Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1919-01-03

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Manifestly he cannot pay this extra
forty cents for each hours labor in pro.
ducing milk, because that would entail a
loss of one dollar and sixty cents for every
hundred pounds produced, an arrangement
that would speedily put him under the
sheriff's hammer. The only way it can be
done is to add the difference to the selling
price of milk If that were done, let us
see how the account would stand with the
consumer.
The retail price fixed by the Chicago CON-
mission was IL cents quart. How much
now must be added to enable the farmer
to compete with Mr.. Ford on his minimum
wage, or with the soft coal miner This
differential of forty cents an hour amounts
to one dollar and sixty cents hundred
pounds, for. it will be remembered, it re-
quires four hours labor to produce that
amount
But a hundred pounds Of milk will make
only forty-six quarts, and II the dollar and
sixty cents be spread upon this amount,
any accountant will tell us that it is almost
exactly three and half cents for each
and every quart of milk sold to the con-
sumner. The plain English of this is that
If the farmer had needed the demand upon
him sufficiently to have competed on even
4 terms with Mr.. Ford or with the soft-coal
miner, the city laborer would have paid
last winter not twelve cents a quart, but
fifteen and half cents.
WHAT DOES CONSUMER THINK Now3
But this is not all One of the principal
features of the proposed new order of things
overtime" 1t so happens the farmer
is in no wise to blame for it-that the
milk business cannot be conducted on the
eight-hour plan, and. try as he might to
keep expenses down, the farmer would be
Obliged to count at least one Of these four
hours as overtime, and therefore would be
entitled to an additional advance Of thirty
one and half cents hundred pounds, or
three-quarters of a cent a quart. This
would put up the price of milk still another
notch. making a total of sixteen and
quarter cents. Here is a straight advance
of thirty-five per cent in the retail cost Of
milk in order that the farmer may be as
generous as Mr.. Ford. What does the
consumer think about II nowP
Still more is involved in this burst of
generosity Feed for cows and for horses
is also largely the product of labor, and
at the scale now assumed this feed, which
represents considerably more than half
the net cost of producing milk, would also
run in the neighborhood of fifty per cent
higher, adding again some several cents to
the cost OF the bottle Of milk which the
city laborer feeds his baby.
But we are not through with the list of
consequences when the farmer undertakes
to be as generous as other people. These
hours that have been quoted are actual
hours taken for purposes of cost account
ing. They are the same kind of hours
with which the manufacturer is dealing
all productive.
The business of the farm, however, is scat
tered. The labOrer does not milk all day,
but of necessity spends considerable time
in going from one job to another, rarely
engaging in fewer than half dozen differ
ent pieces of work in single day. There
is, therefore, inevitably a considerable
amount of lost time upon the farm that
somebody must pay for, even though it is
unproductive. For this a little more will
have to be added to the milk II the farmer
Is to be not only generous but also suffi-
GENTLY successful to remain upon the farm
"0h But" says the business man, "the
farmer should organize his business so
there would be no lost time" A beautiful
theory, but let the business man under
stand that the farm is a kind Of factory
in which but a few wOrkmen are en-
ployed but one in which these few must
deal every day with many problems, with
several kinds of animals, with buildings,
with machinery of various designs and pur
poses, with the season, with the weather
and, last of all. with market over which
| ne mas little OF no cOntTOl.
This thing of advanced wages upon the
farm will come. if for no other reason be-
cause. in the long run. we cannot in de-
mocracy maintain one scale Of wages for
the city and another for the country.
Roughly speaking, it requires one hour
of man labor to produce bushel Of wheat
How much more will it cost when the
farmer pays decent wage" as defined by
the two instances taken as examples Of
private generosity" on the one hand and
labor demands upon the otheri
Before the war, when the complaint was
laid against low wages in the country, the
farmer was paying from thirty to forty
dollars month with board and lodgings
for the kind of labor involved in wheat
growing. Board and lodgings, including
washing, cost the farmer from twenty to
twenty-five dollars a month at that time.
indicating a total outlay of fifty to sixty
five dollars for a month Of twenty-six
working days. with chores thrown in on
Sunday.
These men worked during the growing
season from ten TO eleven hours in the field
with chores at both ends Of the day. As
union labor counts time. these men were on
duty from twelve to fourteen hours. At
the minimum Of twelve hours for a working
day and two hours for Sunday chores, such
workman would put in three hundred and
twenty hours month. a a total cost to the
farmer Of fraction over twenty cents an
hour figured at the maximum rate Of sixty
five dollars month. or little less than
twenty-five cents an hour if he should
happen to pay forty-five dollars and board
for an extra good hand.
OVERTIME PAY MEANS EXPENSIVE FooD.
If instead Of this the farmer is to pay
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