ffort is to carry forward to completion some plan committed to him as a
trust. The foreman's labor is largely mental and moral in adjusting tasks
and keeping the operatives, "the hands," well employed. This is well named
executive labor, and requires peculiar abilities and character.

Still farther away from the mere task is the effort that devises the plan;
adjusts part to part, decides upon materials suitable for each part,
establishes the ideal of excellence for every part and for the whole, and
foresees its actual uses. Invention of every kind illustrates the exertion
of foresight in planning, but such exertion is not confined to technical
invention. The farmer who lies awake nights to plan his year's work so
that he may have the largest returns for his undertakings in marketable
products, gives the same kind of effort as the inventor. A good name for
this is speculative labor,--an exertion to foresee and provide for future
needs of society.

In much of farm life all these are mingled: the same man devises the plan,
executes his own ideas, and performs the tasks himself. But every one
realizes the difference of success growing out of the planning. Many a
good man needs to follow another's plans, and not a few "work better for
others than they can for themselves." In some great undertakings the
projector and planner, the contractor and overseer and the worker of
details are necessarily separated. This may be well illustrated in the
construction of a great building, for which an architect gives all
attention to a plan, and may require a considerable force of assistants
and draftsmen to embody his ideas on paper; then contractors, one or
several, secure material, employ men and direct them in placing materials
in form and combination to suit the plans; but a host of workmen move as
directed at the will of a foreman to pile brick, mortar, stone, iron or
timber according to the plan. The labor of the architect makes possible
the entire structure--makes the work for all that enter into his labors.

This classification into speculative, executive and operative labor helps
to a fair estimate in sharing the proceeds of combined labors, and gives a
proper importance to the inventive and foreseeing energy which causes the
growth of civilization. _That form of exertion which has done most to meet
the world's wants is speculative labor._

_Invention in farming._--A capital illustration of speculative labor,
productive in the h