General Instructions. 



able to drag bis carcase along. And, how can yon expect 

 sucb a creature to lift a spit of eartb, weighing from 8 to 12 

 })0unds, about six thousand times in a day ! 



32. The best, and, in the end, the cheapest way is to em- 

 ploy men by t]ie day ; to have a really good and trusty man to 

 icork with them (example is better than scolding) ; to see them 

 begin well yourself; to visit them often ; to repeat, at evei-^y visit 

 (for their memories are short), your orders as to the manner 

 of doing the work, and to insist on their keeping steadily at 

 work, for if men keep on, they will almost always do work 

 enough. The straight back and the gossip are the great 

 enemies of the progress of the labours of the field. But 

 the great things of all (next after sufficient pay), are your 

 own presence on, or near, the spot, and a conviction in the 

 minds of the men, that you wtderstand the whole of the busi- 

 ness well. If you coidd just take the spade, or spud, and 

 show them a little now-and-then ; if you could do such a 

 thing, it would be a great additional benefit; aiid I pledge 

 my word to you, that it would do harm to neither your body 

 nor your mmd. The two first fingers of my right hand 

 are still somewhat bent, from having been, mo?*e than forty 

 years ago, so often in close embrace with the eye of the 

 spade and the handle of the hoe; but I do not find that 

 this bend makes them the less fit for the use to which they 

 are at present applied. What think you of a short lesson 

 in the garden every day before breakfast for a month, be- 

 fore your trenching begin ? This would be attended with 

 one signal and most important advantage ; namely, it would, 

 by the appetite it would give you, enable you to judge 

 what portion of food ought to be allotted to the man who 

 lifts six thousand heavy spits a day. And, as to the charac- 

 ter of such an act, the Emperor of China holds the plough 

 once a year ; and, besides, why should it be more degra<ling 



