Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1910-10-06
THE FARM HELP PROBLEM.

The endeavor to introduce upon
American farms, and upon our larger
areas, those intensive methods Of Gull
|tivation which afford the only sure
means Of bringing production up to
the higher level attained on the farms
of many European and some Asiatic
countries finds itself everywhere him
dered, and often entirely blocked,
by the absence of efficient farm labor.
Says a writer in the Farmers Insti-
tute Annual:
Talk as you may of better tillage,
Of better fertilization, Of rotation of
crops, and of the larger net profits
per acre to every tiller of the soil, il
he would adopt these improved meth
DDS of farming; if you cannot show
the average farmer where he can get
competent labor at somewhere near
fair wages, he is going to turn a deaf
ear to all your pleadings for improve
ment. For efficient farm labor can
not be bought, cannot be hired, can.
not be contracted for" ,s
1t remains true, however, that in
other countries there is suficiency
of competent farm labor. It is also a
known truth that thousands upon
thousands of competent farm labor
ers-many of them the best in the
world-annually leave those coun.
tries to seek new homes in the Unit
ed States. The anomaly is then pre-
bsented of constant stream of labor
of the kind desired, pouring across
the Atlantic and losing itself in
great volume of similar labor already
here, while the landowners who need
it are able to get of it little OF none!
Evidently there is something wrong
in the manner in which our farmers
have approached the problem. May
it not be that it has been approached
too exclusively from the standpoint
of the farmers selfish desires, with
too little consideration for the inter-
ests of either the laborer or the COM
munity at large?
Let the writer of the paragraph
above quoted-let the average farm
er, anywhere, who utters similar
complaint, ask himself: "What have
I done to make life on my farm so at
tractive to the laborers whom 1 hire
now and then, that they should wish
to remain with me all the year
'round?'' The effort has usually been
merely to get as much work out OF
the laborer as possible during his
stay, and to make that stay as brief
as possible. Little, if any, consider
alton has been given to the fact that
he is "a man, with probably the
same aspirations, the same family at.
fections and the same social needs,
as the farmer himself. The transient
laborer-even the regular "hired
MANS seldom made to feel "at
home" in the house of his employer
The only place on the farmstead
wherein he seems really Eat home" is
the barn. A barn is no place for any
but masculine associations, so the
farm "hand" is practically isolated
from womankind, from children and
from nearly all helpful social influ-
ences. The only condition under
which farm-hand's wife can ordinar-
lily be received at a farmstead is that
she come as cook and general drudge
An Office to which good husbands
seldom like to invite their wives. And
it was never intended that the hand"
any more than the farmer, should
live alone.
To the writer, it has appeared that
the only practical solution of this
problem lies in radical change in
the method of dealing with farm
workers, so far as it concerns their
home and family life. The married
laborer should be given the prefer.
ence, and he should be provided with
a cottage of his own; with a piece of
land, one to five acres, which he may
cultivate for his own benefit, and Of
which he should be offered an oppor-
|tunity to become the owner. The
idea could be extended so as to in
clude the settlement, on similar
tracts, of enough laborers, with their
families, to supply all the needs of
the farm in busy seasons. The neces.
sary investment in each cottage, 50
provided, would not be large, and the
possession of a little ''home of his
own by each laborer, would go fa1
to substitute, at a lower cost, perma
ment employment for the nomadism
which is today such an unwholesome
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