The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-11
AGRICULTURAL
LABOR AND AGRICULTURE

tnCe OI laDOr was so keenlN tSlt as ll 1 is today, never time when farm help was so uncertain and so unreliable. Say what we may in favor of labor being 1 fully rewarded let agitators create all 1 the sympathy they may in behalf of what they are pleased to term the poor l down-trodden laborer. yet the fact re- | mains that the lab Sers on our farms have | every advantage of the owner. The la ! borer has nothing invested, no ties, either of property or honor in many cases, l to bind and hold him to his contract l so he is in position to pick up and
 leave at any time. leaving his employer ] to suffer the consequences.
 i While I want to see every laboring man.
 woman and child paid fair price for 1 every service rendered. whether on the | farm or in the shops. yet the time has arrived in this country when labor should | be made to feel that other interests. other 1 people and capital have some rights as | well as the laborer Where capital and | labor are united for the production of l farm crops there should be an equal di- i vision of the profits derived from such | a partnership business, for such it real ] ly is.
 1 The laborer comes along, in many
 cases he has no home, no money or
 clothes: he has nothing to sell but his | time. He comes to the farmer who by
 hard work, economy and by steady ap- i plicaton to business has been able to | buy and pay for a farm. His children l have grown up and have farms of their
 own or have gone out into other occu- l patons. so the father on the old home 1 stead has more land than he can man
 age. Often this place is a dear, yes
 a sacred place to the old people; here l their children were brought up. here are 1 the buildings, the orchards. the vineyards | the gardens and the beautiful flowers. all planted and tenderly nursed by John | 1,A
 sleeping the sleep tat knows no waking 1 or may be scattered to all parts of the
 world So the old farm is a sacred
 place to father and mother. Here they
 desire to round out their lives in peace | and with as much rest possible but l they have more land that they can cul- | tivate, more cows than they can milk
 more hogs, sheep and horses thtan they
 can feed and look after. This condl l ton affords the greatest opportunity in
 the world for combining capital and l labor. The farmer feels that if some 1 good reliable man would come and take l charge of his farm. look after his in 1 terest in every detail he could afford | to pay such a man a good salary and 1 still have some profits left out of the | investment, as well as having a good l living
 Along comes one of thosefellows. who i has nothing but his time at stake, he
 agrees to give this farmer so many
 months of his time for so many dollars | Against this time. which is all the laborer
 has to sell. the farmer puts up his i land, the accumulation of years of hard toll his teams. his farm implements,
 as well as money necessary to carry on l the expenses of making crop. Now let us look a little as to how such en- terprises or partnerships turn out in
 many cases on the farms today.
 Change in the System
 1 When l was a boy on the farm, when
 a man hired out for q year he received i his pay at the end of his services. He felt in honor bound to work out the time he had contracted for. The farm
 CT lost no sleep fearing that when he awoke in the morning he would be | far mhand short. Today. as a rule the farm hand must have his pay at the
 end of each month. If he lives within ] six or eight miles of a town, he wants
 to be paid every Saturday night. and often if he is on farm just out in the edge of town he wants his pay or part of it every evening. In q great many instances today, when the hired man on the farm eats his supper and goes ffto town, the farmer has no assurances whatever that he will ever
 see his man again.
 Frequently these fellows come along in the spring or early winter dead broke. 1 then they anxious for a place to stop. They contract with the farmer for so many months work. They start in,
 but soon the winter weather clears away,
 railroad building and other public works
 open up. all of which pay prices that the farmer cannot afford to pay, and so away goes the farm hand to the 1 public works or perhaps he may re- main until the demand for harvest hands l in the grain fields arrives. Then away
 he goes and it makes no difference what [ to hffaa f. irann ailNg
 or expense to which he is putting his em- | ployer.
 Now if these fellows would justs top
 and figure a little they would find that it Is not even money proposition for them to leave a good position on a farm where they can remain permanently with their board and other expenses furnished
 and go off afteh shadows. Perhaps they | may make a few dollars more for a short 1 time. but in the end a man who leaves q 1 good permanent job on a farm becomes l the looser.
 1 I want to say that I am not going to argue that every man who hires out on farm is treated as he should be. that he is fed and paid as well as his services de- | serve that he is not expected in many
 cases to work over hours and that the | hired man has no cause to complain. | This is not the idea at all. for this. like all other questions. has two sides But l do know many farmers who are willing l to pay a good price for every service rendered who treat hired men with every
 consideration and who pay and feed well vet are unable to find help that is willing to reciprocate for such treatment speak from both experience and observa-
 tion when | say that as a rule the man who sells his time on farm today cares very little for the interest of his employ
 CT. His main object is to get all the pay he can for as few hours service he
 can possibly put in. And I repeat that many of them are not at all reliable. nor do they in any way feel in honor bound to carry out their part in any agreement that they may enter into. Often they will hire for a year and feel at liberty to quit at the end of the first week. That these are the facts and true conditions the farms today. no one can dispute. Results.
 New it is well to look a little as to the results of this condition regarding farm help. This paper has been sounding the
 note of warning along this line for some
 time. l have, in former issues, tried to
 impress upon our readers that the only
 relief in sight by which our farmers
 may protect themselves against this
 worthless. irresponsible set of tramps.
 who call themselves farm hands. is first
 to reduce the size of our farms; second.
 to put our farms in such high state
 of cultivation that the greater part of
 the farm work may be performed by inn
 proved machinery; third that every farm
 farm work themselves as it is possible
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