232 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



hand, a man who is skilled in his business knows what he is 

 about when he takes up his hoe. He knows he has got just 

 as much a cutting instrument as a] razor, and that it should 

 be drawn in the same way as a razor is drawn. Although he 

 may be drawing it through a gravelly soil, the principle is the 

 same, and if he is a skilled workman he will use it in the same 

 way. Instead of chopping with his hoe, he will not even draw 

 it at right angles with the edge, but he will draw it diagonally, 

 as you would draw a razor, and then it will cut a great deal 

 easier ; the soil is stirred, the weeds are cut off, the work is 

 done simply and easily, and it is done effectively. Still all the 

 men who come to you and want to get employment will say that 

 they know how to hoe ; but I believe there are some men who 

 have had men on their farms who claimed to be farmers, who, 

 thoy were satisfied, did not know how to hoe. 



These illustrations might be multii^lied. It is universally so 

 with the axe ; it is so with all the various tools we use on the 

 farm. 



I will assume, then, that this is the case — that we have too 

 little skill as artisans among our farm workmen : and the ques- 

 tion now comes. What is the reason ? Why is it that on our 

 farms we cannot have men skilled as artisans in the use of the 

 tools of the farm, just as much as we have skilled artisans in 

 any of the mechanic or manufacturing arts ? Well, to my 

 mind, one reason is found in the nature of the occupation itself. 

 In the first place, we have very little, if any, division of labor ; 

 and this is very important if we would have skill in the men 

 who exercise this labor. We do not have one set of men to use 

 the hoe the year round, another set of men the axe, another set 

 the mowing machine, and so on through the ten thousand tools 

 that we are obliged to use in our farming operations ; but the 

 same hand guides one and all. Now it is not so in other pur- 

 suits. The man who makes the twentieth part of a pin, for in- 

 stance, works on that twentieth part of a pin all his life ; the 

 tools he uses to make that twentieth part of a pin he uses all 

 his life. The man who works in any of our machine shops 

 works at one particular thing as long as he lives. Is it not 

 reasonable to suppose that the man who uses the same instru- 

 ment always, and for an unvarying purpose, will acquire great 

 skill in the use of that implement ? Certainly. But it is not 



