The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1885-10-17
SKILLED LABOR ON THE FARM.

i
workmen Who 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 ami 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 ST. 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 500. 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
tendency to heating, can properly grind
cutting surfaces, can correctly lay out
lands for blowing, run the initial swath
L cfr atfrht Hn1I 80
| 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 a 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 respect? Not many.
And yet. why notP 1t is simply skilled
| labor.
The reason is the farm laborer has no,
the means of appl cation 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 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-
verified from q 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 flocks
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-
snce. 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
art or profession chosen. A trade or
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 piece of blowing
lies in the absolutely straight. equal
width, and the depth of the throws, 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 soil 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