The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-08-23
LIVE ISSUES.
The New Agriculture.

orange In The MIDLAND JOURNAL.
The writer took for text the
following extracts from an article
in the Country Gentleman of July
IL, under the caption, Decreased
Proportion of Farmers.
"The proportion of farmers is
constantly decreasing in this coun-
try. In this fact is found the surest
guarantee ofagricultural prosperity.
Prior to 1860 more than half the
people were engaged in agricultural
PURSUITS. In 1870, the proportion
of agricultural occupations was Al
per cent of the whole. The pro-
portion was reduced to A per cent
in 1880. In 1890, according to the
delayed census results in occupa
tions of the people, now appearing
in a bulletin, the proportion is re-
duced below 40 per cent, or four
tenths of all workers. 1t will con-
tinue to diminish, and will ere long
be reduced to one-third. The whole
number of persons engaged in gain
full occupations is reported at 49,
735,661, or 1895 per cent of all
persons over 10 years of age. The
total number is increasing, and the
increase in proportion topopulation
is principally due to the larger
number of women in I'gainful occu-
pations.' There were 1867 ,554
more women enumerated than in
1880, IL rate of increase nearly
double that of men. The new
woman is making herself felt in
the independent means of gaining
livelihood in the industries and in
professional and clerical service.
There are 1S,S2O,95O men enum-
Grated as workers, and 1914, I'll
women-7S.7 and 14.69 per cent
respectively of all above 10 years
of age.
"The official classification is as
follows:
Agriculture, fishing and mining 9,Ol3.2Ol
Professional service g4,325
Domestic and personal service 4,36O,5O6
Trade and transportation 3,32og62
Manufactures 5,O91 ,669
Gone third of those engaged in
professional and personal service
are women. and one-fifth of those
employed in manufactures. In
agriculture there are only Isl per
cent, and 6.S6 per cent in trade and
transportation. There is a wide
difference between Europe and
America in the employment of
women in farm labor for wages, and
in service in the fields, yet the
wives and children of farmers in
in this country have no small share
in the labor and success of our
agriculture.
Notwithstanding the table of
office holders, national and State
and municipal, there are more
lawyers and very many more doc
tors, more clergymen, and more
than four times as many teachers.
Altogether a favorable showing is
made for the industry and indie
pendence of the people.
awe are not to be nOmadic
people, jewellers in tents and keep
ers of migrating herds, like the
Arabs, even on Rocky Mountain
ranges-not like the people of India,
almost exclusively agricultural, yet
getting "a poor subsistence on rice
and millet; not so limited in range
of occupation as the ex-serfs of
Russia-but an intelligent and pro-
gressive people, applying every
discovery of science, every inven-
ton in mechanism and every de-
velopment of human skill to the
uses of production, utilizing capac-
ity for labor the most clumsy and
the most def and cunning, of men
of force and of women of taste, even
of the surplus energy and activity
of children. Thus our hands are
rendered skillful, wits sharpened,
labor made easy, consumption in
creased indefinitely, wealth accum-
ulated and comfort and happiness
generally diffused.
''N0 longer ago than 1880, there
were States with such a distribu-
ton of productive forces, such an
exhibition of varied industry, that
the average value of the product Of
each farm worker was seven times
r11n ,.r