FARM LABOR
The problem of farm labor demands thoughtful and frank consideration. Since work is an essential element in the production of all wealth, it follows that every industry has its labor problem. The adjustment of labor to the production of the various forms of wealth must ever constitute one of the most important problems in any organized society. It is often remarked that the labor problem is the chief difficulty in farming. In a certain sense this is true, since work is a primary element in the production of agricultural as well as all other wealth. It is not true, however, that the problem of labor is more difficult or more intricate than that of other industries. In fact, that problem is less delicate than in some other occupations, because farming is less industrialized.
It is not possible to settle once for all the problem of labor for any occupation, since changing conditions will give rise to new questions or new phases of the old problem. Moreover, the problem of labor on the farm will grow more difficult as farming becomes more specialized and as the methods of production become more complex.
However, the labor problem on the farm is different from that in the manufacturing industries or in trade and transportation. This chapter will not concern itself with an attempt to settle the farm labor problem, but will undertake to state the character of some of the differences between it and other forms of labor and to discuss some of the changes in recent years.
A large proportion of farm work is done by the farm owner, or renter, and his family. There is not much opportunity to profit by the labor of other persons. In 1900 there were in the United States 1,812 industrial establishments each of which employed between 500 and 1,000 persons, while there were 675 establishments each of which had more than one thousand employees. In the same year there were 5,739,657 farms, which employed in the aggregate 4.4 millions of people, not including the owners of the farms. Moreover, over one-half of the 4.4 million persons thus employed were members of the families of the farmer. In other words, aside from members of the family, there was less than one employee to every two farmers. Since a considerable number of farmers employ more than one person, it follows that the majority of farmers employ no help other than members of the family.
In another particular farm labor differs from that of other forms of labor even more widely. There are sociologic as well as economic questions involved. Baldly stated, custom permits, and necessity often requires, the laborer to eat at the same table with the farm owner and in other particulars he mingles intimately with the farmers family. In all its bearings, this is a very important fact. It constitutes one of the greatest difficulties in the problem of securing suitable farm help. Industrial corporations employ as common laborers largely Italians, Hungarians, Poles and negroes. The English, the Irish, the German, the Swede and the Norwegian have been readily received and assimilated in the American farming communities. The peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe are often criticized because they do not become farm laborers. That they do not is in large part due to the fact that the farm hand is usually a member of the farmers family. Thus the supply of common labor which is today used by the rest of the industrial world is not open to the farmer.
Farming differs from some other occupations in that it does not ordinarily offer the laborer much opportunity for advancement. The fireman on a railway train becomes the engineer; the brakeman becomes a conductor. There are opportunities in many establishments for the advancement of the industrious and clever. A man may enter their service with the hope of being able to marry and support a family. On the other hand, all our land laws are based upon the idea that each farm should be of sufficient size to support only one family. Where it does support two families, the relation is usually that of landlord and tenant. The farm laborer, therefore, must look upon his employment as more or less temporary. The young man who intends to become a farmer will find employment upon the farm a desirable if not essential preparation for his future occupation.
The introduction of farm machinery has had the effect of increasing the price of farm labor while at the same time decreasing the amount of labor needed. The reason is that the introduction, not alone of farm machinery, but all forms of machinery, has made mans labor much more efficient than formerly. Farm wages have doubled since the introduction of horse-drawn machinery. The labor income in the different sections of the United States is influenced by the extent and efficiency with which machinery is used. The relation of labor income to the use of horse power is shown by the following table taken from a recent census:
INFLUENCE OF FARM MACHINERY AS SHOWN BY
THE RELATION OF LABOR INCOME
TO HORSES AND MULES.
Divisions of the United States | Labor Income |
Number of horses and mules to 1,000 persons in agriculture |
| North Atlantic | $299 | 1,655 |
| South Atlantic | 163 | 808 |
| North Central | 402 | 3,036 |
| South Central | 211 | 1,603 |
| Western | 510 | 5,476 |
| ----------------------- | ----------------------- | ----------------------- |
| United States | $288 | 2,105 |
In one of the states of the South Atlantic division the average price of farm labor, without board, was $12 per month, while in one of the states of the western division the price on the same date was $31. Why? Because in the latter case a mans labor was more productive. In the South Atlantic division, in producing the chief crops cotton and maize, a man uses one mule in preparing and cultivating the soil. In the western division plowing and harrowing with six-horse teams is common and nine-horse teams are not unusual. The cotton picker in one day will be able to gather not to exceed 300 pounds of seed cotton, worth not more than $15. The western wheat will be harvested by a machine drawn by 28 horses. In the same time four men with this outfit will cut and thresh 700 bushels of wheat, worth $500.
When the threshing machine was first introduced in Ohio, it was stubbornly opposed by all farm laborers. They claimed it, says Bateman, as a right to thresh with a flail, and regarded the introduction of machinery to effect the same object in a few days which would require their individual exertion during the whole winter, not only as an invasion of a time-honored custom, but as absolutely depriving them of the means of obtaining an honest livelihood. At a later date, when a reaper had been introduced into a field of ripe wheat as a matter of experiment only, every one of the harvest hands deliberately marched out of the field and told the proprietor that he might secure his crop as best he could, that the threshing machine had deprived them of their regular winter work twenty years ago and now the reaper would deprive them of the pittance they otherwise could earn during harvest. How short-sighted they were! No class gained so much from the introduction of labor-saving machinery as did those who did the labor. The reason for the increase in well-being, the reason society enjoys luxuries and comforts beyond the fondest dreams of former generations, is due to the fact that the labor of each man has been made so much more effective through these labor-saving devices. The humblest citizen shares in this improvement. Not all share alike and not all share equitably, but each generation sees its members sharing more equitably than those of any generation which preceded it.
The proposition is an extremely simple one. If a man produces just enough food for himself and family, he will have nothing for clothing, shelter, or education. If, however, a man produces four times as much food as he and his family consume, he may exchange one-fourth for shelter, one-fourth for clothing and have remaining a fourth for education, and recreation or savings. This is only another way of saying that the greater the amount of any useful commodity produced by a single days labor the larger will be the laborers income or wages.
Although the increase in intensive agriculture and the diversification in farming tend to increase the need of farm laborers, the introduction of farm machinery has much more than offset this demand. The tendency of farm laborers to become farm tenants; or, to state it in other words, the tendency of landowners to rent their land rather than to continue to operate it themselves, is not without its influence upon the labor problem.
The invention and introduction of farm machinery has accentuated the difficulty of keeping the farm laborer continuously employed. The decrease in the demand for farm labor and the increasing lack of uniformity in the amount required have caused a gradual depletion of the smaller villages and hamlets which were a source of labor supply during harvest and other busy seasons.
The problem of keeping labor continuously employed has always been a difficult one on the farm, because of the change of seasons and because of the variations in the weather from day to day. There is a wide difference between those industries which are carried on within doors and farming, which is subject to the caprices of the weather. Natural causes produce tremendous variations in the return for labor. For example, in 1901 there were produced in the aggregate 3,006 million bushels of wheat, maize and oats, while in 1902 there were harvested 4,180 million bushels. Here is an increase of over a thousand million bushels. The same farmers tilled the same soil in the same way as far as natural causes would allow, and yet there was a difference in result amounting to 39 per cent. A variation of one hundred million bushels of wheat from year to year, due to climatic conditions solely, is not at all unusual.
The manufacturer also has far greater control of his labor. When it rains, he has a roof over his workmen, and hence the work is not interrupted. When it grows dark, he turns on the light and the work continues. If it gets cold, he lights the fire and still the work continues comfortably. It is not so in agriculture. There is a great variation in the working efficiency of men employed in farming. In a certain locality there were twenty-one days of rain in the thirty-one days of May. The next year between June 5 and September 5 in the same locality there was not half an inch of rainfall at any one time.
What is true of labor is also true of machinery. The farmer must purchase machinery which he can use only a few days in the year, while the manufacturer, for the most part, employs his machinery continuously, sometimes day and night. While natural causes prevent the farmer from using the same business methods, or from being able to calculate his profits with the same precision as is possible by those following manufacturing and mercantile pursuits, it is nevertheless important that farming should be planned to avoid, as far as possible, the influence of natural causes. Certain kinds of farming are less dependent upon natural causes than others. Wisdom and foresight can do much to avoid, in all farming, untoward influences. The clever farmer seldom complains about the weather.
Farm machinery has made unnecessary, and hence unprofitable, some of the labor at which children were formerly employed. In the not distant past many, perhaps most farmers, owed their prosperity in large measure to the labor of their children. A large family, especially of boys, was a valuable asset. Even a generation ago conditions were not far different, and two generations ago were quite the same as those described by Homer:
There is also another reason why the age of the employed has been raised. It is due to the growth of higher education. Where formerly the farmers children between the ages of twelve and twenty-one did most of the farm work, now many of them at the same age are attending schools and colleges. The sons of a man, who a generation ago found no opportunity to get beyond the district school, graduate from high school and college, and thus spend most of their time in study until they are past twenty-one years of age.
Labor unions have doubtless caused a scarcity of farm labor by increasing the proportion of the created wealth which goes to the man who labors without capital. When a man can obtain fifty cents an hour for laying brick, he does not wish to work in the hay field at twenty cents an hour, even though the difference in the cost of living may in great measure offset the difference in wages.
There is a growing tendency to perform work by what is called contract labor. Thus a person may agree to weed and hoe sugar beets at a certain rate per acre. He, in turn, employs a force of cheap laborers which he sends from farm to farm to do this work. The harvesting of fruits and garden crops is not infrequently done in some such manner. In one instance a contractor of laborers of foreign birth has been furnishing them for all kinds of farm work. He keeps 20 to 40 of these laborers on a small farm, furnishing them a dwelling and selling them food supplies. Farmers telephone for help when in need. The contractor receives $1.65 for a days work and pays the laborer $1.50.
It appears from the preceding considerations that there are open to every farmer at least three methods of increasing the efficiency of farm labor. He may make every days labor more efficient by use of labor-saving machinery and the employment of it in the most efficient manner; as, for example, using three 1,500-pound horses to his farm machinery instead of a pair of 1,200-pound horses. He may modify the character of his farming in order that profitable labor will be more continuous. He may modify the method of employing labor; as, for example, by introducing the system of contracting labor for specific purposes where feasible.
Increase in the price of farm labor is not an evil. It is an indication that labor applied to agriculture is becoming more productive and hence more profitable. Since more than one-half the labor of the farm is done by the owner and his family, the farmer is benefited through the rise in price of farm wages. The more that labor can be made to earn upon the farm, the better it will be not only for the farm owner but for society in general.