r when objective overfatigue of the
system has begun. At the right moment a short interruption may secure
again the complete conditions for successful work. If that moment has
passed, an exhaustion may result which can no longer be repaired by a
short rest. Any wrong method of performing these simple activities,
that is, any method which is not based on exact scientific analysis,
wastes the energies of the workingman, and by that the economic means
of the farm owner, and indirectly the economic resources of the whole
nation. In the Harvard Psychological Laboratory we are at present
engaged in the investigation of such an apparently trivial function
as sewing by hand. The finger which guides the needle is attached to a
system of levers which write an exact graphic record of every stitch
on a revolving drum. And the deeper we enter into this study the more
we discover that such a movement, of which every seamstress and every
girl who makes her clothes feels that she knows everything, contains
an abundance of important features of which we do not as yet know
anything. With the same scientific exactitude the laboratory must
investigate the milking, or the making of butter, the feeding of the
cattle and the picking of the fruit, the use of the scythe and the
axe, the pruning and the husking. The mere fact that every one, even
with the least skill, is able to carry out such movements with some
result, does not in the least guarantee that any one carries them out
to-day with the best result possible.

The governmental experiment station ought to establish regular
psychological laboratories, in which the mental processes involved in
the farmer's activity would be examined with the same loyalty to
modern science with which the chemical questions of the soil or the
biological questions of the parasites are furthered. Only such
investigations could give the right cues also to the manufacturers of
farming implements. At present the machines are constructed with the
single purpose of greatest physical usefulness, and the farmer who
uses them has to adjust himself to them. The only human factor which
enters into the construction so far has been a certain desire for
comfort and ease of handling. But as soon as the mental facts involved
are really examined, they ought to become decisive for the details of
the machine. The handle which controls the lever, and every other
part, must be placed so that the will finds the smallest possible