No. 4.] FAEM HELP PROBLEM. 141 



his children pay their way with profit to him and advantage 

 to them, yet it is a lamentable fact that many young farmers 

 are found nowadays carrying on farms with the aid of few 

 children and sometimes with none. 



These are the apparent causes for the scarcity of farm 

 help; but the real cause, after all, is found in the unprosper- 

 ous condition of our agriculture. The law of demand and 

 supply is as potent in agricultural life as in any other de- 

 partment of human industry. Legislation may modify and 

 retard the operation of this law, but this natural law is more 

 powerful and far-reaching than any legislative enactment. 

 It is always omnipresent, and we have to reckon with it at 

 every step upon the farm and in the shop. The prosperous 

 business always draws money and labor from the less pros- 

 perous business. A prosperous industry is constantly ex- 

 panding, and can afford to pay and does pay higher wages 

 than an unprosperous industry can afford to pay or does pay. 

 Labor goes where it is best paid, and consequently the farm 

 help seek employment in the industries that pay higher wages 

 than the farmers do. Perhaps laborers are foolish to quit the 

 country, with all its health and beauty, for employment in 

 dirty and crowded factories or in the turmoil of the marts 

 of trade ; but we must acknowledge that they do it, and that 

 they do it in search of higher wages. 



When Prof. L. H. Bailey of Cornell University found that 

 one hundred and fifty-five pupils in that institution, who had 

 been brought up on farms, intended to take up their life 

 work in other occupations, he asked them why they proposed 

 to leave the farm. Sixty-two answered that they had left it 

 because farming does not pay ; fifty-four answered that they 

 had left it to escape too many hours of hard work each day ; 

 and twenty-six answered that they had left it for its lack of 

 social advantages. Very likely some of these young men will 

 find out when they come to earn a living away from the farm 

 that there are long hours, hard work and lack of social ad- 

 vantages in other occupations and will be glad to return to 

 farming; but we must admit that these opinions of young 

 people are influencing them to leave the farm for work else- 

 where. 



