The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-05-21
FARMER AND PLANTER.
THE LABOR PROBLEM,
Something Must be Done to Meet the DE
fciency in the Labor Market.

]
Something Must be Done to Meet the De"
ficiency In the Labor Market.
If there is deficiency of labor, there
are but two ways of remedying it. One
is to supply the deficiency by importing
labor; and If this can not be done, the
next is to curtai our crops to the guam
tity of labor we can secure. 1t we can
only have laborers enough to cultivate
one hundred acres, the crop must be re-
duced to one hundred acres. That is
settled problem. There is labor enough
in the country if it could be procured,
but a lare amount of that labor
is lost to the farmers; they have
branched out and are employed at
other occupations, and where highest
paid for heir labor, there is where they
will work. That is but natural, and it
is what the farmers must count on. The
farmers are now bro nght in competition
with other pursuits, ant If they can not
afford to pay the same price's that others
pay, they must expect to be snort OF
hands. Heretofore no class OF men
have ever procured labor as cheap az
the farmers have, hence when brought
in competition with other pursuits, and
the price of labor is raised upon chem,
they think they can not pay such prices.
AS such, the farmers must calculate on
having to pay higher wages in future,
and consequently they had best begin
to arrange the mode of farming TO meet
those conditions.
| shall make no suggestions to the
changes that must be made, for that is
a matter that every farmer must study
out, and make his plans to suit his own
circumstances; but this will say, high
priced labor demands intensive farming,
and a diversity of crops that can be cul-
tivated and harvested with machinery.
With the young men of the country,
both white and black, the tendency is to
leave the farms and seek other occupa-
tions. They seem to have an aversion
to farming, and will accept employment
where the work is harder, the situation
less independent and more combining,
and monotony and drudgery is the dali
" routine. And why so? Because
the wages they are offered do
not compensate for the labor per-
formed. Thus, they can live on less
and dress as well as the boys employed
in the cities, but six and eight and even
ten dollars a month seems very small,
and lessons his occupation In his own
estimation when he hears of the city
boys getting ten, fifteen to twenty dol
lars a month that work no harder than
he does, and less exposed to the weather.
The pride of youth, when he starts out
to work for himself, is the expectancy
to make something for himself, and be-
come enabled to make as good an APP
pearance in the world as other youths
do who are also at work for themselves.
Seeing others more prosperous that
work at other pursuits than himself,
he becomes discouraged at farming and
is for change that will better his con-
dition.
The time is fast approaching that,
to great extent, negro labor for the
farms will have to be substituted by
white labor. 1t is now being done in
some of our oldest southern states, and
it will also be done In Georgia. The
system adopted by the government, as
well as by our own southern states.
which has reached state of fanaticism
in educating the negroes, will incapaci-
tate the negroes as farm laborers.
They are being taught that they are
educated to reach higher sphere
than that of a common farm la
borer, and after their schooling
they will look upon farm work as
beneath their calling, and even if the
necessities of some will drive them to
the farm to keep them from starving
they will be apt to make the most
worthless of laborers, merely creatures
of discomfort and ripe for strife. AS
their educators are teaching them, they
are being educated to elevate them and
not to make laborers of them. It has
been said: "a little learning is a dan
gerous thing" and / apprehend it will
prove so to this negro race
There is great evolution going on
in all temporal matters Just now.
What the end will be there is
no prophet among us to make reve-
lation, but changes must take place
from what now exists, and the
farmers Of the south will also experience
it. Would it not be best for more of our
farmers to encourage their sons to be-
come farmers, and choose farming for
their occupation? We are writing farm
ing up, speak of it as a noble pursuit,
and say it affords us one of the best and
most independent homes. and pointing
to the happiness and surroundings Oh
farm life, and at the same time we are
educating our sons for other pursuits.
There seems to be some inconsistency
N such, as we are not carrying out what
we preach.-Jno. Fl. Dent, In Southern
Cultivator.
GOOD ROADS.