The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-11-19
THE FARM HAND.
A Class OF Laborers Who Are Better O
Than They Might Be.


Than They Might Be.
One of the best parts of the sitEa-
ton. to-day, for the farmer, is the fact
tha.t he can truly say: Il have paid
my help better than l am paid,n and
he IS conscience-free of taking hand
at oppression. If he has partially let
the hired man alone, he has been
obliged to. The day hand, with the
usual pay, can get with a weeks work
barrel of flour, a suit of working
clothes, including boots, and news
paper for a year. Part of the year he
! gets a fraction less, while in grain
handling q fraction more. A dozen
years ago he could not get better pay,
and he could not buy the same articles
with scarcely any less than two weeks
work. On by far the most 100
acre farms, a first-class month
hand-and such one is seldom a pro-
ticient in his ayocation, equaling a
master in other callings-gets from
$50 to S39 month, counting board.
ETC., at low rate.
Anent this, mechanics, firemen and
engineers who receive $40 a month
would be glad to save out, or have can
celed their board and laundry bills,
| which really cut their pay back to S22
and less. This month-hand' paw for
seven months takes one-quarter OF the
sales off the farm, at average. If he
worked the farm and did all the
work, furnishing teams and tools, and
half of seeds, taxes. etc., he would get
but half the net sales, with his fam
lily and team board. Surely the month
hand is getting fair deal, and this is
right. Let farm labor be we'll paid,
that good men may be retained de-
spite the low estimate wrongly put on
this following by other workers and
plebs urbana. But let no one say the
work is hard that tune must be
changed; another age is tshered in.
The hired man is not asked to lug at
a cast-iron pillow that never secured,
nor take up the role OF the ''sower
who went forth to sow and with
mule-pack style and main force, strid-
ing to and fro, broadcast the grain
He no more tres out with the dull
scythc. Then the mandrake, which
used to call for skill and long endur-
ance is almost a bric-a-brac curiosity.
The sole 'horse power required of the
man is ''hitching on and hay-load-
ers are claiming that situation. The
GRADER no longer challenges the binder
to test of cleverness and hardihood;
and the thistle patches have lost their
power to bring dread to the human
breast; the long grain boards and thistle
points can not get q chance to touch
the hands; and the sole relic of sickle
lays remains in the corn harvest.
The custom is going fast which
looked on "eight hours before dinner,
and eight after" as a days work. The
wondrous change is seen on many a
farm, and with the same never-Quit-
work task-mastcr of former years at
the head, where the men are not in the
lot at sunrise, and the teams are re-
turned and the chores are done before
shutdown. 10 be sure, men are not
employed so constantly as formerly,
for farmers are bound to stay BY
machinery, and not expend for labor
more than a quarter of net sales, or, as
well, half of net income. Yet the
laborer need work less than half the
year in the farmers pay and still live
far above want. The house-renter has
allowances and opportunities which 90
far to q living, and if neither waste,
the weed nor the shebeen, draw on
him, he will eventually own q notch of
the Republic. w l.. Deuereaur, IN N.
T. ITib7L71e