The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1883-03-16
Farm Help.

3ioi heaa Farm Help.
The season has now arrived when
farmers of forethought are beginning to
think seriously concerning the help
they will employ during the coming
summer. We are not at all satisfied
with the condition of the farm-help
trade and customs prevailing generally
throughout New England, and indeed
to a large extent all through the coun-
try. There seems to be a great deal.
more shifting of laborers on farms than
in most or many other industries. The
city merchant or manufacturer, when
advertising for help. often adyertises
for a young man to ..learn the busi-
ness with anticipation of Partnership
If a young man desires to learn a
trade, he expects to serve a term of
years as apprentice and at very moder-
ate wages. After serving his time, if
he is not taken into partnership. he may
spend few years as = journeyman, .
going from shop to shop, OF city to city,
and working year or more at place.
in order to perfect himself in his art.
Since the agricultural colleges have
been established in many of the States,
there are a few young men to be found,
who, having passed through the public
schools and then taken course at the
agricultural college, are DESTROYS to OBJ
tain a more practical knowledge of
farm work in all its everyday business
details than is possible at the college.
Some OF these young men would make
excellent help to employ, and farmers
who can appreciate the difference be-
tween good, faithful intelligent men
who are striving to learn their business
thoroughly, and the careless and shift
less itinerant, who never suits his en-
ployer well enough to be hired the Sec
ond time, could afford TO pay such in
telligent. help very liberal wages,
whether for q single season or for
term of years. 5s ~
We believe, too, that if young men of
the stamp we have described would
make up their minds to spend from
eight to ten years as journeymen farm
ers, and would save the wages which
then. employers would be glad to pay
them, they would at the end of that
period find it not a difficult matter to
settle themselves upon a farm of their
own, and If there should be some de t
upon it, they would, as rule, be able to
manage it 81 cessfully. The majority,
however, of those who leave the aori-
cultural college seem to think that thev
must get into some other business by
which to earn the means for buying a
farm This, we believe, is a mistake.
There is constantly increasing num-
Der of men of intelligence and means,
who are anxious to obtain responsible
and capable young men to help them to
carry on their farms Many of these
men are not articularly anxious to
make money by their farming opera
tions, but want a good home on their
country farms, and hope at least to
make them self-supporting, ex e5t as re-
CARDS interest on the Investment. and
they can afford and are willing to paY
an intelligent man. who understands
his business well enough to farm upon
his own account, all that he can posi-
bly, earn. as a farm manager or work
man. And there should be a larger
number of young men ready to fill such
places. The fact is, the places are
much more abundant than are the men
to fill them. There has scarcely been a
time for years that we could not find a
good place for a good man on farm.
where the ray would be all that he
could earn, whether it were much or
little.
AS trade and manufacturing are now
carried on in this country, the number
who are employed is comparatively
very small who can ever hope to stand
at the head of q large manufacturing or
trading house. To become foreman
or oyerseer of a department is the height
Of their ambition, while the great ma
joritv would be well contented if they
could be assured of steady EMPLOYMENT
in the minor places.
On the farms the case is quite differ
emit Few seem willing to work for
others, but all are in haste to strike out
for themselves. and that before they
have half learned their business. No
better evidence of the truth of this is
needed than look at the coalition of
the majority of those who run in debt
for farms. The rule is scarcely with
out an exception that men buy more
land than they can possibly use, with
the capital they have. in any way that
viii bring them as high rates Of interest
on their investment as they are required
to pay to those of whom they berrow. /
I Dung farmers seem to be very irnpa
tientto get hold OF land which they can
call their own. eveAif they heavily owe
for it--Nes0 Essg1a'sd Farmer.
$50