Methods of Economizing Labour. 
113 
the square mile, or one person to 80 acres, lias directed his 
energies to the means whereby man's feeble physical powers may 
be enabled to cope with so great a task ; and herein has shown an 
originality of conception, a fertility of invention, and a boldness 
of enterprise truly surprising. As pioneers the Americans have 
no equals. Indeed, one cannot watch an American in the field 
without being struck with the energy and force of will which he 
throws into his work ; smart is his word, go a-liead his maxim. 
You feel sure that he is, if not working for himself, at least ex- 
pecting to participate in the wealth he is creating ; that good 
•and plentiful food supplies his muscles, and the hope of realising 
fortune or independence nerves his arm. In manufactures, too, 
the wholesome and stimulating system of piece-work is general ; 
and in occupations which demand enterprise and involve hazard, 
such as fishing and whaling, a common interest quickens the 
faculties of all engaged, for every one on board, from the skipper 
to the cabin-boy, has "a lay" in the venture; and this system 
is sufiicient to account for the fact, so mortifying to our pride, 
that the Americans have taken the great whale fisheries out of 
our hands, — fisheries which employ 190,000 tons of shipping, 
and train up 15,000 or 16,000 of the hardiest and boldest seamen 
in tlic world. 
My purpose is here to present a brief view of some of the 
most useful and generally-received machines and implements for 
facilitating agricultural operations ; and if it shall appear, as I 
bel ieve, that some of them are as Avell constructed and adapted 
to their purpose as the corresponding English ones, and at the 
same time are much cheaper, I hope that English implement- 
makers will not take offence, but will endeavour to procure their 
wood and other materials <it such rates as, in conjunction with 
the greater cheapness of English labour, may enable them' to 
meet the xVmerican exporter on equal terms in the foreign market, 
and effectually exclude him from our own. Nor is this hint 
without a meaning. It is certainly a scandal and a shame that 
American enterprise should drive us out of the markets of our 
own colonies ; yet it is doing so, not in one only but in several 
branches of manufacture. Already the colonists of the Cape and 
of Australia are becoming as familiar with American ploughs as 
they have long been with American axes, clocks, and churns. In 
these countries the demand for boots and shoes is insatiable ; and 
here again American pegged boots are superseding English 
sewed ones — and this not Ijecause they are cheaper, for the gold- 
digger is not very particular about price, but he is a shrewd 
judge of the article that suits him best and wears the longest. 
It is something more than the loss of trade which is here 
involved ; the question is one of great national importance. It 
VOL. XX. I 
