1884.] QUESTIONS. 129 



system." I submitted to it that year, and they came up in 

 the morning, pulled out their old Bungtown watches, and 

 sat around on the logs until they were ready to go to work. 

 They ran my farm that year, but I made up my mind that it 

 was the last time they would ever run it, and it was. (Ap- 

 plause.) I said to them, open and above board, during that 

 season, that I should never submit to the ten-hour or the eight- 

 hour system upon my farm again. They said to me the next 

 spring, when they found I had got new help, that they were 

 all going to change their politics, and they were going to 

 change their religion. I cared not for that ; I run my own 

 farm. I said to the men whom I hired, " What do you want 

 for six, eight, or twelve months, beginning at a reasonable 

 time in the morning, and leaving off at a reasonable time at 

 night? " They told me ; I hired them, and from that day to 

 this I have run my own farm. There has been no hour time 

 upon it. If I had a quantity of hay down in the mowing 

 season that it was necessary to secure, I never heard a grum- 

 ble from those men. If I worked them beyond the time that 

 farm laborers should be worked, I always paid them. If they 

 did not work more than an hour beyond the usual time, they 

 always got their pay for it, and I have never had any trouble 

 in keeping from six to thirty-five men right through the 

 season, jus't according to the requirements of my business. 

 They leave me to regulate the work, and I try to regulate it 

 for the interest of the farm and the interest of the farm- 

 laborer. (Applause.) 



Mr. Gold. When the question comes up with regard to 

 ten hours upon the farm, comparing it with ten hours in the 

 ■factory, and the farmer says he cannot get time enough in ten 

 hours, let us bear in mind the varied character of farm labor; 

 that it enables a man to bear the strain during a certain por- 

 tion of the year, of more than ten hours a day. It is varied 

 in its character. It carries him into the field. There is an 

 open-air excitement about it. He is not in that worn-out 

 physical condition of men pent up in shops, and he can stand 

 fairly more hours of work than those men. The farmer does 



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