vineyard workers and shepherds distinct from ordinary labourers.
As part of this specialisation, each slave must be encouraged to take personal responsibility for the care and upkeep of his tools. He must be urged to store them away from the rain, clean and oil them and not leave them lying around. The cost of replacing such tools is in itself expensive but it also means that many days’ labour are lost from having slaves sitting about without the tools to work. Giving them their own tools and punishing those who fail in this duty will help reduce such losses markedly.
There is a final benefit to this dividing of the roles among your slaves: the estate will become self-sufficient. For every task you will have a slave. So if you need a shearer you will have one, a barber, you will have one, ablacksmith, you will have one. No longer will you have to hire in the costly services of outside contractors.
Gang labour makes slaves work faster, harder and better. You should form them into groups of about ten. This is a particularly easy number of men to keep watch over. Larger gangs can be difficult for an overseer to control on his own. So, on your estate, you should assign these groups to different sections of it, and the work should be distributed in such a way that the men will not be on their own or in pairs, since they cannot be supervised properly if they are scattered all over the place. The other problem with larger groups is that the individuals within the group will not feel that the work has anything to do with them personally. It all gets lost in the crowd. But a gang of the right size has the effect of making individuals compete with each other, and also identifies the shirkers. Jobs always become more interesting when there is an element of competition. It will also mean that no one will complain when those who don’t pull their weight are punished for it.
Take care to assign each slave to the kind of work most suitable to his or her physical or mental attributes. Herdsmen, for example, should be diligent and very thrifty. These two qualities are more important for this role than stature or physical strength, since it requires concentration and skill. When it comes to ploughmen, intelligence, though necessary, is still not sufficient. You need a slave with a big voice that will make him scary to the cattle. Yet he should also be gentle, because otherwise he will treat your cattle cruelly and they will neither obey his commands nor will they last long before theyget worn out by the hardship and the torment of his lash.
When it comes to shepherds, you should again bear in mind that strength and height are of no use in that job. Make your taller slaves ploughmen because there is no job on the farm that is less tiring to a tall man than ploughing. This is because when ploughing a field the slave stands upright and rests his weight on the plough handle. When it comes to general labourers and field workers, slaves can be any size or shape you want. All they need is to be able to cope with hard work. Slaves who you assign to work in the vineyards should be broad-shouldered and muscular. These physical types are well suited to digging and pruning. It also matters less if they are dishonest because vineyard slaves work together in groups, so are easily supervised. It is also the case that dishonest slaves tend to be the cleverer ones, which is a benefit when it comes to tending vines since they need strong and intelligent care. This is why you so often see vineyards being looked after by slaves in chains. Mind you, an honest man of equal intelligence will always perform better than a thief.
Don’t think that slaves are always best for farming your estates. It is definitely better to work unhealthy land with hired labourers than with slaves since it requires greater dedication and effort. It is also probably better to use free men to carry out the more important agricultural tasks, such as bringing in the grape harvest.
As part of this specialisation, each slave must be encouraged to take personal responsibility for the care and upkeep of his tools. He must be urged to store them away from the rain, clean and oil them and not leave them lying around. The cost of replacing such tools is in itself expensive but it also means that many days’ labour are lost from having slaves sitting about without the tools to work. Giving them their own tools and punishing those who fail in this duty will help reduce such losses markedly.
There is a final benefit to this dividing of the roles among your slaves: the estate will become self-sufficient. For every task you will have a slave. So if you need a shearer you will have one, a barber, you will have one, ablacksmith, you will have one. No longer will you have to hire in the costly services of outside contractors.
Gang labour makes slaves work faster, harder and better. You should form them into groups of about ten. This is a particularly easy number of men to keep watch over. Larger gangs can be difficult for an overseer to control on his own. So, on your estate, you should assign these groups to different sections of it, and the work should be distributed in such a way that the men will not be on their own or in pairs, since they cannot be supervised properly if they are scattered all over the place. The other problem with larger groups is that the individuals within the group will not feel that the work has anything to do with them personally. It all gets lost in the crowd. But a gang of the right size has the effect of making individuals compete with each other, and also identifies the shirkers. Jobs always become more interesting when there is an element of competition. It will also mean that no one will complain when those who don’t pull their weight are punished for it.
Take care to assign each slave to the kind of work most suitable to his or her physical or mental attributes. Herdsmen, for example, should be diligent and very thrifty. These two qualities are more important for this role than stature or physical strength, since it requires concentration and skill. When it comes to ploughmen, intelligence, though necessary, is still not sufficient. You need a slave with a big voice that will make him scary to the cattle. Yet he should also be gentle, because otherwise he will treat your cattle cruelly and they will neither obey his commands nor will they last long before theyget worn out by the hardship and the torment of his lash.
When it comes to shepherds, you should again bear in mind that strength and height are of no use in that job. Make your taller slaves ploughmen because there is no job on the farm that is less tiring to a tall man than ploughing. This is because when ploughing a field the slave stands upright and rests his weight on the plough handle. When it comes to general labourers and field workers, slaves can be any size or shape you want. All they need is to be able to cope with hard work. Slaves who you assign to work in the vineyards should be broad-shouldered and muscular. These physical types are well suited to digging and pruning. It also matters less if they are dishonest because vineyard slaves work together in groups, so are easily supervised. It is also the case that dishonest slaves tend to be the cleverer ones, which is a benefit when it comes to tending vines since they need strong and intelligent care. This is why you so often see vineyards being looked after by slaves in chains. Mind you, an honest man of equal intelligence will always perform better than a thief.
Don’t think that slaves are always best for farming your estates. It is definitely better to work unhealthy land with hired labourers than with slaves since it requires greater dedication and effort. It is also probably better to use free men to carry out the more important agricultural tasks, such as bringing in the grape harvest.
Similar Books
