20 INTRODUCTION. 



sent to get one team, and go half a mile or more to get a load of 

 rails, or wood, or stone, or such like. We will grant that they 

 may work advantageously in loading and unloading ; but if it 

 consumes twenty minutes in going to, and twenty more in return 

 ing from their work, there is a loss of forty minutes with one la 

 borer, which might have probably been appropriated to some 

 good purpose. Now let forty minutes be taken from every two 

 hours during the entire day, and one third of his time will amount 

 to nothing. Allowing fifteen or twenty minutes for one man to 

 put on a load of rails, or of wood, if two were able to do it in 

 half that time, there would be a waste of time. In hauling dirt, 

 gravel, peat, muck, or manure, two men, and many times three, 

 are sent with one team and one cart, or wagon, to haul such sub 

 stances the distance of one fourth of a mile, or even more. Sup 

 pose, after loading, it requires only five minutes to drive to the 

 place for unloading, and five minutes to return. If two laborers 

 are employed, and both go to unload, there will be a loss of 

 time of one man, of ten minutes each load ; amounting to more 

 than two hours lost time during the working hours of one 

 day. 



In mowing grass with scythes, or cradling grain, one man 

 usually, especially if he will work alone, will cut more than half 

 as much as two ; and as the number of hands are increased in 

 one company at such work, the less labor will be performed in 

 proportion to the number of workmen employed. Why ? Be 

 cause even when they are all faithful as possible, there will of 

 necessity be a vast amount of waiting one for another. Suppose, 

 for instance, there are five mowers, or cradlers. It will usually 

 be seen that one who sets in first will work one or two minutes 

 before there will be an opportunity for the last one to commence. 

 Now, they will all work fifteen or twenty rods, and perhaps not 

 half that distance, when there will be another halt until all come 

 up evi-n, when the scythes must be whet. Then there is a delay 

 of one for the other all day ; and it many times will amount to 

 more than the working hours of one man in one day. And, 

 besides, the labor performed will be most astonishingly less, in 



