252 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



jammed up jealously against the railroad track. In the yard a woman 

 of comely but unclean j)erson washed clothes. The slouchy individual 

 in blue shirt and no suspenders was her husband. Most likely neither 

 of them could distinguish the English language in its printed form 

 from the inscription on an Aztec monument. These tenants might 

 have bought a good farm for less than the clerk in the city would pay 

 for his cottage home; for the average value of farms in the south is 

 only $11.79 an acre, as against $36.25 for lands in the northwest fre- 

 quently not so productive. 



Farm Labor. 



The dwellings and wages of southern farm laborers have both im- 

 proved, the former in the greater degree. No progressive southern 

 planter would to-day build such quarters as were erected twenty years 

 ago. Experience indicates that good quarters attract a better type 

 of laborer and hold him more steadily, and so prove a good invest- 

 ment. In some parts of Louisiana dwellings furnished to a family 

 free of charge (as is throughout the south the universal rule) cost $400. 

 Comfort is subserved in better floors, glass windows and secure ceiling; 

 and decency, in a larger number of rooms. 



The condition of the agricultural laborer seems to have improved 

 most in the distinctly staple states, such as Louisiana, Alabama and 

 South Carolina, rather than in those whose agricultural interests are 

 scattering, such as Maryland and Kentucky. 



Wages to the laborer are less in the south than in any other sec- 

 tion ; but there is ground for believing that the cost of labor is greater 

 to the southern farmer than to the northern, western or northwestern; 

 that is to say, a hundred dollars expended for labor in the south brings 

 less return than in any other region of the country. The low effi- 

 ciency of farm labor is one of the heaviest impediments to the progress 

 of southern agriculture. 



One of the results of this inferior help is that the southern farmer 

 enjoys but a small part of the benefits of agricultural inventions; 

 first, because to hire the low priced labor is as cheap in the short run 

 as to buy the machinery, and thus the pace is set at antiquated 

 methods and non-participation in agricultural progress in the long 

 run; and secondly, because such ignorant labor can neither utilize nor 

 take care of expensive machinery. 



To understand the inferior quality of southern farm labor necessi- 

 tates a brief examination of the personnel of the labor force. First, 

 there are the white laborers, comprising something more or less than 

 half the entire number of the actual tillers of the soil. It has been 

 estimated by respectable authorities that the major portion of the 

 cotton is raised by white labor; but concerning a statement of such 



