280 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
‘factories and mills closed their doors, the hands were thrown either into 
idleness or competition with the other labor in the fields, and conse- 
quently wages fell with great rapidity. 
Every investigation showed that those neighborhoods contiguous to 
manufacturing centers experienced the largest decrease: thus the artisans 
of Massachusetts, largely drawn from the New England States, returning 
to their former occupation, brought a heavy competition into their rural 
hills and corresponding decrease in wages. The decline in Maine was 
from $25.50 to $19 since 1875; New Hampshire, $28.50 to $21; Vermont, 
$29.67 to $21.30; exceeding 25 per cent. in each case. No other section 
showed so large a decrease. In 1866 Massachusetts paid the highest 
wages of any State east of the Rocky Mountains. 
In the Hourishing States of the West, as Kansas, Nebraska, and 
Minnesota, the decline since 1866 has been nearly the same as in the 
more eastern sections, with the difference that the decline was not so 
rapid. 
The great demand for labor in those new and thriving States, the con- 
stant demand in the mining districts of the far West, and the market 
for produce created by those enterprises, was doubtless the cause of this 
easy and gradual decline. The record of Kansas reads: 
Year. | First quarter. Second quarter.| Third quarter. |Fourth quarter. 
Be a | ea PRS 
SCR Me tee re Fe eee eee te Lae | $38 94 $22 36 | $41 61 $27 85 
hoist ages ies COLE Beis ok oo a mA 35 95 22 16 41 00 27 75 
11 cea a a ERIE | 31 87 20 25 | 38 50 23 25 
TYR ee a RS Se RE Be | 25 00 14 00 | 30 00 18 33 
In the Southern States east of the Mississippi River there was a 
gradual but moderate decline. With the fall in the price of: cotton this 
was inevitable, but negro labor increased in efficiency and thus prevented 
a more rapid change. The following are the average rates paid for the 
year in the four periods as given above in three of the most populous 
States : 
States. | 1866. | 1869, | 1875. | 1878. 
a 
RarthiCarolinay ss tc cute eo csana teen fea LAUR a | $1346] $1276) $1346] $12 00 
(CROWD SS <asaqScbentdos ena soe cee aaa do esbenasouas sea ances. |)» LS 151) A470 | 14 40) 11 75 
MTASISSLIPDI ieeea cre seo ce eo Merc cee ned ene awa ce seme ca ac vase | 16 72 | itl 16 40 | 14 65 
l | 
In the cotton States west of the Mississippi the price was well main- 
tained. In Arkansas there was a great competition for labor in the years 
following the restoration of peace, and the prices paid were higher than 
in any other cotton State, averaging for those years and till 1875 about 
$25 a month, but in 1878 the price had fallen to $17. 
In Texas, owing to the large proportion of white labor, and which was 
increased each year, the prices were more uniform than in any of the 
cotton States, and averaged till 1878 about $19. 
Tn the central belt of agricultural States, represented by Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, Indiana, Hlinois, and lowa, a great uniformity was shown. In Penn- 
syivania board was somewhat higher in 1866 than in the other States, 
but in the wages paid, including board, the difference was nominal. This 
uniformity continued till the present monetary depression began, when, 
as a natural consequence, the competition of unemployed labor reduced 
the price in Pennsylvania below the more agricultural States. 
