25 April, 1917.] 



Farmers, Win the War! 



235 



Establishing the Work Standakd. 



"An acre a furrow a day" is a reooguised standard of work — but it 

 is not exactly what is meant by an etticioncy standard. Most farmers 

 rely on merely working long hours and on keeping their teams going to 

 cover the ground. Efficiency means something more than that. 



It seeks to find out what extra work could he done in the same time 

 with the same labour; it subjects every single opi^ration in every round 

 of each implement to searching examination to see if the time and 

 manner of doing it cannot be improved upon. 



To be sure, none of the faults enumerated below are uew^ to farmers, 

 but the systematic weeding out of them with a view to increased efficiency 

 is new. For example, the plough — an old one, often repaired — is dis- 

 covered to be turning over a sod of 6 inches instead of seven in the case 

 of two furrows. An alteration to the normal will increase the area 

 ploughed by more than a quarter of au acre per day, and it is this little 

 extra that is all profit. 



Somewhere in France. 

 Ten bags of wheat will keep these 16 men supplied with bread for twelve months. 



Again, most farmers are content to lap almost half a leaf of the 

 harrows, in order to make sure that no ground is missed. Straight 

 driving is a great aid to efficiency, and can always be accomplished under 

 almost any conditions if the driver will take the trouble to look well 

 ahead, and fix on a couple of clods of earth to drive to. 



The farmer sends his man out to plough stich-and-such a paddock 

 without any definite instructions. Later he goes out, and finds the man 

 ploughing the land in the direction of its .shortest length — wasting valu- 

 able time in turning that might have been spent in work. 



The efficient farmer must understand all these little drags on the 

 work, and be always looking for them, and planning *<) eliminate them. 

 The amount of work he can do in a day under the most efficient condi- 

 tions is the worl- Ktandard for that particular job. He may not be 

 always able to achieve it, and it will vary with the conditions; but, 

 nevertheless, he should know exactly how nnu'h can l)e dona under all 

 conditions, and strive to achieve this. 



