A brief analysis of the advantages, limitations and disadvantages is worth our study, because of their possible application to farm industry. So far they have been felt chiefly in contributory manufactures of farm machinery, facilities for transportation, with all attending manufacture, and the factories consuming raw materials furnished from the farms. They apply equally well where division of labor is profitable in farm operations.
_Extra efficiency of labor._--Most obvious advantage is seen in the saving of the time of a laborer, both in learning the essential parts of his work, so that apprenticeship is shortened to one-tenth or one-twentieth of the time required for a full trade, and in the far greater dexterity with which he works without change of tools or change of location or distraction of attention. Thus a raw hand in the course of a few months performs his single task more rapidly and more perfectly than an expert workman who must know and practice all the parts of the business. While such a hand can scarcely be called skilled in a technical sense, in the narrow application of skill to one action he may be more perfect than any skilled workman. The fact that each man's work passes immediately under the inspection of another, whose motion must exactly correspond in time and adjustment, makes any costly oversight in the shape of executive labor very much less, since every step in the process tests every other step. It is also found that minute attention to a single detail tends toward the highest improvement by invention of every tool and machine employed.
While this system is not likely to foster the inventive spirit which brings out entirely new principles in machinery, because the work grows easy by familiarity, it does make the workmen quick to invent the little devices that perfect such machines. A broader culture and more general training discovers the difficulties and devises the entirely new method: the worker hits upon improvements. Watt invented the steam engine, but a lazy boy employed to move the valve hit upon the automatic movement.
_Increased efficiency of capital._--The efficiency of capital in production is greatly increased by minute division of labor. The shop room required for each man is reduced to the minimum space for himself and his material. His tools, while the most perfect possible, are the fewest possible.