FARM LABOR 



work is not interrupted. When it grows 

 dark, he turns on the light and the work 

 continues. If it gets cold, he lights the fire 

 and still the work continues comfortably. 

 It is not so in agriculture. There is a great 

 variation in the working efficiency of men 

 employed in farming. In a certain locality 

 there were twenty-one days of rain in the 

 thirty-one days of May. The next year 

 between June 5 and September 5 in the same 

 locality there was not half an inch of 

 rainfall at any one time. 



What is true of labor is also true of 

 machinery. The farmer must purchase 

 machinery which he can use only a few days 

 in the year, while the manufacturer, for the 

 most part, employs his machinery continu- 

 ously, sometimes day and night. While 

 natural causes prevent the farmer from 

 using the same business methods, or from 

 being able to calculate his profits with the 

 same precision as is possible by those fol- 

 lowing manufacturing and mercantile pur- 

 suits, it is nevertheless important that 

 farming should be planned to avoid, as far 

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