^6 FARMERS' INSTITUES. 



OATS. 



Average yield per acre, bushels 87.83 



•Cost of grain per bushel .^0.346 



Net cost of grain per acre 13. 10 



Value of grain per acre Jan. 1, 1886 1 1.35 



Value of straw per acre .75 



Loss per acre 1-00 



CORN. 



Average yield per acre, bushels of ears 67. 



Cost of grain per bushel $0,238 



Net cost of grain jjer acre 15.92 



Value of grain per acre Jan. 1 , 1886 16.08 



Value of stalks per acre 2.39 



Profit per acre 2.55 



lu arriving at the foresfoing results every item of expense has been counted, 

 includiug cost of marketing, taxes, insurance and interest on the land at the 

 Tate of seven per cent, on a value of $58 per acre. The interest account is 

 usually called the capitalists profit. On an acre of Avheat, corn or oats it is 

 carried in the items of cost of production in above figures, and amounts to 

 $4.06, which if added to $8.57 profit per acre, of wheat, and deducted from 

 $13.64, the "net cost per acre," would make the cost of the grain at the 

 market to be $9.58, and the profits to be $13.63 per acre, or a fraction over 131 

 per cent. But it has not been my intention to specially refer to the profits of 

 farming, rather more particularly to show the farmer's relation to capital. 

 Farmers may have losses, but their's is the only industry that does not figure 

 to a greater or less extent in the weekly published list of business failures. 



ISTow, Mr. President, if I have not already wearied this people, let me call 

 your attention to the relations of the farmer to labor. 



In the forthcoming report of the Commissioner of Labor there will appear a 

 chapter devoted to statistics as to farm labor, referring especially to wages paid. 

 In order to secure these statistics I sent a request and blank form to 1,016 

 supervisors in 75 counties of the State, omitting cities and five counties having 

 little or no agricultural industry. Reports were received from 613 supervisors 

 in 70 counties. The failure of so many to make a return showed not only a 

 lack of interest in the inquiries made but a lack of business knowledge, for 

 each person was furnished with a postal card for return answer. Of the 613 

 reporting, fifteen towns reported "no farm labor." The request made was 

 that from at least four farmers in each township answers should be secured as 

 to wages paid regular farm hands, with and without board, wages paid to 

 tenants, in addition to use of house, garden and cow, wages paid to harvest 

 hands, with and without board, and the average number of months per year 

 that farm labor was employed, all for the year 1885. To ascertain the number 

 of men employed as wage-workers upon farms would have caused an expense 

 that tiae appropriation of the Labor Bureau would not cover, and I am therefore 

 miable to give you any idea of the aggregate number in that industry, while in 

 nearly every other the report will show very fairly the number employed. It 

 might be easy to estimate the number of farm laborers, but I prefer to give no 

 estimates in any figures save those furnished by the United States census in the 

 matter of value of productions of farms, believing that facts are best arrived at 

 from information based on actual condition. Therefore, in order to show at 

 least something of the relations between farmers and labor, let me give you 

 the figures gathered from the 598 rej)orts to the Labor Bureau already referred 

 to, showyig wages paid to farm labor in the State. 



