DIRECTION OP LABOUR. 335 



the ability of all to continue to perform the same amount of labour 

 for any length of time, under like circumstances. 



From the commencement of my marling on my then newly-pur- 

 chased farm, Marlbourne, two mules were assigned to this work, 

 to be regularly so employed in all time fit for hauling marl, except 

 during the greater pressure of certain other farm labours. These 

 * times were to be during wheat harvest (when only for eight or ten 

 days all the mules usually would be idle, because all the drivers were 

 needed as harvest hands), when hauling out the stable and winter- 

 made manure hauling in and thrashing the wheat crop, and deliver- 

 ing the grain for market at the river landing for the ploughing for 

 fallow wheat, and ploughing and harrowing when seeding and to 

 plough the corn for a few days both before and after wheat harvest 

 and sometimes when hauling in the corn crop, if hands could 

 not then be spared to dig marl. None of these labours, except 

 hauling in wheat and corn from the fields, are lighter than would 

 be the continuation of hauling marl ; and some of them (fallow- 

 ploughing, harrowing, and thrashing) are much heavier. All these 

 different operations usually kept the marling suspended for times 

 amounting to about half the working days of each year. But not 

 so much in 1844, as there was then no wheat crop to harvest or 

 thrash, and very little manure made to be carried out. All these 

 abstractions of the regular marling teams are much more than com- 

 pensated by the irregular employment, at marling, of the ploughing 

 teams at what would otherwise be their idle or leisure times. 

 There is much convenience and gain in having labour thus to be 

 exchanged. At the pressing seasons of harvesting, fallowing, for 

 seeding and thrashing wheat, the regular farm force is insufficient, 

 and no supply of extra force can be hired. Then the other force 

 kept for marling becomes an important aid, and is worth much 

 more than the cost, or than the marling labours thereby postponed. 

 On the other hand, the regular carrying on of marling operations 

 by an extra force so applied, enables the farmer to increase it at 

 any leisure time, by any surplus force, of hands or teams necessarily 

 kept for farm labour ; and whose surplus or spare time, for short 

 intervals, could not otherwise be put to any profitable use. In the 

 one case, force that would be cheaply hired at double of average 

 price of hires, is obtained for the lowest rates ; and in the other, 

 for no more than the cost of maintenance. Without both these 

 reciprocal aids thus exchanged, I am sure that my wheat crop would 

 necessarily be curtailed by one-sixth, and my marling by more 

 than one-half. 



The statement to be here offered of a connected portion of the 

 marling labours of 1844, will be of what was actually done, under 

 the then existing circumstances, and with the then defective mode 

 of working and not of what might have been done with better 



