HUMAN EFFORT AS A FACTOR IN PRODUCTION 211 



hundred European peasants, nor are these latter precisely equal in 

 labor power to one hundred American farmers. Similar differences 

 appear if we make comparison between different sections of our coun- 

 try or periods of our history. This is evident if we set the farm 

 workers of Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Montana side by side, or 

 if we compare the homesteader of the past with the average American 

 farmer of the present and the thoroughly trained and organized agri- 

 culturists we aspire to see upon our farms in the near future. 



American farm labor in our grandfathers' day was fairly uniform 

 in quality. Any stout boy not mentally handicapped might become, 

 if he grew up amid actual farm experiences, a standard farmer. The 

 rural superman was the one who could swing scythe or cradle or flail 

 longer and stronger than his fellows. Then came the widespread use 

 of farm machinery, and the man possessed, of mechanical ability 

 became differentiated from the mass of country workers. Within 

 comparatively recent times success in farming has come to be identi- 

 fied with ability to grasp and apply the principles of scientific agri- 

 culture if not always with full understanding, at least with some 

 discernment and a steadying faith in the value of book-learning. 

 Today the farmer finds himself swept into the maelstrom of com- 

 mercial competition, and he must add salesmanship, cost accounting, 

 and scientific management to his list of qualifications if he is to make 

 his work a success. 



In industrial life a similarly growing demand for greater technical 

 efficiency and larger commercial abilities has been met by division of 

 labor and specialization of functions. But the possibility of such a 

 solution in the case of agriculture is decidedly less. The factory 

 machine is made automatic or nearly so and a woman is set to tend 

 it, or a whole battery of machines is put in charge of one mechanic. 

 But though a binder be made to do a complex task automatically, the 

 machine still requires a driver of some skill, more judgment, and not 

 a little bodily strength. Likewise, a factory work-schedule may be 

 laid out for months in advance ^and adjusted with the nicest degree of 

 precision, but no farmer's day is sacred from the disrupting action of 

 the weather, the unpredictable behavior of live stock, or other 

 untoward event. 



This means that farm work has not been extensively specialized 

 downward for "hands" or unskilled help. In this regard agriculture 

 makes a more exacting demand for labor than do industrial callings, 

 and is thus precluded from drawing, to any great extent, upon the 



