 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 IA neceS-
sary for practical purposes. After leaving school
sef-culture must do what remains The school
training must give place to intelligent applca-
ton TO the art or profession chosen. a trade or
profession must be learned after the student
leaves school or college Herein the son of a
farmer CHI DOSING the same profession has more
than an equal start with other professions. He
has also received manual instruction on the
farm.
The excellence of piece of blowing lies in the
absolutely straight, equal width, and the depth
of the burrows, the proper disintegraton of the
soils, and the careful covering under of trash
This is manual art, and necessary to success
as intelligence to discriminate between superior
and inferior work The intelligence that dis
eliminates between varieties of soil and their
availability for certain crops, and when the one
or the other is IN proper condition for working,
is expert knowledge of high order.
How many who call themselves expert farm
hands really can do thisl How many actual
working owners of farms understand the subject
perfectly! And yet is it not important and nee
essary in country where the measure of sue
cess is decided largely by the high character of
farming! This and other knowledge of like
nature is what distinguishes the expert from
the inexpert performer
The tendency of the age, in manufactures,
is to specialities in agriculture. In manufact-
ures this is comparatively simple. since the fin
ished parts OF an implement or machine are sim
ply parts of a whole. Diversified agriculture is
analogous TO this. One crop fits another in the
rotation. Horticulture, Horticulture, and the cul-
tivation of crops sent away from the farm must
bring profit 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. Accurate 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 farm band, so far, show him to be we'll
in advance of his brethren in other departments
of labor at least so far the. mere ability 10
perform labor is concerned.