The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-10-24
Labor bY the Year.
What me OF the Best Developed Coun-
trIes I'm the World Pay Field LnkOrers.

Labor by the Year.
What me OF the Beat Developed COun-
trAes I'm the World Pay Field LnhOrers.
TFrom the N. o. Picayune.l
Wages paid agricul tural labor in this
state latterly, have been from $40 to
1912 per annum, or at the rate of from
$50 to $26 month, for first-class men
able to pillow or ditch, chop wood or hoe,
and do all kinds of plant alton work
Most of the crops of this state, as we'll
as those of other southern states, are
such as require the whole year of cen
tinuOus work to make their crops. The
preparation of the soil in winter, the
setting of the crops in spring, the long
struggle against grass and weeds, and
the harvesting and preparation of the
products for market, consume the
steady labor of the four seasons.
There is less improved agricultural
machinery in the southern states than
in almost any agricultural region in the
North Temperate zone. With colored
labor it has always been difficult to in
trodue. In other countries and other
sections of the United States, the
amount of labor required to make their
crops of grain and hay is infinitely less
than is necessary to cultivate cotton and
sugar cane. Hence, far more laborers
are required to cultivate a given area of
land.
Our English cousins, who made such
hHllaballoo about negro slavery in the
United States, after they had freed the
slaves they had brought to the West In
dies and ruined their colonies, have one
still left where the freed negroes labor
steadily, and have not relapsed into idle
ness, vice and barbarism-th island of
Barbados. The land there is rich, and
is still owned by white proprietors and
cultivated in plantations with profit. A
sea captain informed us in 1866 that the
English proprietoTs of Barbados pay
their colored laborers at the rate of
eighteen cents per day.
From information received from for
eigners, immigration societies, foreign
land owners, and foreign laborers, wages
paid to the agricultural labores of the
south seem to be higher than wages
paid in any other country in the world,
although other countries can afford to
pay far more, as they use fewer men and
more machinery to cultivate the same
area Of land as is cultivated here with
horse -plows and hoes.
German laborers and immigration
agents state to us that the wages paid
in the fields of Germany for those who
work by annual contract are, for the
best hands, one hundred Prussian dol
lars per year. They state that this is
equal to about eighty dollars in our
national currency. Or laborers by the
day are paid from three to four Prus-
sian dollars per week. The time of
work required is from ten to twelve
hours per d. Y, and hard work expected.
These wages are paid on the vegetable
farms, wheat fields and beet planta-
tons, being higher on the last than on
the two first. Millions in Germany, it
seems, manage to live comfortably and
we'll on this compensation.
From the French immigration agents,
who have been managing and owning
places, we learn that the wages paid in
France for the best agricultural laborers
are, in the different civilizations, from
so to 60 cents per day to those hired by
annual contract, and the laborers are
found. Those who get these wages are
expected to work from dawn till dark,
and work we'll. These are from S13 to
S15 per month of 26 working days,
which are considerably less than those
paid in the southern states for 81 hours,
daily work for a month.
In England wages of all kinds seem
to have been undergoing considerable
ductuation during the past year, pre-
badly more than they have been chang
'ng in any other country; but we are
informed by men who have visited the
agricultural districts of that country,
and by English laborers, that the best
laborers get fourteen shillings per week
when they are hired by annual contract,
which amounts to nearly sixty cents per
day, or about $15 per month, and found.
These wages, it must be remembered,
are for first-class workmen. We are in
formed that they were the wages paid
on the queens farms.
Here are three countries wherein L =
riculture has been brought up to a
science and the aid of mans muscle is
less needed to till thes - H,an anywhere
else on the face of the globe,
Although comparatively very few men
are needed in the cultivation of large
areas, these few, operating the most i'm
proved implements, are paid far below
tine wages that the southern planters
give, when these planters have to en-
plOy over double the number of men to
work crudeIy and imperfectly the same
area.
In the three European countries agri-
culture has had the practical time of
many centuries to test.
Employers have found out by long
experience what they are able to give,
that agriculture may be paying.
Whether wages in the south will ever
be brought down to these foreign fig
ures, is a question for time to deter
mine; and whether our agricultural in
terests will survive many wears under
these wages, is a question vet to be
solved but it is to be hoped that the
wages now obtained in agricultural re-
giOns of the south may attract work
men enough over here at least to create
a competition.