The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1901-11-15
THE HELP QUESTION.
Not as Bad as il Appears According
to Past Experiences,

Not as Bad as il Appears According
to Past Experiences,
From the Michigan Sugar Beet.
One of the greatest problems the man.
agement of a new plant has to contend
with in efforts. to secure acreage, is the
question of help. Farmers seem to feel
that the beet crop must have swarms
of workers, all at the same time, and
the result is that they are timid about
taking hold of beet raising.
The question is not as bad as it would
appear to be, and experience shows US
that it is not as important as many be-
lieve. The following letters touching
on this point will be found of interest.
Farmer Allen, of the Alma company,
says
IL can sympathize with you in regard
to the fault the farmers find about the
help question relative to taking care OF
sugar beets. We find here with us that
the more beets there are raised in the
neighborhood, the easier those farmers
can get their labor done. Laborers
will always 60 where the most labor
and the longest job is found. We have
had no great difficulty the past season
in securing all the workmen that we
wished for the beet heds. The beet
territory seems to utilize largely class
of labor that earns but very little as
cash wage earners, or in other words,
young people and children from ten
years old and upwards perform large
amount of our beet labor.
The sooner a farmer begins raising
beets the sooner he will be able to get
plenty of help and learn how to handle
that help in systematic, profitable way.
The farmer that hangs back about TAX
ing contracts on account of the labor
question, is the one that will lose one
or two years of profitable experience
that his neighbor will obtain who jumps
right into the business. There are
some young people, and also some older
help that come from adjacent country
around here to work in the sugar beets,
but we get a good share of our help
right in the territory where our beets
are raised. AS soon as laborers be-
come accustomed to the work they will
go right by almost any other job on the
farm TO secure work at the beet bust
ness. We are right in the midst of our
harvesting, taking in over 200 loads per
day, and it will probably be 800 by the
latter part of the week There seems
to be no particular scarcity of labor
with us, but still man does not have
to sit around on the streets TO get job,
unless he wants job of sitting"
A letter from P. G. Towar, agricul-
turist of the Lansing Sugar Company,
says:
IL am pleased to state that we had no
difficulty whatever. We did not have
to get help from other sections, having
plenty of assistance in each locality.
The question of labor will always ad.
just itself. From the fact that there
will be a sugar factory located at Mt.
Clemens. it is a sure indication that
there will be plenty of labor; and you
will find that labor will begin to move
into your section until you will have
plenty of it for growing beets. IL you
should secure six thousand acres in the
vicinity of one town, it
might bother you but IL your acreage
is scattered over several townships
there surely would be no difficulty.
Personally, if was living in that sec.
ton | would not hesitate to put in five
hundred or one thousand acres, feeling
perfectly secure as far as obtaining
help. This question has always come
up where sugar factory has been
erected, and it takes only one seasons
experience to satisfy every one."
A letter from Edmund Starke, agri.
culturist of the Caro- Sugar Company, Is
to the same effect