Evening star., 1917-01-21
HIGH COST OF LIVING
By Sheldon S. Cline.
Problem of Farm Labor.
No. 21.

Probably the most serious problem
which confronts the producer of food
stuffs is the growing scarcity of farm
labor. Every day sees farms abandoned
because their owners. grown too old
themselves longer to do the hard work.
are unable to hire competent help at
wages which will admit of a profit The
situation is especially acute in the east
and near large cities. and the dairyman.
probably. feels the pinch more than
any others. The hours on dairy farm
are long and the work eXacting, and
milking cows at even $50 a month and
board doesn't appeal to a man when ho
can go to town and get So a day for
running q street car. or 81 to s. day
working in a munitions plant.
1t is becoming more and more the
case that only the shftless, no-account
man is willing to work as farm hand.
The worthwhile man either gets hold
of a piece of land of his own or goes
to town. Farmers sons, with the mark
of the lean years indelibly impressed
the city, and pretty soon the fields or
the old home place are overgrown with
scrub brush and buildings and fences
are tumbled down.
*
more skin and training than that which
is classed as "unskilled labor" in tho
cities, yet has been paid less. Farm
hands have learned this, and no longer
are willing to rest under what they
very naturally view as an injustice.
They are not organized into a union,
and need none, for the city is crying
out constantly for the Drawn and
muscle of the country laborer. II
labor is to be kept on the farm it looks
as if wages will have to be paid com
parable with those the city offers, and
that means still higher prices for farm
products. Use of improved machinery
helps some to overcome the scarcity OF
labor, but machine-power cannot
wholly take the place of man-power,
and the more machinery a farm uses
the higher grade of labor it requires.
The same class of men who sweep the
streets of cities cannot operate farm.
tractor with a gang of plows hitched
to it.
The great difficulty of paying higher
wages on the average farm is the i'm
possibility of keeping the labor profit
ably employed all the year around.
Many students of the subject are con-
WINGED that the day is not far distant
when the average sized farm-1oo to
200 acres-can no longer be operated
with profit. They think the land VIII
have to be cut up into farms of about
twenty acres each. to be sold or leased
to tenants, or that farms will have to
be combined into units of 1000 or
more acres and operated on big busi-
ness" scale.
A great many economists point to the
lower yields per acre in this country
as compared with the yields on tbs
high-priced lands of Europe. and con-
tend that the high cost of living is to ,
be solved only by increasing the yield
per acre in America, They lose sight
of the fact that to get a yield of 400
bushels of potatoes per acre in Ger
many requires more labor per bushel
than 1t does to get yield of 100
bushels per acre in this country, and
that the problem in America is not the
scarcity of land but the scarcity of
labor.
There isn't any doubt but that If all
the land in this country was utilized TO
it's fullest capabilities America could
grow foodstuffs for all the world. But
the land cannot be utilized without
labor, and the labor simply is not
available. a
Next-rhe Eight-Hour Day and tho
Farm Day.