The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1914-05-04
The Farm and the Unemployed.

In about three weeks, as the seasons
run, farm work will begin in earnest
There is always work enough to be done
on farm at any time OF year. Even
in the short days of winter there Il
stock to be fed and wood to cut, the
milking to be done night and morning,
and many details to attend to that had
been overlooked in the hurry of the
crop. gathering months, like the repairs
of the tools and machinery that will be
in immediate requisition as soon as the
frost leaves the ground and the buds
begin to form. But within the seven
months from the first of April to the
first of November is included the period
of seedtime and harvest. 1t is then that
the husbandman stands in urgent need
of help, a need that in these days is felt
more often than it is satisfied.
Although the farms of New England
do not cover such great eXpanses as
those of the West, they are still too
large upon an average, to be properly
cultivated. Forty acres is small one,
and they will run from that to several
hundred. Under the conditions that af-
feet agricultural labor, the smallest is
likely to be more profitable than the
largest There is more land poverty in
New England to-day than there ever has
been before, because the productive val
ue of land is confined to the amount
that can be properly cared for. The
larger areas require fencing and they
are not forgotten by the tax gatherer,
vet they lie fallow and become soil
bound because farm labor largely has
become lost occupation. The loud wall
of the unemployed is heard over the
land. There are tens of thousands seek
ing or pretending to seek work. There
are thousands asking for hands to help
coax results from idle acres, but for
some reason these two classes never seem
to get together. We boast of our i'm
mense crops and rightly declare that
they are the basis of our national pros
perity, but could every farmer be sure
that he would be able to reap where he
had sown at the exact time when his
harvest was ripe for the sickle these
crops could easily be double what they
are to-day.
If General Kelley and his thousand
men or more had started across the
country in honest and earnest effort to
secure work, instead of posing as mar
tyrs and making nuisances of them
selves, there would not have been a cor
poraPs guard at the end of the journey
to voice demand or an appeal, espe-
cially il it had travelled through the
rural districts. The seven months man
is in wide request just at present and
in many cases he can make terms for a
80 he So. T,.I . IL
is much for him to learn of the nature
of agricultural service. An experiment
is being tried in New York by Gov
ernor Glynn, cooperating with the state
commissioner of agriculture, the pur-
pose of which is to send out city men
to work in places where workers are
needed.
A carload of men will be sent out next
week to the Mohawk valley to answer
calls that have been made upon the Ap-
ricultural Bureau for Farm Laborers.
These men are given free transportation
with situations awaiting them at their
journeys end. Should the arrangement
prove reasonably satisfactory, further
contingents will follow to that and 9th
er sections of the great farming state
as opportunity serves. As the season
advances, the demand win increase, but
probably for every one willing to get
a livelihood at healthy and well-paid
work upon farm, there will be five who
viii prefer to remain and loaf and grum-
bic and perhaps do worse in the city.
1t is not the lack of work that is CON
fusing the situation, but the lack of ad-
justment and the unwillingness of men
TO put themselves, even temporarily.
out of touch with the excitements of the
city, and among these are young men
brought up on farms but ashamed or
disnelined TO go back to Boston
Transcript.