1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



87 



a machine shop v/ho should beat his boy be- 

 cause he did not understand the work before 

 him at first sight ! As with the boy, so with 

 the steer. Teach him first. Be kind, and he 

 will do right. 



A pair of oxen may be very much improved 

 by the same treatment. A man in one day can 

 take the wildest pair of steers, and make them 

 perfectly handy. Another benefit of "break- 

 ing" oxen in this way, is, that when you go 

 into the pasture for them, instead of one going 

 one way and the other the other, as is usually 

 the case with those trained in the old-fashioned 

 way, they will walk side by side straight to the 

 bars. B. D. Wilcox. 



Post Mills, Vt., Bee. 10, 1866. 



Tor the New England Farmer. 



THE EIGHT HOUB SYSTEM OF LA- 

 BOE.—No. I. 



There being a disposition among laboring 

 men to reduce the hours of labor from ten to 

 eight, and the subject being extensively dis- 

 cussed both in and out of the halls of Legisla- 

 tion, it will be well for the agricultural portion 

 of the community to look at the subject, and 

 be prepared to act wisely with regard to it. 



If the mechanics and manufacturers succeed 

 in obtaining a law to establish eight hours as a 

 legal day's work, it will not be long before ag- 

 ricultural laborers will claim the same right. 

 It is true, indeed, that in the project of a law 

 introduced into the Legislature last winter, it 

 was proposed to except agricultural laborers 

 from its operation. But this, I take it, was 

 merely designed to smooth the way for farmers 

 to vote for it. There is no good reason why 

 the hours of farm labor should not be reduced 

 as well as the hours of labor in the mills and 

 work-shops. 



The motive powers of the nulls ai'e water 

 and steam, and the principal business of the 

 operative is to tend the machinery moved by 

 these powers. The profits of the mills depend 

 essentially upon the number of hours the ma- 

 chinery can be made to run. While the ma- 

 chinery stands still, there is so much capital 

 lying idle. Here, then, is the strongest reason 

 why operatives should labor as many hours in 

 the day as a regard to their best physical and mor- 

 al condition will permit. Farm labor is carried 

 on by the aid of machinery and animal power. 

 The horse or ox can labor ten or twelve hours 

 in a day, if well fed and cared for, but they 

 can move only at the gait nature has given 

 them, without rapidly exhausting their power, 

 and if they work only eight hours, they can 

 move no faster. You cannot do the same 

 amount of work with the horse or ox in eight 

 hours that you can in ten. The two hours ad- 

 ditional rest will not recover them from the in- 

 creased exhaustion produced by moving with 

 one- fourth more speed. You will find that the 

 law holds good here as well as every where 

 else, that "what you gain in velocity, you lose 



in power. The rule of profit here must be to 

 employ the animal as many hours in the day 

 as he can work without exhaustion. But the 

 machine and the animal caimot work without 

 the aid and direction of human hands. 



Now, if human brains and hands can work 

 without exhaustion as many hours as the horse 

 and the ox, profitable farming requires that 

 they should do so, and imlcss there are reasons 

 founded on humanity and morality forbidding 

 it, this should be the rule. Every observing 

 man knows that a man will work as many hours 

 as his team, and spend considerable time in ad- 

 dition in feeding and preparing his team for 

 labor. The farmer will work two hours in the 

 morning while his team is taking the food nec- 

 essary to enable it to labor, and one hour at 

 night after the team is released from labor. It 

 is no physical hardsliip then, for man to labor 

 as long as the horse and the ox can labor per- 

 manently without exhaustion. 



If it is not well for man to labor as many 

 hours, the reason must be found in his intellect- 

 ual and moral nature. But has it been found 

 that those who labor ten or even twelve hours 

 a da}% are thereby injured morall}' or intellect- 

 ually ? Our fathers labored twelve and even 

 fourteen hours daily during the summer months. 

 Did they become deteriorated in mind or mor- 

 als thereby '? How is it with the present gen- 

 eration, who labor ten or twelve hours ? Are 

 their minds enfeebled or their morals depre- 

 ciated? Do their stolid countenances and 

 want of enterprise indicate any lack of intellect, 

 or do their untruthfulness, their want of fideli- 

 ty to their engagements, and their indolence in- 

 dicate a depreciation in morals ? 



Statistics show that the average of human 

 life is greater now than in generations past. 

 INlan's physical powers are then not diminishing. 

 If, then, in this country, man is improving phy- 

 sically and intellectually, under a system that 

 employs him at labor from ten to twelve hours 

 daily, no good reason is here found for curtail- 

 ing the hours of labor. Experience shows that 

 adult persons require, on an average, about 

 eight hours for sleep. If they labor ten hours, 

 there remain six hours for meals, for intellect- 

 ual culture, and for social intercourse. This is 

 on the supposition that they labor ever}- day. 

 But every seventh day is interdicted from la- 

 bor by the highest authority, and wc will sup- 

 pose that one day of the remaining six, upon 

 the average, taking the whole year into the ac- 

 count, by reason of the weather, holidays, and 

 other causes, is not occupied by labor. This 

 gives us one hundred and four days for rest 

 and other occupations than labor. 



Now the great argument for the reduction of 

 the hours of labor is that the laborer, by the 

 present system, is unable to cultivate his intel- 

 lectual powers, and raise himself to a level 

 with other classes of citizens, and that if he la- 

 bored a less number of hours he would spend 

 the hours thus gained in reading and study. 

 We may form some estimate of the worth of 



