INTRODUCTION. 23 



seen so much injudicious and uneconomical appropriation of the 

 manual forces of the farm ; and by those, too, who were always 

 grumbling, and complaining that their work was always behind ; 

 and that they were not able to get laborers to perform as much in 

 a day for themselves, as when they were in the employ of some 

 of their neighbors. I might expatiate upon the subject to four 

 times its present length, with seeming propriety ; but enough 

 has been said to induce the tyro to think and plan for himself, 

 and to appropriate his forces according to the circumstances of the 

 occasion. 



It may be urged that hard-working laborers need rest; and 

 that it seems rather like a disposition to overreach the limits of 

 fairness and propriety. It is granted that they need rest ; but 

 there is no danger that they will not avail themselves of all the 

 time, necessary or not, to reinvigorate their partially exhausted 

 faculties. They will seldom consider any number of hours spent 

 in idleness, in the light of rest; nor will they seldom feel willing 

 to make any greater exertion, when they are in active labor, if 

 half their time is consumed in idleness, than they do when they 

 work during all the working hours of one or of many days. 

 There are always rainy days, and portions of days, during the 

 year, when laborers cannot labor at all advantageously ; but they 

 must receive the same wages that they do when they are earning, 

 in a day, twice the sum which they receive per day. But, when 

 the weather is fair, it is but just and right that all the forces should 

 be brought into operation, in the most economical and effective 

 manner. The tyro should plan work for his hands on the pre 

 ceding day, so that each one, as soon as he rises in the morning, 

 can start immediately to his business, without hanging around a 

 half-hour or more, before he knows what to go about. Let one 

 nrm go and feed the teams; and another do this, and another 

 o,i do that job, until breakfast time, and in this way a long 

 catalogue of little jobs will be performed, during the season, which 

 otherwise would have gone undone. Another consideration of 

 vast importance is, 



