HUMAN EFFORT AS A FACTOR IN PRODUCTION 245 



statement holds good, it is said that "one woman in a garden or at 

 the sorghum kettle is considered equal to two men." 



Very little farm work is done by native American women in all the 

 states of the Ohio Valley and the Lakes, that little being casual 

 assistance in emergencies as a matter of convenience and sometimes of 

 necessity, as is reported of all other sections of the country. Garden- 

 ing and fruit picking are preferred, and hop picking where hops are 

 grown. Immigrants do more outdoor work, "especially for a few 

 years after coming here. As they become more Americanized they 

 work less on the farm." "They do all kinds of farm work," says a 

 correspondent in Wisconsin, "and many kinds as well as the men." 

 As hop pickers in the Northwest they are preferred to men and secure 

 the same pay, but for most farm work do not receive more than one- 

 half to two-thirds of the wages of men. 



In Minnesota female immigrants work extensively in all branches 

 of farming. "In binding and shocking grain, some of them are equal 

 to the best of men." Some of them, in time of scarcity of labor and 

 high rate of wages, have received $2.50 to $3.00 per day, when male 

 laborers obtained $3 to $3 . 50 per day. 



In Kansas the kitchen garden is generally in charge of the mistress 

 of the farmhouse. But when employed for wages, women get about 

 the same as men for the same amount of work, though this is not 

 invariably the case. In some counties of Nebraska no outdoor work 

 of women is reported ; in others much is done in haying and harvesting ; 

 some can bind as much wheat as men, "though they cannot bind it 

 so tightly," in which cases they get the same pay for it. A corre- 

 spondent says, "The day has passed in progressive Nebraska for the 

 'weaker vessel' to get less pay than men for the same work." In 

 Utah it is claimed that women do not generally work out of doors. 

 One report admits that women assist occasionally at harvest, and that 

 they receive half the rate of wages paid to men. Less farm work is 

 done by women in the Pacific states than elsewhere, on account of 

 their comparative paucity of numbers. 



With regard to very recent years census statistics of female agri- 

 cultural labor afford no satisfactory conclusions. A general knowl- 

 edge of farming conditions throughout the country, past and present, 

 is more definite. Farmers' wives and daughters no longer milk the 

 cows and work in the field and care for the live stock. They do not 

 work in the kitchen garden as much as before, nor assist so much in 

 fruit and berry harvest; they are making less butter, and cheese 



