158 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



of those who are now engaged in business of this kind. 

 There would therefore be a considerable number of 

 people, now engaged in the competitive distribution of 

 food products, who would be left without employment 

 and driven to seek other means of living. This might 

 be hard on other over-crowded occupations. But there 

 is one occupation which is not over-crowded, that of 

 skilful labor for the fields. It is not so much the high 

 price which the farmer has to pay for his labor as it is 

 the difficulty of getting any at all. In wheat-harvest 

 and corn-harvest it is almost impossible to get men to 

 work on the farm, and those who are available are men 

 who are not skilled and whose services, even at much 

 more moderate prices, would be expensive. 



EETAEDINQ EFFECT OF LOW WAGES. 



But the question may be asked, How can you expect 

 people to go back to the farm while farm wages are so 

 low? A man would prefer to remain in the city in 

 trade which, does pay. The question is, Do these 

 trades really pay ? Is the man who works in the city 

 for two dollars and a half a day as well off at the end 

 of the year as the man who works on the farm for 

 eighteen dollars a month and his board, or for even less 

 with his board and lodging? In my opinion the man 

 who works on the farm and has his board and lodging 

 provided, as a great many farm-laborers do, even at the 

 small wage of fifty or sixty cents a day, is better off 

 at the end of the year, and his children have been better 

 fed, than the man who works in the city for two dol- 

 lars and a half a day. The difference lies in the social 

 advantages and the educational facilities which the city 

 man has, and not in the amount of money which he 

 puts into the savings-bank. If we could provide the 



