Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1909-08-06
LABOR ON THE FARM.

Secretary of Agriculture Wilson,
who has been making an extended
trip through the West, studying
the conditions in the farming
districts, comes to the conclusion
that the real cause of the high
cost of living now prevailing is
due to scarcity of labor and not
to the remOter causes of financial
depression or lack of cultivable
lands. He says that the farmer
cannot get labor now at any
price. The drift of the American
boy is to the cities, either because
most OF our boys are unable
or unwilling to do farm labor,
or because many of those who are
farming do it at IL loss, owing to
the lack of modern machinery, as
the former methods cannot com
pete with the machine methods
now adopted by the up-to-date
farmer.
That agricultural labor is
scarce needs no proof, and one of
the chief difficulties of the farmer
in our own State is lack of labor.
Time was, in ante-bellum DAYS,
that farm labor was cheap; a
fairly good hand was hired for
500 a year by the farmer who
owned no slaves, and the labor
of the poorer whites was obtain
ablefOr from SO to $12 amonth
and board. This condition pre-
vailed even for a number of years
after the war. In that day a
tirst-class mechanic was paid
$3.50 day and boarded himself,
and the plain workman earned
still less. But flour was So. so a
barrel and other foOd-stuffs cheap
i'll proportion. Shrewd observers
state that in New York State
wheat cannot be raised now for
less than 81 a bushel, this owing i'm
part to the high cost ofagricultur-
al labor. Here, in our own district,
men can earn ut fishing and oys-
tering two to three dollars day,
and the farmer simply cannot
pay such wages and leave n mar
gin for profit himself, at least
with the antiquated methods
still pursued by most. The re-
suit is, less food-stuffs are grown.
and the fields that were formerly
broad with wheat crops and
large acreages of corn are now
idle. Probably not one-fifth of
the land in the Northern Neck is
in cultivation worth the naming.
How to remedy this is n ques-
ton. 1t is stated that agents
seeking labor in English and
other Atlantic countries are in
structing immigrants thatif they
come South they will be subject
To injurious competition with negro
labor, and that the conditions
for health are unfavorable. Ii
this be true the South is placed
at n serious disadvantage, and it
furnishes a reason for the drift of
the Immigrant tide westward. III
1T could be that those interested
in the subject-those in England
and elsewhere who wish to benefit
their fellow-countrymen by send
ing them TO this part of America
Could send properly educated
agentsto Virginia and the South.
men capable OF studying the situa-
ton and seeing for themselves
the truth, and so return with
ability to coach the coming immi-
grant, this would 60 far towards
helping the cause. 1t would paw
the State if our Legislature could
employ n few intelligent English
aud continentals who have set
tied in Virginia and prospered to
go back home for time and act
as missionaries and show the
hesitating immigrant the advan-
tages of our part OF the Union.
Such would probably not be
looked on with the distrust that
paid Americans might be. Have
our leaders studied this phase of
the question? 1t is stated that
much OF the drift of the masses
from Russia to the United States
Is due to countrymen who have
returned from ours to theirformer
homes well clad and shod, with
money to travel and with the
evidences of well-doing apparent,
and that these have been real
missionaries in the cause ofimmi-
grafton. A hundred or so years
ago Europe knew no more of the
West than did the settlers on the
Potomac, and so the coast was
settled because of lack of know
ledge of land beyond the Ohio:
but now that the whole coast to
the Pacific and the vast North
west is open, and Canadai is invit-
ing the European, unless special
Efforts are made the tide will con-
tlnue as at present to drift past
us to the West.