Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-03-18
Agrifmltmrat department.
Hiring Farm Help.

Every year at this season the all
important question among farmers il
the employment of farm labor, anC
especially the rate of wages. Com
petition is now crater than ever be
fore, and with low rates for farm
products it is increasingly difficult
for even the best manager to make
much money. The tendency I'M
doubtedly is to hire less help, to al
low more of the land to go unculti.
waited, and thus reduce the cost oil
running it. Most farmers cannot
well work much harder than they now
| do. To employ less help seems the
most practical mode of reducing eX-
penses within the restricted income
caused by lower prices for farm prod
uce. This is the natural corrective
of this evil, and is therefore presum-
ably right as a general rule. 1t is,
in fact, the inevitable result. If
farmers fly in the face of existing
facts they get hurt, and are taught
not to do so any more. When crops
for series of years do not pay they
are abandoned, reluctantly, it may
be, but none the less surely.
To this extent, farmers are neces-
sarily governed by their circum-
stances. 1t is after election, and
there need be no hesitancy in repudi-
ating the politicians cry that the
farmer only is independent. He
is really no more so than men engag-
ed in other business. If his land is
poor, or he is heavily in debt for it.,
if his stock is inferior to the avera ge,
the proba bility is he will be forced
to do as he can rather than choose to
do what he would. 1t is this that
makes farmers smile at the ad vice
given them in agricultural journals.
1t is often excellent advice, but to
them is or seems to be impracticable
under the circumstances. To use
one of last years well-worn cam
paign phrases, it is a condition rather
than theory that confronts them.
They do not farm poorly because
they do not know better, but because
they cannot always do what they
know to be best.
The original cause of this trou BILE
in most cases is the increasing diff
Guilty in hiring reliable farm help at
reasonable rates. Wages have gone
up, while character and efficiency of
service, except as increased by i'm
proved implements, have declined.
The young men who thirty-fve to
sixty years ago worked for wages a
few years on the farm to get the
money to begin farming on their own
hook, have either gone West to
cheaper lands, or have fiocked into
cities to engage in other occupations.
The enormous increase in city pop
ulation within fifteen years tells the
story 1t is an unnatural and I'M
healthful increase, and therefore
must be followed by a reaction. AL
most all kinds of business in every
city are overcrowded, while the farms
are more and more neglected. Men
and women work in cities, saving less
than they could save working on the
farm. May be they have what they
consider better, that is a livelier,
time in the city; but when poverty
pinches. as it does nearly every win
ter, many of them wish themselves
on the farm again.
We believe the long-predicted re-
action in favor of farming interests
is about due, and if so it will be we'll
for farmers to take advantage of it.
If the mass of farmers cannot afford
to hire much help, there ought still to
be enough exceptions to the general
rule. Men who have great executive
ability. men who work hard, and are
therefore able to get most work out
of farm help, men who are good
managers in other respects, men who
have kept their land in better con-
dition as to fertility than the average,
may each and all regard themselves
as exceptions, and hire help enough
to push their farms to the limit of
profitable production. Those who
cannot be classed under either of
these heads may more properly re-
gard themselves as restricted to hard
work with their own hands, and must
be content with such living as they
can themselves earn.
Wages are not really so important
as character, skill, carefulness and
general efficiency. The care of choice
stock, if committed to men who
neither know nor care for their duties,
may involve greater loss than a sea-
sons wages. And surely no sensible
farmer would think of hiring help to
work with insufficient tools, or to
care for stock whose worthlessness
make the care given it of little i'm
portance.
For these and other reasons the
era of low wages cannot be expected
to return. When good farmer
hires man in these days he prob
ably expects man conscientious, eff
cient and skillful, such a one as in
the city could easily assure himself
success in any business. He must
pay corresponding price. If he