New-York tribune., 1918-03-18
Washington Preparing to
Meet Huge Demand
This Season
Must Guarantee Aid
In Farmers Big Task
Harvest Requires Five to
Ten Times More Help
Than Seeding

WASHINGTON, March 1S.-Extraor-
dinary efforts are being put forth by
the Departments of Labor and Asri-
culture to meet the farm labor crisis,
whose gravity they do not admit but
do realize.
There are two immediate purposes.
First. enough labor must be secured
Cor the rush of spring planting. Sec
ond, farmers must be given guarantees
that enough labor will be forthcoming
to harvest the crops-otherwise they
will not put into the acreage what the
labor they have will permit.
Ir many crops the labor required
for the harvest is from five to ter
times the amount required for seed
inG Hence the farmer who has diff
cultT in obtaining sufficient labor for
planting a certain acreage Will be eau
tious about the seeding because of his
apprehension as to the harvesting.
Prce-hxinC does not enter INTO the
situation at all The farmers, both for
their own profit and for patriotic rea-
sons, are prepared to SOW bumper
crop. Current or fXed prices cause
them to plant more OF some crops ana
less of others. but present prices have
no tendency to have a 1ainlm mlZlng et~
feet on the total acreage.
The tendency in the small grain
states, for example, is to put in as
much or greater acreage than last
year but as there is more profit in
sight in barley in free market than
there is in wheat at fixed price, gen
erous as that price may be, more bar
lev will be planted and relatively less
wheat. The substitution does not worry
Mr. Hoover Barley is a very accept
able cereal.
Plenty of Man Power
There is no doubt that in America
there is ample man power to meet the
seasonal labor emergencies of the
farmers for a vastly greater acreage
than there is any hope of attaining. It
is simply impossible to mobilize and
divert it.
The only way in which this could be
done is through conscrption of labor.
And that is dream. Enforced labor
for the idlers would sweep thousands
of men to the farms this spring.
The only real hope. however, for in
creasing substantially the number OF
farm workers is through volunteers
from cities and villages, such voun-
teers being men who are ordinarily
otherwise engaged. and the older boys,
and by a superior distribution and
mobilization of floating and unem-
ploved labor.
With very imperfect facilities the
employment service of the Department
of Labor was able last wear to find and
deliver $4,000 farm laborers. 1t should
and doubtless will do better than that
this year several tins over.
By cooperation between the farm
management bureau of the Department
of Agriculture and the employment SER
vice it is planned to establish sys-
TEN that will almost automatically send
the jobless man to the manless job.
There will be no unemployment prob
lem in one section and a dearth of men
in another.
New Bureau to Aid
The Farm Management Bureau
through it's own farm labor specialists,
one to each state. an organization
which has been building for q year. the
county agents and the representatives.
of the latter in almost every township,
is now making 4 survey of the labor re-
quirements of every part of the coun
try and also Of the visible supply OF
labor
This work is being supplemented
through the cooperation of the post
Office, which has turned every rural
carrier and third and fourth class post
master into an employment agent The
state, county and local representatives
first strive to match jobs with men
within their own Jurisdictions Next
they seek to satisfy county deficits
from within the state and finally state
deficits from somewhere else in the
nation. While the two general agencies
dealing with the programme intcrlock
more or less. it may be said that
when the problem assumes an inter-
state or even an intercountry size
the duty Of the Department of Agri-
culture is to ascertain the situation
and the duty Of the Department of
Labor to provide the required number
OF men. The men being delivered. it
devolves to a large extent on the De-
partment of Agriculture 10 see that
they are properly utilized.
Within the limits of this article
it is possible only to give an outline
of the organization and methods be-