TRANSACTIONS Of SECTION M. 773 



i. Labour and Labour-saving Machinery on the Farm. 

 By W. J. Malden. 



As the need for labour-saving machinery on the farm is considerably influ- 

 enced by the supply of capable men to carry out the manual work, these two 

 cannot be dealt with separately. Hitherto in British farming, machinery has 

 been sparingly used, so that those who would otherwise not find employment 

 might find a living on it. There is at the present time the first real shortage, 

 men and horses are now in really deficient number, and after the war, with 

 the great re-shuffling of affairs, the temptations to return to it will be opposed 

 by great temptations elsewhere. The workmen on the land in future will 

 require all the technical knowledge of acts of husbandry that their forefathers 

 possessed, and will have to be intelligent in other matters. The better- 

 class farm workman is a skilled artisan ; but this he rarely becomes unless early 

 trained to it. _ Moreover, if not early trained, he will not stay on the land. 

 Yet the land in the future will hold out great attractions to the worker on it. 

 The present form of Rural Education at Board Schools drives boys from the 

 country. Education authorities have studied general systems of education, and 

 have not studied the boy. Rural Education to fit the boy for the land, and 

 attract him to it, will fail until it is recognised that the physiological changes 

 from childhood to youth have profound influence; and that muscular work, 

 which comes naturally in childhood, is met with considerable resentment at 

 the approach of the first change of life. The young have to be regarded in the 

 following stages : 



(1) Childhood, when the boy is in the monkey or imitative stage; willing to 



undergo physical exertion ; nol minding the monotony of continued muscu- 

 lar effort; under full parental influence; quick to appreciate the natural 

 life around him; carrying no responsibilities. 



(2) Youth. Becoming independent, but at present irresponsible and yet under 



parental protection. Spasmodic in effort mentally and physically; but 

 with dawning ideas of future; objecting to monotony, and, if not earlier 

 trained to physical work, strongly resisting continuous muscular effort. 

 The muscle-untrained boy going on to the land at 14 resents hard 

 labour, and does this so thoroughly that from the first he decides not 

 to stay at farm work; with this decision in his mind he makes no effort 

 to become skilled, and takes the earliest opportunity to go to towns. 



(3) Approaching Manhood. Dawning ideas of duties to the State and the 



responsibilities of parentage. Rarely goes by choice to a physical life. 

 But as the boy was driven from the land through his natural interests in 

 rural life having been destroyed, and his early muscular training having 

 been neglected, he does not come up for discussion here. 



The half-timer (the half-time period being considerably prolonged) is, with 

 further education in matters of interest and utility, the most useful man on 

 the land, and, apart from incapables, the only one to remain on it. For- 

 tunately, through the introduction of much new machinery in the past twenty 

 years, and the fact that farmers feeling some shortage of men after the South 

 African War have well equipped their farms, finds them fairly well supplied, 

 in spite of the sudden change of position that this war has occasioned. 



The delay in bringing the oil-tractor forward more quickly is, however, a 

 more serious matter, especially as steam cultivation has declined in view of 

 the possibilities of the oil-engine. The engines themselves have efficiency, but 

 as yet the implement-maker and the motor-maker have not joined hands ; and 

 there is great need of this. Confused ideas which the effort to adapt attach- 

 ments suitable for horse power, but utterly unsuited for mechanical power, have 

 established, must be cleared away. Great developments will occur, including 

 that of cutting and threshing corn in one operation ; which is as practicable in 

 England as in other countries where it has been adopted ; though there will have 

 to be special adaptations to permit it. 



