252 AN" EGG FARM. 



then the purchaser has been deluded, and the seller is 

 laying snares instead of following a staple business. 



To return to the matter of hiring help, machinery is 

 a great promoter of efficient service in all branches of 

 industry. The tender of the machine must feed it con- 

 tinually and faithfully, or the result is a "dead give 

 away." The farm hand may lean on his hoe pretty often 

 to see the pigeons fly, or the carpenter may dawdle over 

 his jackplane occasionally to gossip, and not be noticed ; 

 but if the former is running a gang plow and the latter 

 a planing machine, the stoppage of either attracts atten- 

 tion. The machine regulates the operative. In these 

 latter days, the question whether there is, or should be, 

 antagonism between employer and employe is often dis- 

 cussed. The fact is, the old saying, "there is no friend- 

 ship in trade," is as true now as when it was first 

 uttered. A seller tries to sell dear, and a buyer to buy 

 cheap. The wage worker's commodity is his labor. 

 Unless he is trying for promotion, or something of that 

 sort, he is apt to try to see, not only how much money 

 he can get for his work, but how little work he can do 

 for his money. 



To prevent shirking, piecework has been found a very 

 successful device, and is followed almost invariably 

 in great establishments where the nature of the prod- 

 uct permits it, careful inspection of the articles pro- 

 duced being necessary in order to prevent slighting 

 of the work. Working on shares, practiced in connec- 

 tion with farming to a great and increasing extent, is 

 another way of enlisting the worker's self-interest. 

 Where neither piecework nor work on shares is practica- 

 ble, then two other things remain which will assist in 

 securing faithful service of wage workers at a period 

 when the false and pernicious doctrine is rife that any- 

 thing that makes work is a benefit to the laborer and 

 anything that uses up work is his enemy. The two 



