130 An American Fruit-Farm 



or less dangerous. But as our Supreme Court has 

 read the word "reasonable" into the Sherman Act, 

 we may conclude that an unreasonable law is no 

 law. Farm labor is entitled to protection. The 

 negligence of employers, when farmers, must be 

 checked as among other emi!)loyers. Rotten 

 ladders, vicious horses, rotten harness, wagons, 

 barn-floors, and the like exist by the culpable 

 negligence of the owner. But the laborer must 

 also take care. Is the farmer responsible for the 

 accident which befalls an employee who ignores all 

 counsel as to danger? Should the land, the farm 

 itself, be made answerable for such culpability 

 and the farmer by law be denied any defense ? Has 

 the farmer a right to show that he was not in any 

 way contributory to the injury received? Should 

 it be the presumption of the law that the farmer 

 is guilty of contributory negligence and, as in the 

 old English law of libel, — '*The greater the truth, 

 the greater the libel, " the more serious the injury 

 received by the employee, the greater the negli- 

 gence of the employer? Farmers seem incapable 

 of organizing for their own interests. The labor 

 question is, after all, the great practical question 

 in fruit-farming. 



