108 AGRICULTURAL LABOR 



More remarkable still is the loss shown in the newer agricultural 

 States, such as Oklahoma and North Dakota. Four counties in 

 North Dakota showed losses in rural population, ranging from 4 

 to 17 per cent. In Oklahoma eight counties showed a falling-off 

 in their population, ranging from 2.9 per cent to 23.2 per cent. 

 Four of these counties lost over 10 per cent apiece. Seven counties 

 gained less than five per cent each. Yet all the cities of the State, 

 with the exception of one increased over '200 per cent in population 

 during the decade. The contrast in the growth of rural and urban 

 population is seen in this table : 



Increase in Population, Oklahoma, 1900-1910 



Cities of 25,000 inhabitants or more in 1910 526.1 per cent 



Cities of 2,500 to 25,000 in 1910 208.2 



Rural Territory 41.4 



The better market for labor in the city causes, in large part, this 

 emigration from the country to the city. And it is a loss to the 

 country of native Americans of American stock. 



Labor-saving Machinery. Le Grand Powers, testifying before 

 the Industrial Commission, expressed his belief that machinery is 

 displacing labor on the farm. But, he continued, the effect is to 

 elevate labor. " Speaking of the effect of improved machinery on 

 labor," said Powers, "I would say that the introduction of im- 

 proved machinery, in my opinion, has been an important factor 

 in the elevation of labor. It has called, first, for greater intelligence 

 on the part of the workingmen on the farm ; it has stimulated that, 

 and it has otherwise improved the intellectual status of the 

 American farmer." 



H. W. Quaintance has undertaken to estimate how much 

 farm labor has been displaced by the modern "labor-saving" farm 

 machinery. He tells us that it formerly required 11 hours of man 

 labor to cut and cure a ton of hay; it now requires \]/% hours. 

 The quantity of labor saved by machinery in producing the farm 

 crops of the last decade of the nineteenth century, as compared 

 with hand methods in use fifty years earlier, is estimated at 

 450,000,000 days. This saving would represent the labor of 

 one and a half million men the three hundred working days of 

 the year. 



The writer, as a boy on the farm, assisted in "butchering" 

 the winter's meat. What a slow, heavy and laborious process 

 butchering on the farm was! Now in the great packing houses of 

 Chicago or Kansas City a gang of 150 men butcher 105 cattle 

 per hour. Since this and other branches of farm work have 



