How grain, cotton, or other products are "graded." The reason for grading. Why there needs to be a law on the subject.
SERVICE OF OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF GOVERNMENT
While the business interests of the farmer, and indeed many of his other interests, such as health, education, and social life, are especially looked after by the Department of Agriculture, he shares with all other citizens the services of all the other departments of government, each of which also has its elaborate organization (see Chapter XXVII). It is the Treasury Department, for example, acting under authority given to it by Congress, that provides the people with their system of money and with a banking system, both of which are great cooperative devices. The Department of Commerce serves the farmer directly by discovering markets for his products in every part of the world, and indirectly by everything it does to promote the country's commerce. The rural mail delivery, the parcel post, and the motor truck service of the Post Office Department are of untold value to the farmer (see Chapter XVIII). The Department of the Interior has supervision over the public lands, the reclamation of arid lands, and the development of mineral resources (Chapters XIV, XV).
THE QUESTION OF LABOR SUPPLY
The question of labor supply is one of the most serious questions which the farmer has to face. It is one that he must help to solve for himself:
As soon as work on the farms is organized, and employment is made steady for all help, just so soon will a better class of laborers be attracted to the farm. As the farm-owner wishes life to be free from eternal drudgery for himself and family, yielding the fruits of happiness, leisure, and culture, he would do well to consent and arrange to give the farm hand who shares the shelter of his roof a fair chance at the same benefits. The laborer wants regular hours, a chance for recreation, a good place to live in, and enough wages to maintain a family according to American standards. [Footnote: W.J. Dougan and M.W. Leiserson in "Rural Social Problems," Fourth Annual Report Wisconsin Country Life Conference, quoted in Nourse, AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS pp. 258-260.]
But there are aspects of the labor problem over which the farmer by his own unaided efforts can have little control. One of these is the problem of bringing the laborer and the job together (see Chapter XI, p. 133). The work of the Employment Service in the Department of Labor during the recent war affords a striking illustration of cooperation secured through an agency of government.
THE UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE
The Employment Service had been created in 1914, but was rapidly developed during the war to meet the demand for farm labor to provide a food supply adequate to war needs. The main offices of Employment Service were with the Department of Labor in Washington. But each state had a federal director of employment, and branch offices were established in local communities. The success of the whole scheme depended, first of all, upon cooperation between national, state, and local governments.
Thousands of county agents and local rural community organizations discovered and reported local needs to local employment offices, which in turn distributed the information by means of the district, state, and national organizations. Fifty-five thousand post offices became farm-labor employment agencies, postmasters and rural carriers acting as agents. Railroads cooperated both in reporting needs for the districts through which they run and in distributing labor to the points where needed. Newspaper offices served as employment bureaus. The operators of nearly 8000 rural telephone companies weekly called up the homes of two million farmers to inquire as to needs. State and county councils of defense, chambers of commerce, labor unions, farmers' organizations, and other volunteer agencies afforded channels through which the farmer and the laborer were brought together.