i26 



The Hitman Machine on the Land. 



[Apr. 



THE HUMAN MACHINE ON THE 



LAND. 



W. J. Malden. 



It is not necessarily the strongest labourer who does the most 

 work or who is the least tired at the end of the day. Much 

 labour at the present time employed in arable farming is 

 inefficient, and consequently energy is misdirected. Assuming 

 that 100 per cent, represents the efficiency of a labourer of 

 all-round skill , the average for the whole country to-day is 

 not more than 60 per cent. Something like dG100,000,000 is 

 paid yearly in wages. Forty per cent, wasted through 

 inefficiency is a big charge on the laiid and the country. When 

 several millions of acres went from the plough in the 'eighties 

 and 'nineties of the last century, and the rural population 

 largely drifted into the towns and industries, the farmers lost 

 a big portion of the highly skilled men, and many of their 

 more promising sons. Koughly 000, 000, 000 was estimated 

 to have gone out of farms and land capital in those years, and a 

 proper wage reward could not be paid to the labourers. 



The War made a heavy call on the men of the land, and 

 many skilled labourers have, as a result, been lost to 

 the industry. Without skilled labour full farming cannot 

 be carried on, but what signs are there that anything 

 is being done to train men to a higher efficiency? Yet the 

 time must come when much of the land will go out of 

 cultivation, unless workmen be endowed with more skill. We 

 are in a fairly mechanical stage on the land, and doubtless 

 invention will come further to our aid, but though a percentage 

 of trained mechanics will be required, it seems perfectly safe 

 to state that in a few years a. highly skilled farm worker will 

 command very high wages. The skilled man on the land, able 

 to turn to any kind of live stock, good in the hay time and 

 harvest, a skilled hedger, in fact not lost anywhere, has become 

 a very rare man. Tf he can do a few of these things really 

 well, he can pretty well miake his own terms, and he will be in 

 . greater demand as years go on. 



In many districts labour has so fallen in skill that fa-rmers 

 have accepted a very low standard, being in fact glad of any- 

 thing that will see them through at all. The farm worker has 

 descended very much from a farm artisan to a farm labourer; 

 he is often possessed of little skill, and having little joy in his 



