28 



The Human Machine on the Land. 



[Apr., 



to do a particular job; every man expected to be an all-roiuid 

 hand. 



Suggested Inter-County Competitions. — There are many men 

 farming successfully to-day who owe their success mainlv to 

 taking- up farms where their predecessors had trained the 

 men to skilled work. Had they not found them they could not 

 have trained them. It is of little use to fmd fault with bad 

 work if one cannot show the man the right way. In rather 

 a widely varied life on the land I have found nothing so valuable 

 to me as those few years when I took part in and learned 

 farm work from the skilled artisans amongst whom fate threw 

 me, and every youth going on to the land should make as 

 much study of it as of any other section. I should like to see 

 teams of young farmers of one county challenging those of 

 other counties in a wide range of acts of husbandry; inter- 

 county contests between the farm wwkmen, with a challenge 

 shield for the best county; and inter-school contests between 

 schools in different districts. It would be far more exhilarating 

 than seeing two parishes playing indifferent football ! Few 

 liave thought what a lot may be learned in farm work in a 

 village school playground; and how a simple training may teach 

 much that is useful. All sports and physical work should be 

 learnt when one is young. 



Training in Farm Labour is Easy.— However, training in 

 farm labour is a very simple thing; and is capable of being 

 taught easily and systematically. That amongst older men , there 

 would be opposition to this there is no doubt, and many who 

 have tried to inculcate fresh methods have met a resistance 

 which has caused them to discontinue their efforts, as they have 

 found that sometimes it is better to carry out a bad method 

 well than a good method badly. 



In systematising work I have followed closely the practices 

 in the more strenuous sports. No matter what the physical 

 work or sport, no one commences to do it in the right way, 

 whether it is handling a golf club or a scythe, and unless- 

 the proper way is shown little skill is obtained. It has to be 

 remembered that a man is a machine — the most wonderful- 

 machine in the world — capable of doing any work performed 

 by the most intricate machinery. He is superior to farm' 

 animals because they are horizontal machines capable of doing 

 work only in a straight line forward or backward. Man is a 

 hinged vertical machine not only doing this, but able to stoop 

 and lift heavy weights vertically, which a horse cannot do. 



