REGION OF DISCONTENT 25 



binder can cut and bind as much in one day as from ten to fifteen men 

 could in a day in the time of his grandfather." But some blame lay also 

 with the high prices that lands in the Middle West had begun to com- 

 mand. It was because of these prices that so many farmers sold out to their 

 neighbors or to speculators and invested in farms located in newer areas 

 where the prices were not so high. This movement of population did not 

 lessen the nation's total farm population, but it did lessen the number of 

 farmers in regions where land prices were excessively high. Most discussed 

 of all the causes of rural decline was the lure of the city. Farm boys and 

 girls were attracted by the higher wages and shorter hours that went with 

 city jobs. They craved the excitement of city life, the superior comfort of 

 city homes, and the variety of opportunities that the cities offered. 46 



It was this competition with the city that made the problem of farm 

 labor so persistently acute. Farm labor, as those who really knew patiently 

 explained, was skilled labor. A boy who had grown up on a farm knew 

 many things that only years of experience could teach. When he left to 

 work on the railroads, or in the factories, or in city stores, the loss to the 

 farm was serious. Farm labor actually commanded very high wages, 

 enough sometimes to enable the thrifty farm laborer to save from $200 

 to $250 per year. But so much of his pay came in board, shelter, heat, and 

 washing and ironing that it was hard to make the farm boy see that the 

 $20 and up he could earn on the farm was nearly all clear profit and not 

 to be compared with the city wages from which he must pay high prices 

 for board and room and for every service. Efforts to turn the tide of immi- 

 gration farmward were not very helpful. The European immigrant, even 

 if he had been a peasant, knew little of American farming methods and 

 was practically useless on the typical American farm. Furthermore, he 

 too liked the city better and generally preferred to stay there. As for un- 

 employed city workers, they were apt to be a positive liability. If only an 

 adequate supply of farm labor could be obtained, some said, crops could 

 readily be increased by 25 per cent. "The greatest problem of the statesman 

 of the future is to keep enough men on the land to make it produce the 

 food required at prices the consumer can afford to pay."' 



>47 



46. Ibid., XXXIV (January 8, 1909), p. 43; XXXV (November 4, 1910), pp. 

 1467, 1493. 



47. Senate Document 705, 60 Congress, 2 session, p. 42. See also Wallaces' Farmer, 



