Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1889-04-11
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
Hiring Farm Help.

Hiring Farm Help.
Every year at this season the all-im
portant question among farmers is tn
employment of farm labor, and espe
cially the rate of wages. Competition
is now greater than ever before, ant
with low rates for farm products it il
increasingly difficult for even the bes
manager TO make much money. The
tendency undoubtedly is to hire les.
help, to allow more of the land TO go un
cultivated, and thus reduce the cost Of
running it, Most farmers cannot work
much harder than they now do. TC
employ less help seems the most practi-
cable mode of reducing expenses with
in the restricted income caused by low
err prices for farm produce. This is the
natural corrective of this evil, and is
therefore presumably right as gener-
al rule. 1t is, in fact, the inevitable
result. II farmers fly in the face OF
existing facts they get hurt, and arc
taught not to do so any more. When
crops for Il 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 circumstances.
! 1t is after election, and there need be
| no hcsitancy in repudiating the politi-
clans cry that the farmer only is indie
pendent. He is really no more so than
men engaged in any other business.
If his land is poor, or he is heavily in
debt for it, if his stock is inferior to
the average, the probability is he will
be forced to do rs he can rather than
| choose to do what he would. 1t is this
that often makes farmers smile Mt the
advice given them in agricultural
| journals. 1t is often excellent advice,
but to them is or seems to be imprac-
| tiCablC under the circumstances. To use
one of last years well-wOrn campaign
| phrases, it is n condition rather than q
| 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 trouble in
most cases is the increasing difficulty
in hiring reliable farm help at reason
! able rates. Wages have. gone up,
while character and efficiency of SER
vice, except as increased by improved
| implements, have declined. The young
men who thirty-five to sixty years ago
worked for wages few years on the
farm to get the money to begin farm
ing on their own hook, have either
gone west to cheaper lands, or have
tlOcked into cities to engage in other
occupations.
The enormous increase in city popu-
lation within fifteen or twenty years
tell the story. 1t is an unnatural and
unhealthful increase, and therefore
must be followed by a reaction. AL
most all kinds of business in every city
are OverCrOwdCd, 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 a better, that is q livelier,
time in the city; but when poverty
pinches, as it does nearly every winter,
many of them wish themselves on the
farm again.
We believe the long-predictcd re-
action in favor Of farming interests is
about due, and if SO it will be well for
farmers to take advantage of it. If the
mass of farmers cannot we'll 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 condition 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 regard
themselves as restricted to hard work
with their own hands, and must be
content with such living as they can
| themselves earn. In most cases such
men will earn more by working for
others at something than they can
working for themselves.
1t requires, also, in these times good
| judgement of men who know just whom
it is best to employ. Wages are not
really so important as character, skill,
carefulneSs and general efficiency. A
cheap hand may really be dearest, and
the highest paid may well be enough
more efficient TO make him cheapest in
the end. With the complicated ma
chinery now in use on the farm, some
one must be on hand who thoroughly
understands it. The care of choice
stock, if committed TO men who neither
know nor care for their duties, may in
vOlve greater loss than a seasons wages.
And surely no sensible farmer would
think of hiring help to work with in
! sufficient tools, or to care for stock
whose worthlessness make the care for
! given it a matter of little importance.
For these and other reasons the era
of low wages cannot be expected to re-
turn. When good farmer hires a man
in these days he probably expects a
man conscientious, efficient and skilful,
such one as in the city could easily
| assure himself success in any business.
He must pay corresponding price. If
he thinks to put up with inferior help
he may rue his mistake. 1t may and
| probably will require good management
on his part to make hired help pay, but
if he cannot do it with the best help he
surely cannot do it with poor For
many years the best and most efficient
farm hel p has been drawn away to cities
The common impression was that any
body would do to work on a farm. Now
it is learned that farm labor demands
the highest characteristics of efficiency.
and the country sends 70 the city more
of those who have shown themselves
untitled for it than of those who have
been successful. Cultivator
Improved Seed Corn.
All intelligent farmers know some
thing about the importance OF planting
good seed in raising the various crops
usu"lly grown on the farm. One of the
first requisites in the production of a
good crop OF almost any kind is to use
good seed. The corn crop in the
United States is of such vast import
ance that the seed used in planting can
hardly be selected with too much care.
Corn may be vastly improved by mix,
ing different kinds together, and all
that is necessary TO do this is to select
any two kinds that may be desired and
| plant the different kinds i'm alternate