THE BEAUTIES OF FARM LIFE.

NZ Truth, Issue 92, 23 March 1907, Page 7

THE BEAUTIES OF FARM LIFE.

TO THE EDITOB

Sir, — I have noticed - from time to time your comments m " Truth " re the way that men axe overworked m this country, and I have noticed that most of these cases refer to men m the cities. Now, Mr. Editor, all I say is that they deserve all they get if they content themselves by staying m the city to make horaes of themselves when there is plenty of good jobs m the country. Here m our deliightful Garden of New Zealand if you pick up a paper it is nothing but "wanted a man to milk," and now that we have the milking machine the work is only child's play. It is only recently that I saw one advertisement, " Wanted man to strip after machine and drive milk to the factory; 26s per week." One pound five shillings per week, Mr. Editor, for doing this, and I suppose you know how much work is attached to stripping cows after the machine and carting the milk to the factory. Of course there are other odd jobs on the farm that require looking to, but these are merely recreation for a man. Now, I happen to know this place very well, and I will give you an idea of what little -work there is for a man to do. You may think the hours are long, Mr. Editor, but they are not. A man gets sleep enough to satisfy a pen of fat hogs, even m the middle of summer, when the work is at its height, a man is not required to rise before about half-past two m the morning, and he Can have all his work finished by about nine o'clock m the evening, and m the winter he can lay m bed until five o'clock, and then be finished by seven m the evening. Now m this particular place the man rises at half-past two, gets the cows m, starts the milking .machine going, and that does all the work. Of course he has to strip the cows, but there are only eighty of them. Milking fininlied, he gets the horse and takes the milk to the factory. He is always back home agai n by about half-past eleven, and then he gets his breakfast, the only thing is he has to get his breakfast ready himself. The boss's wife wife (not Madame Sharkey) has a large family, 'and few men mind doing a trifle to help a woman m that predicament. Breakfast over, of course there are pises to feed, and. a few (aljout 70) calves, cans, buckets and milking machine to wash, and sheds to clean out, but all these take only about a couple of hours. Then he can go into his dinner, which is, as a rule, got ready for him. Dinner over, he just has to potter around the house helping the mistress. Few men mind that ; it just .goes to show that the boss trusts his man. Then there is wood to cut, water to carry, and perhaps ia fence to mend, which brings him to milking time again, and, as I said before, he is always into his bed by about half-past nine. Of course there are times when the milking machine will break down, but this does not happen everyday. It will never break down at the outside more than once a week, and then it will only be out of work perhaps a. week or ten days at the longest. Of course when the machine breaks down there are eighty cows to milk by hand. But the man does not have to milk them all by himself ; he has two helpmates, one a boy thirteen years of age, and another eleven. Of course the boss always happens to be awayi ati milking times looking for a man to fix the machine, but then it shows that the boss trusts the man to do the work without him, and at any rate both boys are good milkers, or at any rate quite capable of bailing the cows up, and even under these circumstances the man is always finished by about eleven o'clock. There is no wonder Mr. Editor, at the poor worker m the city growling ; he has to work his eight hours a day for about eight or nine shillings a day, and then is not allowed to work on Sunday or on a holiday, but has to tog up , and walk round doing nothing, or else take the wife and family out for an hour or, two of pleasure. There is

small wonder he envys his country cousin who can do almost as Ms boss pleases, no beastly arbitration laws to say he must work only eight hours a day, no praying parsons . to say he must not work on Sunday ; no, he can just knock round on Sunday doing odd jobs, such as cleaning out a ditch, skinning any, calves that have happened to die during the week, etc. Now, .Mr. Editor, I hope that when you hear a poor man growling about the work that he has to do m the city you will j send him along this way and give him my addiress, and if he will give me a call I will guarantee to put him into a hundred jobs around here iust as good and easy as the one I have just outlined. Thanking you, Mr. Editor, for your valuable space. —I am. etc.. NEVER SWEAT. Opunake, March 11, 1907.