THE FARMER AND THE HELP PROBLEM
Holmes, Fred L.
The Farmer and the Help Problem Demand is Increasing Faster Than the Supply; More Continuous Employment and Shorter Hours is City Attraction By FRED L. HOLMES DURING the past forty years the farm...
...Following is the list of farm hands' amusements ranged in the order of their importance based upon reports of about 300 farmers and their hired men: Going to town (movies, soda fountains, street gadding...
...The following Wisconsin table, where a full investigation has just been completed tells how the number of farm laborers increased from 1880 to 1910...
...Lately the course of food prices had told in favor of the...
...Of those lynched 53 were Negroes and 8 were whites...
...A note of warning of this coming change was sounded by Henry W. Grady, the brilliant editor of the Atlanta Constitution, thirty years ago...
...They became used to mass action...
...They were left to hunt for other employment the balance of the year...
...The short hours of farm labor in the winter months and the increasing number of hours in summer months strike a more comparative average...
...Attactions of the City AMONG the attractions of the city are con-tinuous employment and the shorter work day...
...Help Not Decreasing FA.RM help has not been decreasing...
...As farm homes improve the farmers have money to spend, the country gains in prestige, and hence the hold on its young people...
...So is the proportion of city-born farm laborers...
...The data compiled for the year showed farm laborers work 3,700 hours...
...where there is competition that pricks the ambition and steels the best metal...
...They see others enriched by their toil...
...Stick to the small-sized farm, which the family can run without outside help...
...States in the grain-farming region do not show these increases...
...With this shift has come a rural life problem that is becoming more acute each year...
...The production of enough food to feed the hungry world has become a big problem...
...playing Sunday baseball...
...1.51 1.44 1.45 1.40 Farm laborers per farmer...
...The solitude of plow and the potato patch lost its interest...
...Is the work easier, are the hours shorter and the home life more congenial...
...Because Wisconsin farms are small, averaging only 119 acres, a large part of the work is done by the farmer himself and his family...
...Each agricultural worker was taking care of 5 1-2 dairy cows in 1910 as compared with 3 1-2 in 1890...
...How to produce the crops in the future, how to secure the man to work on the farms and how to adjust agricultural conditions so as to make it possible to operate farms profitably without extra help are every day problems before the American farmer...
...Scientific farming is increasing the number of farm boys who are remaining on the farm...
...in 1860 one-sixth...
...Many thousands of the ambitious who entered the public domain of the prairies following the Civil War, would have drifted cityward had there been no lure of free lands—gone now...
...Farm labor has been seasonable, men were hired for long hours six or seven months during the cropping time...
...in 1870 one-fifth, and in 1880 one-fourth...
...This can only be done by making the rural surroundings and the opportunities as alluring as the enticements of the city...
...Improve the hired man's chance in life, enabling him to become a farm owner by helping him learn the business and making it easier to get credit and start on a farm of his own...
...attempted rape, 8; assisting fugitive to escape, 3; wounding another, 2; insulting woman, 2; knocking down guard, escaping from chain gang and then returning and surrendering, 2; jumping labor contract, 1; theratening to kill man, 1; cutting a man in a fight, 1; for receiving stay of death sentence because another confessed crime, 1; peeping through window at woman, 1; insisting on voting, 1. The states in which lynchings occurred and the number in each state are as follows: Alabama, 7; Arkansas, 1; California, 8; Florida, 7; Georgia, 9; Illinois, 1} Kansas, 1; Kentucky, 1; Minnesota, 8} Mississippi, 7; Missouri, 1; North Carolina, 8; Ohio, 1; Oklahoma, 8; South Carolina, 1; Texas 10...
...This is 22 less than the number, 83, for the year 1919...
...The principal reason for this is to be found in the increase in dairying...
...exorbitant profits in coal and other necessities of life cause greater unrest on the farm than city life inducements...
...Red-blooded American boys like to go where there are things worth doing...
...No greater calamity could befall any country than the sacrifice of its town and village and country life," declared the southern editor...
...These new problems are a challenge to the ambitious youth...
...Many of the farm boy soldiers crowded the cities upon their return...
...In 4 of these instances the mobs were fired upon and as a result, 7 of the attackers were killed and several wounded...
...In 14 instances armed force was used to repel the would-be lynchers...
...Of the 273,600 male agricultural workers 16 years old and over in Wisconsin in 1910, the farmers themselves numbered 172,000, the farmers' sons 45,390, and "hired men working out" only 56,300...
...Invention has lifted many burdens...
...going to see the girl...
...There is scarcely an urban community in the country that is not suffering from home shortage due to this extraordinary burden...
...8.4 7.2 7.3 6.1 Agricultural workers per 1,000 improved acres...
...And this notwithstanding improvements in agricultural machinery have decreased the population necessary for farm operation...
...The charges against those burned to death were: rape and murder, 1; killing landlord in a dispute, 2. The offenses charged the whites were: murder, 5; insulting woman, 1; no charge except being a foreigner, 1; killing officer of the law, 1. The offenses charged against the Negroes were: murder, 5; attempted murder, 4; killing officer of the law, 5; killing landlord in dispute, 6; rape, 15...
...Ownership breeds contentment, The size of farms will be smaller in the future and will be operated more economically by the farm family, requiring less hired help...
...Let us see...
...Not only has the year around work plan been offered as a possible aid in the solution of farm labor problems but in many communities of the Middle West hired men's homes are being built...
...The final solution of the labor problem lies not with any one farmer, but with every one who is interested in agriculture...
...factory workers 3,250 hours and carpenters 3,000 hours...
...fishing and hunting...
...Farming has been becoming more intensive in Wisconsin and hence demands more labor...
...Space has been annihilated by the steamer, the railroad and the automobile and traffic now moves quickly...
...There were 61 persons lynched in 1920...
...entertainments...
...The growth of agricultural colleges, the employment of machinery, diversified systems of farming, rotation of crops, direct and cooperative marketing, the reclamation of swamp and waste lands and higher prices for farm products re making new demands for the ambit-ous farmer youth which must ultimately keep him at work on the farm...
...In 42 of the cases, the prisoners were removed or the guards were augmented or other precautions taken...
...22.6 21.7 21.8 20.5 "It must be admitted, however, that although farm laborers were increasing in numbers, actually they were becoming scarcer because the demand for them was increasing even faster than the supply," says Mr...
...auto and motorcycle riding...
...Let the farmer retire gradually, living on or near the farm, ready to help during rush seasons, instead of moving to the city and taking with him both his money and labor...
...often when there is work to be done it must be performed at once in order to save the crop...
...High-priced farm lands necessitating the use of improved machinery, thorough-bred live stock, scientific methods and good business judgment challenge the more capable young men, so that in the more prosperous agricultural regions it is the restless rather than the ambitious who wander to the city...
...Farmers are willing to work longer hours in order to make more money and pay off their debts...
...People are giving up the independence of farm life...
...Virginia, 1; West Virginia, 1...
...There are many reasons why it may never be possible to have an eight-hour day on the farm Agricultural life does not lend itself to the factory system, even though the plan on large scale commercial farms in New Jersey has worked with apparent satisfaction...
...This, however, will be only temporary relief...
...Counting the time which laboring men spend in transportation to and from work in eighteen cities having a population of 10,000 the factory worker puts in ten hours and fifty minutes a day...
...surprise parties and socials...
...swimming...
...The farm fence is no longer a tariff wall...
...Three of the victims were burned to death...
...Cause of Urban Growth THE causes of urban growth are not hard to find...
...Travel in other states and foreign lands opened vistas, awakened new desires...
...Moreover, recreation must be furnished to the laborer...
...Why do farm laborers go to the city...
...Every nation in the world is facing it...
...This is not an American problem alone...
...More will lose money because they can not handle the crop...
...New Call to Youth SCIENTIFIC farming is making a new call to the nation's youth...
...In the thirty years previous to 1910 help on the farms increased faster than the land in farms, than improved land, than the number of farms, and the number of farmers...
...172,000 162,908 146,400 133.000 273,600 243,653 220,000 187,700 Farm laborers per farm...
...But there must be other rewards to the ambitious...
...Old style one crop methods of farming are discarded is relics of the oxen era...
...An investigation of 260 farms on the basis of 82 weeks of summer work and 20 weeks of winter work showed that the work day in summer on farms was twelve hours thirty minutes, in the winter ten hours and forty-eight minutes—an average of eleven hours and forty-eight minutes for the year...
...As pointed out by Dr...
...The farmers who will make the largest profit in the next ten years are the farmers who will be able to keep hired help and to put it to best use...
...Contrary to expectations the close of the world war did not repopulate rural communities...
...They desert the field of production for the easy role of the speculator...
...Causes of Unrest PROFITEERING in farm products, in wool and grains...
...Taylor...
...the whirl and the charm of city attractiveness sucked them up like a cyclone...
...card playing and games...
...going to Sunday ball games...
...0.56 0.48 0.49 0.41 Agricultural workers per farm...
...Farm loan statutes and cooperative legislation will increase the opportunities for the rural boy to acquire a farm...
...Nor can the long farm day be shortened...
...The proportion of our farm laborers who are our own farmers' sons is increasing...
...0.59 0.50 0.50 0.41 Farm laborers per 1,000 improved acres...
...W. J. Spillman of the Department of Agriculture, one of the improvements needed on the farm is an actual record of the cost of production which will take account of the long hours spent at farm labor...
...So many of the coming generation are growing up in cities that it will not be long ere the national soul is urban," comments Professor E. A. Ross, the sociologist, in reviewing this situation...
...church going...
...Many farmers are meeting this situation by employing men throughout the year...
...Here are few opportunities developing...
...A week of work even among farm help must be brightened by a day of recreation...
...If necessary, encourage a system of loans from the state or nation...
...Increase of production on smaller areas by machine power s required if food demands are to be met...
...One of those put to death was a Negro woman...
...The fruits of Florida appear on the breakfast table of the North at not near the expense it took to get a sack of wheat to the local mill and the flour back a quarter of a century ago...
...The home is no longer an industrial center...
...Legislation will help in the solution...
...When these evils that menace a free government are corrected, when the toil of the farmer is rewarded in equal measure with the toil of the city dweller, when price plundering is checked, unrest will subside and the flow of laborers to industry and to the farm will be measured according to actual opportunities rather than artificial inducements...
...Now the sources of basic prosperity are returning to the farm...
...Many will make small profits because they will be unable to find and keep hired labor...
...1910 1900 1890 1880 Farm laborers 101,600 80,745 73,600 54.700 Farmers...
...For every 61 hired men in 1880, there were 84 in 1910...
...Eighteen, or less than one-third of those put to death, were charged with rape or attempted rape...
...The need of the future is not to call the city bred men to the farm but to keep the ruralbred boy on the farm...
...Moreover, the call of the west with free homesteads has been silenced with the disappearance of the frontier...
...Of these 52 were in the South and 9 in the North and West...
...Yet in more recent years the lengthening phalanx marching cityward has widened...
...More and more of the graduates of agricultural colleges engage in farming...
...Farming is becoming a learned pro fession...
...Labor has become so scarce that farmers need to do more thinking about it than about crops and live stock," says H. C. Taylor, chief of the department of farm management economics for the federal department of agriculture...
...in 1850 one-eighth...
...The Lynching Record For 1920 DURING the past year there were 56 instances in which officers of the law prevented lynchings...
...One authority estimates that five-sixths of the work of supplying wants for the pioneer farm home is now done in the cities...
...phonographic music...
...The hope of further checking the flow of country brains to the city lies in multiplying social and recreative opportunities for heart-starved young people on the farms, in redirecting rural education and re-inspiring the rural church, in dispelling the false glamour which envelops the distant city and in showing the bright country youth ways of gearing his brains and knowledge on to farming...
...sleeping (Sunday "naps...
...They had the company of their fellows...
...The making of cloth, the tanning of leather for shoes, the curing of ham, the manufacture of soap, once home employments, are now city industries...
...More Continuous Employment and Shorter Hours is City Attraction By FRED L. HOLMES DURING the past forty years the farm population of the United States has decreased from 70 per cent of the total population of the country to 35 per cent...
...This, gives the hired man a home— a chance to marry and settle down to farm life...
...But each decade has seen more labor applied to each acre of land in 1910 than ever before and more of this was being done by hired laborers...
...Its solution not only challenges the legislative attention of the nation and the state, but the best thought of community leaders everywhere...
...This is particularly true where the hired man is married...
...He pointed out that in 1840 only one-twelfth of the people lived in cities of more than 8,000 people...
...Athletic sports appeal to the men and keep them on the farm...
...The closing of so many industries as a result of the present industrial panic will temporarily send many back to the farm...
...The country life movement has opened the eyes of many bright country youths to farm opportunities," says Professor Ross in a survey of city and country life...
...holidays...
...Educate the farm boys so that they will stay on the farm and do the work efficiently, without so much need of other labor...
...Too much farm employment is seasonable and sometimes controlled by weather conditions...
...country and against the city...
...For centuries the city has been recruited from the farm and the workshop and the big positions of power and influence have been held by former poor boys...
...Of these, 10 were in Northern States and 46 were in Southern States...
...Wages Have Gone Up WAGES have gone up in rural districts, yet from all over the country comes the report that thousands of acres in every state are destined to remain idle because of the lack of farm hands...
...dancing, reading...
...visiting parents...
Vol. 13 • January 1921 • No. 1
