Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the law as between the employer and the employe, it has been in favor of the farmer rather than in favor of the latter.

Laboring men of all classes in our State, believing that their interests would be advanced, have formed organizations for their protection, and whilst much good may have been done, and perhaps some just and equitable legislation obtained through organized labor, yet the laboring man must look to the law itself for his protection. Organizations may educate the people and assist to mould public sentiment in favor of labor, but in the Legislature and before the court, must all alike appear for the enactment and enforcement of such law as will do equal justice to the employer and employe. Legislatures and judges of courts are but human, and appeals made to them, as a general rule, are considered and adjudicated as any other matters are considered and adjudged, and if the honest, intelligent laboring man would use the same cautious judgment and intelligent sense in trying to impress his rights upon the lawmaker and the law interpreter that he exercises in other matters, he would oftener succeed better than he does.

Matters of detail, in relation to laborers' rights under the various special acts of the Legislature, such as giving legal notice to the proper officer, and statement of amount claimed, etc., should be entrusted to the consideration and care of some one who knows, at least the forms of law to be complied with, and in this matter the laborer would do well to consult his lawyer and entrust the enforcement of his claim to him. Large corporations and great manufacturing estab lishments when pressed for the payment of their obligations, look out for themselves, and unless the laboring man has some one to represent him before the court, and see that his rights are maintained, he will in many instances fail in recovering what justly belongs to him. Whilst this condition of things is the exception and not the rule, only occurring during times of business depressions, or great inactivity in the markets, yet history and experience teach us that they do come, and it is wise to be on guard and prepared for the emergency when it does

come.

To sum up in a general way, the laborer is bound to render service under his contract, and the farmer is bound to pay the stipulated price therefor.

The presumption of law is, and his contract implies, that the laborer is possessed of sufficient skill and information to perform the labor required by his employer. He is also bound to give diligence and attention to the duties of his service, and habitual neglect or absence, occasioning loss or injury to his employer, will justify a dismissal. although it be neither wilful nor designed.

The contract of the laborer is to obey all proper and reasonable commands in the line of his employment given to him by his em

ployer; if, therefore, such a command be disobeyed or wilfully neg lected, he puts it in the power of his employer to break off the contract, for which he may be discharged or held liable for damages, or both.

On the other hand, the command must be reasonable and just and within the fair scope of the employment, and where there is personal risk or danger to himself, if he may reasonably decline to take the risk of personal injury without liability of financial responsibility.

It is also the duty of the farmer, not only to provide for his employe the necessary food and sleeping apartment to keep him in good health, but he is to look to his safety as well; to protect him from accidents by such means as an ordinarily prudent man would avail himself for his own purposes; to furnish him with animals and machinery properly to carry on his work with reasonable safety to his person.

But it cannot be expected that the farmer is an insurer or guarantor of the life or health of his employe, much less to covenant to guard him against all accidents, the contract being on the hypothesis that the employe is a rational creature capable of judging and acting with reference to his own safety; but where both parties, the employer or the employe, were cognizant of the risk before entering upon the performance of the work, the laborer could not recover from the farmer for any damages he might sustain.

The farmer may regulate the time for the commencement and quitting work, due regard being had to the customary hours for labor and season of the year, and the laborer is not to be the judge of when he may be required. His contract is to give his time absolutely to his employer, and hence he may not assume to absent himself from his employer's premises, or go without leave of absence, except under extraordinary circumstances, but he is bound for the full term agreed

upon.

By misconduct he warrants his discharge at any time, without payment, and the only safe course for him to pursue is to carry out his contract with his employer to the best of his skill, judgment and ability. He is not to be enticed away or persuaded by some interfering or designing person to not perform his contract, but he is to go straight forward, complying with his contract in every possible particular to the extent of his ability.

If by negligence, or wilful misconduct, he has caused his employer to pay damages to a third party, he is liable to reimburse him for all damages he may have caused, and the measure of the damages he would be entitled to pay would naturally be the amount of the judg ment which his employer had been compelled to pay to satisfy, together with all costs, including counsel fees.

Hence, the importance to both employer and employe, to carry out to the fullest extent, with an honest and sincere purpose, the terms

of their contract, and thus avoid all possible chances of disagreements, which prove of no advantage to either party, but a source of discomfort and annoyance to both.

THE BED CULTURE OF MUSHROOMS.

By PROF. CH. REPIN, Associate of the Pasteur Institute, Paris.

(Translated from The Revue Generale des Sciences, for the Department of Agriculture, by SARAH D. MEEHAN LANNING, Philadelphia, Pa.)

On going through the suburbs of Paris, particularly the plains which extend to the south and southwest of the capital, one's attention is instantly attracted to the wooden constructions having the appearance of fair grounds, kinds of square towers which sparkle in the sunlight in the most unthought of places, in the middle of waste ground plots, cultivated fields, gardens, and even upon the glacis of fortifications. Sometimes a cloud of smoke hides their tops, still more exciting the curiosity of the passerby, who wonders from where the smoke can come.

In reality, these mysterious apparatuses are nothing more than chimneys, so to speak, destined to facilitate ventilation for the immense subterranean caves given over to mushroom culture; an industry little known, although of much value, because of its real economic importance. The value of its products just in the outskirts of Paris, amounts to several millions annually, which is sufficient reason for it to come under the notice of biologists, to say nothing of those interested in economic sciences. It is, in fact, at the present time, one of the great gaps in the path of vegetable biology, to be ignorant of the nutrition in the higher kinds of mushrooms, notably the entire order of Basidiomycetes and those of Discomycetes (a).

It is apparent that these vegetables without chlorophyl must, when they do nead an existence either parasitic or symbiotic, find the needful nutrition for their tissues in the destruction of certain organic combinations. But it is just here that obscurity arises. Not one of the hydro-carbonated nor azote matters used in the food of the Mucedineae and some other of the inferior mushrooms is assimilable by the kinds we speak of; consquntly we do not know how to cultivate, in the scientific use of the word, superior mushrooms.

a. Basidiomycetes is that class of fungi embracing the mushrooms and toadstools. Discomycetes are the disc or cup-shaped forms.

[graphic]

GATHERING MUSHROOM CROPS. VIEW TAKEN IN PARIS, FRANCE. (MONTESSON) CAVE

« AnteriorContinuar »