The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser., 1920-11-05
HIGH LABOR CUTS
FARM ACREAGE
Shortage of Help at $40 a Day
Reported in Western
Grain States.
ENGINEERS STUDY PROBLEM.
Would Increase Agricultural Profits by
New Devices and Improved Trans
portation FaciIities-Distrihuti
Is Worlds Greatest Industry.

New York.-ShOrtage or farm laDor
in agricultural states in the Middle
West Is causing farmers to cut their
acreage under cultivation and is re-
snltfng in decrease of population in
some sections, according to a report
made to the American Society of Me
chanical Engineers by Perley F,
Walker, dean of the school Of en-
gineering in the University Of Kansas.
Dean Walker is head of the research
committee of the mid-continent sec
ton of the institute, and is now study
ing means of stimulating farm produc-
ton with machinery that will fill the
gap of the labor shortage.
Although farmers in Kansas and ad-
joining states were forced to pay S.
and $40 day for inexperienced farm
labor in 1919, Mr.. Walker said that
the prospect this year was that even
those wages would not be able to at
tract harvest labor from the large in
dustrial centers in the cities. High
cost of production and lack Of trans
portation facilities had been the chief
causes of the reduction of acreage, he
said.
1.-THE agricultural states are facing
disturbing situation which has re-
fiex on the country as whole, threat
ening the food supply of the nation"
says the report of the research COM
mittee. "These states are near
standstill in population, if not actually
losing ground. Out of the 105 counties
of Kansas, sixteen prevented the state
declining in population during the
decade ending 1915. These sixteen are
those having the important manufac-
turing industries and hence the larg-
est cities. The agricultural counties
lost in the aggregate. The same thing
holds In Iowa.
"This means an undeveloping home
market 1t means, further, the alb
sence of those large masses of labor
usually found in Industrial centers and
so necessary during wheat harvest.
The seriousness of this lack of labor
at the peak of the agricultural load
ID uOl lCdilACu ny pCopiS Aoi ASAAo'S ~
from the grain states.
I'm 1919 the farmers In Western
Kansas counties were paying $S, and
even $40 a day, and usually for in
competent labor, and even at that were
shorthanded. This condition so in
creased the cost of production that in
many cases, in spite of the high price
of wheat, net incomes were almost
wiped out The result has been that
the farmers are reducing the acreage
to an amount that they can handle
with their labor plus the neighbor-
hood exchanges. This Is menacing
the food supply. Many q farmer is
bills, because the railroads have not
been able to move the wheat"
Describing the distribution of goods
as the greatest industry in the world,
Dean Walker says that the absence
of a peasant class means that in
every nook and corner of the United
States people are in the market for
the highest classes of every line Of
commodities, with the result that
freight shipments Of standard goods
follow population groupings in approx
mate uniform quality.
He gives examples of this situation,
which he calls vitally wrong. In the
grain states, and says that it is even
worse in the handling of the nations
lead and zinc ore, 40 per cent or
more of which is produced in small
area near the corners of the juno
tion of Oklahoma, Missouri and KAN
sas, a few miles east of the oil and
gas belt.
"Some one has said transportation
is the neck Of the bottle that limits
the capacity of the country to pro-
duce," the dean says. "But while
waiting for the railroads to recoup
themselves, why should not Industrial
lists bestir themselves in an effort to
check the evergrowing load of freight
by a systematic production plan?"