THOUGHTS ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF LABOR. 



THOUGHTS ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF LABOR; 



SlIGGESTIONS FOR THE FORMATION OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES FOR SPECIAL OBJECTS. 



What has most contributed to the progress 

 of improvement in manufactures, is the distri- 

 bution of labor which they admit of. The 

 mind of the operative being confined to a sin- 

 gle point, he attains greater proficiency, and can 

 accomphsh mucli move tlian if he were taken 

 frequently from one part of the manufacture to 

 work at another. In this case, he gets his 

 " hand out," as it is termed ; and hence a smith 

 who might make a horse shoe at a heat, as we 

 liave known a man to do, might yet not make 

 half as many nails in a day as a boy whose busi- 

 ness had been nothing but nail-making all his 

 life. A man who only makes nails occasionally, 

 will make but 800 or 1,000 a day; while a boy 

 who has never worked at anj- thing else, will 

 make 2,.300. Even in pin making, la^r is so 

 distributed, that the man who makes the pin, 

 never fasliions the head or sharpens the point. 



Agriculture would doubtless have attained 

 much higher perfection in all its processes, if it 

 would admit of the same distribution of labor 

 that may be resorted to in other manufactures; 

 and house and ship building. The process of 

 sowing, plowing, hoeing, reaping, would all be 

 more perfectly executed, if those who perform 

 them, could find constant emploj-ment at, and be 

 exclusively confined to each one of these opera- 

 tions. But the farm laborer, and especially the 

 Yankee farmer, has to exercise his ingenuity on 

 every thing that is going on, in its turn, and so 

 becomes Tack-of all-trades, without being as per- 

 fect at any, as if he w-ere to attempt but one. In 

 Europe, the case is somewhat different. In 

 France, for instance, 7nole catching is a trade; 

 transmitted from father to son, and men have 

 made independent estates by extraordinarj' 

 expertness in the practice of it. In Spain, a sKcp- 

 htrd is nothing but a shepherd ; the calling 

 " runs in the family ;" and thus a shepherd's son, 

 by the time he is 18 years old, learns more of the 

 di.seases, habits, breeds, and management of 

 sheep, than a common laboi'ing hand woidd in 

 40 years, who attends a little to sheep, and a lit 

 tie to every thing el.se. A practiced shepherd 

 would shear mora sheep in a day, than a raw 

 hand who might possess more intelligence and 

 physical activity, could shear in three, and in 

 tUe operation, draw less blood from the flock, 

 than ho would from a single sheep. 



^eing how it is that " practice makes per- 

 fect,'" this principle of the distributioi. of labor, 

 (7051 



we find is acted upon practically, where it can 

 be done ; and if it could be carried through in 

 every operation into which agricultural industry 

 divides itself, as W'e before said, greater im- 

 provements would have been realized. As it 

 is, an every large plantation for example, you 

 will fmd that Abraham may be the' blacksmith 

 and the butcher, Jacob the miller, his son Han- 

 over the distiller and flax breaker, Tom Peel 

 the head carter, and Cj-rus the foreman in the 

 field ; go to an old family estate like Brandon 

 on the James river, and you will find an old 

 man, gardener, practically skilled in the phj^si- 

 ology of vegetables and flowers, while another 

 venerable and grey bearded ichthyologist, 

 most knowing iu all the signs of the tides and 

 the weather, has charge of the boats and the 

 lines, and the nets, and will be sure to have, in 

 time for dinner, a good mess of fish, or crabs, or 

 oysters, when any raw pretender would have 

 the worst of " fisherman's luck ;" and every one 

 knows what that is. v J^ 



If it were possible, for instance, that the la- 

 bor involved in making tobacco, could be so dis- 

 tributed, that raising and selling the plants, cul- 

 tivating and sellmg the green crop, curing it, 

 culling and tieing up, and finally seasoning and 

 preparing it for the manufacturer or the shipper, 

 could have a separate set of operatives, exclu- 

 sively assigned to each link in the chain, and 

 these operatives each find con.stant employment 

 on his particular branch, the whole business of 

 tobacco husbandry might no doubt be carried 

 on with much greater perfection and success, and 

 the annual value of the crop, and the interest on 

 the capital and labor embarked iu it would be 

 proportionably enhanced. )n 



In mechanics, the making of a knife is appor 

 tioned out among several persons ; the making 

 of the blade, the liandle and the rivets, become, 

 as it were, so many separate trades, and thus the 

 same number of men will make a much greater 

 number, and of course their labor, which is their 

 capital, becomes so much the more productive; 

 and it is this distribution and greater product- 

 iveness of labor, very much enhanced bj- more 

 perfect tools, that make the great difference in 

 the condition of the savage and the civilized 

 man. Compare the rude implements of the 

 savage, with the saw, the auger, and the ham- 

 mer, and you at once see the cause of the differ- 

 ence between his bark hut and the monarch's 



