TAKING REINS IN HAND. 79 



;hat gone-by stock of New England farm workers at 

 t^hom I have hinted. 



Your Irish friend may be a good reaper, he may 

 possibly be a respectable ploughman (though it is 

 quite doubtful) ; but in no event will he cherish any 

 engrossing attachment to country labors ; nor will he 

 coine to have any pride in the successes that may 

 grow out of them. 



Every month he is ready to drift away toward any 

 employment which will bring increase of pay. He is 

 your factotum to-day, and to-morrow may be shoul- 

 dering a hod, or scraping hides for a soap boiler. 

 The German, too, however accomplished a worker 

 he may become, falls straightway into the same 

 American passion of unrest, and becomes presently 

 the dispenser of lager bier, or a forager " mit Sigel." 



There is then no American class of farm workers 

 in the market certainly not in the Eastern markets. 

 The native, if he possess rural instincts, is engrossed, 

 as I have said, with some homestead of his own, or 

 is trying his seed-cast among the Mormons, or on 

 the prairies. All other parties bring only a divided 

 allegiance, and a kind of makeshift adhesion to the 

 business ; in addition to which, they bring an inno- 

 cency that demands the supervision of a good farm 

 teacher. 



Such a teacher your foreman may be, or he may 



