- chopping cord-wood, the gathering of tan-bark, and in the Southern 
— yellow-pine region the turpentine business. The extension of min- 
» ing and the establishment of additional furnaces and iron-works 
. have hada like effect upon agricultural labor within the sphere of 
_ their influence. The construction of railroads and various public 
works has created a considerable demand for labor, drawing to an 
Inconvenient extent in some cases on the agricultural labor in their 
vicinity. Temporary disturbance of the relation between supply 
and demand has been caused by changes in rural industries from 
- arable to pastoral, from farming to fruit-growing or market gar- 
_ dening.: The preference of negroes to renting or owning land has 
~ eaused local scarcity, and a movement to richer lands or newer set- 
_ tlements has had a similar effect. 
~ Depression in manufacturing industries, total or partial suspension 
of work in some establishments—such as factories, iron-works, or 
mines—and strikes of miners, iron-workers, railroad men, or others, 
as causes of increased supply, are mentioned by a number of corre- 
' spondents in the States bordering the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, 
including West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wis- 
consin, and Missouri, It must not be inferred, however, that such 
- conditions are extensively prevalent in those States, as the reports 
. in question apply to only a few counties or parts of counties. 
i Low prices of farm produce have caused a reduced demand for 
hired labor, farmers and members of their families doing more of 
their own work than they formerly did, while there are some cases 
~in which farmers of the poorer class have abandoned the cultivation 
of their own land and accepted employment from others. Increased 
use of machinery or improvement in its character is another cause: 
of reduced demand referred to in many cases. 
' Itis worthy of notice that in some of the reports from the States 
-and Territories of the farther West the labor of the Indians is re- 
ferred to as a prominent factor in the supply for farming purposes. 
ean RENT OF FARI‘S. 
» The marked peculiarity of American agriculture has been the fact 
_ that owners of farms are the cultivators of the land. A large pro- 
_ portion of the farm proprietors do not employ farm laborers or pay 
_ farm wages. There are fewer laborers working for wages than 
~ owners cultivating their own acres. The whole number of farms 
_ reported in the tast census was 4,008,907, the number of farmers | 
4,225,945, and the number of laborers 3,323,876. Since then our pop- 
4,489,949, an. poy 
- ulation has increased 20 per cent., and the number of persons, exclu- 
sive of the wives and children of farmers, who are actively employed 
> in agriculture must be about 9,000,000. Including non+laboring © 
_ children and others in the families of farmers, the agricultural pop-. 
d 
: ‘ulation is not less than 26,000,000.. The class of farm laborers must 
~ now number about 4,000.000. 
. were taken at a cash rental and 702,244 on shares. Those that were 
Be 4 . 
’ In 1880 the wumber of farms rented was 1,024,601, of which 322,357 
