Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1903-07-31
The Farmer and the Hired Man.

The Farmer and the Hired Man.
The Macedonian cry. Come over and
aelp u.s." IL heard IN the great Ameri-
.an wheat belt. II Is an old cry and
Is heard every year. but now Il Is loud
er aud more insistent than ever. The
farmers Of Kansas sent word to all the
cities announcing that they would pay
high wages 20 laborers TO help them
gather their bumper wheat crop, but
they have been able TO persuade but
comparatively few men TO leave their
usual haunts for the wheat fields. So
desperate had become some Of the
grain growers OF the Sunhower State
that a few days ago a party Of forty
u them, according to dispatches, held
up a passenger train bound for the
Pacific coast and searched the cars
for possible farm hands. All men who
looked as though they might be labor
ers were told Of the advantages Of stop
ping OF a few weeks In Kansas. Wages
We're rendered. ranging from $3.50 to
So day, and even higher In few
cases. Eight men accepted the offers
and left the train.
This is a remarkable and Instructive
spectacle, and represents Il situation
suggestive of the necessity of the re-
adjustment OF economic conditions.
While men are suffering for the
want Of food In the cities the
farmers few score or hundred
miles distant are begging almost be-
seeching, men TO enter their fields and
work for good wages. The farm work
is hard, to be sure, but II Is healthful
and decent and honest. The wages
earned can be almost all saved. In the
three weeks of the average harvesting a
man could lay aside fully $50 at the
rates offered by the train shoppers In
Kansas. Yet ablebodied men will pre-
fer to loaf around the street corners in
the towns waiting for congenial jobs to
be rendered them while this labor mar
ket is open for them at unprecedented
rates. In some cases close at hand.
Year by year the procurement of suf-
ficient labor at the harvest time be-
comes a more and more serious prob
lem to the wheat growers of the middle
west. They might perhaps with profit
take leaf out of the book of the rail-
road contractors, who are usually able
to secure all the men they need In an
emergency from the immigrant sta
tons. Probably thousands of families,
men, women and children, reach these
shores annually who could be secured
by the western agriculturist II proper
steps were taken in that direction. I'm
fortunately these incomers are imper-
fectly aware Of the extent and charac-
ter of the country. Sometimes they
have been most cruelty deceived by the
agents of the steamship and land COM
panies, and they are very apt to be
wary of promises, but 1t ought not to
be impossible for the farmers, working
through responsible agents and in CO.
operation, to persuade efficient men and
women Of the fact that beyond the con-
fines of the cities lie opportunities far
superior to those afforded by the great
human hives.
Aside from the advantage to the
farmer in helping him to gather his
grain, it would be indefinitely to the
best interests Of the country If a large
percentage Of these immigrants were
turned into the fields, where they would |
have better chance than in the crowd
ed cities to develop morally as we'll as
industrially. The United States gov
eminent, through its immigration bu-
reau. might profitably lend hand in
turning part Of this great tide into
the grain growing regions, where there
is today a crying need for assistance of
the very sort that these European new
corners could give.