Evening journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1888-1932, 1908-02-20
Editorial Opinion
Back to the Farm.

New York Evening World.
Many of the men now ont Of work in
this city have had some farming ex-
perience. The European immigrants
OF recent years have come four-hfths
from agricultural districts Especially
are the immigrants from Italy and
Austria conversant with farm work.
Many Of these have returned home and
more are returning. More steerage
passengers are going from New York
to Europe than from Europe to New
York.
The men out Of work who have come
from the rural neighborhoods and
small towns of this and other States
should also go back home and 90 to
work on the farms.
The higher money wages paid in
cities and the allurements of city life
have drawn the younger men from the
country, and by diminishing the guam
tity Of agricultural labor have in
creased the price of farm products.
Now that so many men are out of work
in the cities there should be a read
justment in their return to the coun-
try
In the interior of this State, half a
days ride by train from New York,
there are hundreds of farms which are
not cultivated at all and thousands Of
good, fertile farms which are cultivated
only In part through lack of labor.
Many men have found out their mis-
take In measuring wages solely by the
amount of money received. A single
man gets on farm $40 to $50 a month
and board. He naturally thought that
- or $3.50 a day in New York would be
higher pay. It is not
On the farm the wages keep on every
month and day Of the year. So do The
food and shelter. In the city the
wages are by the day. with loss
through weather change of job dull.
times and other reasons. Although the
wages do not keep on every day, the
necessity for food and shelter does.
Here is a great difference which
makes S25 and board on a farm amount
to more in the course of a year than
$3.50 or So a day without board in the
city.
The city workman earning SO a
day has little left at the end of the
year. His rent and his food have taken
most of it. More new clothes and the
incidental expenses Of city life have
taken the rest.
On the farm man need spend no
more than IS month He win wear
old clothes by preference. except on
Sunday. There are no temptations for
him to spend money. His food is also
much better than he can buy in the
city. The milk, eggs, vegetables and
butter are fresher than any Fifth ave-
nue. millionaire gets.
For a married man on a farm the
house rent is free. He has his own
vegetables, chickens and milk, with
wages Of $40 to $50 a month in lieu or
board. The surplus eggs will pay his
grocer's bill. The proprietor of the
farm will be glad to have him anchor
himself there for a permanent home.
BY saving his wages for two or three
years such a man will have enough
capital to rent and stock a farm OF his
own. There are so many idle farme
and the prices are so low that eight or
ten years work and thrift would en-
able any able bodied man who takes to
farming to own his own home and TO
have something else to leave to his wife
and children besides the furniture OF a
few rooms in a tenement house.
Back to the farm is a matter which
every able bodied man out Of work
should consider