806 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



B. Concerning the Demand for Labor 



256. VALUE OF PRODUCT AND THE SCHEDULE OF DEMAND 

 FOR LABOR 1 



BY GEORGE K. HOLMES 



The farmer has hardly been able to attract labor to the farm; the 

 most that he has been able to do has been to hold labor with vary- 

 ing degrees of failure. Competition has forced him to raise the level 

 of wages since the Civil War, with some retrogressions in periods of 

 severe industrial depression. A diminishing cost of production of 

 farm products may have sustained farmers in paying higher wage 

 rates, but practically nothing is known with precision with regard to 

 the trend of the cost of products. An increased value of production 

 per worker would help to sustain higher wage rates. An increased 

 value of product per worker may be due to higher production of 

 concrete commodities per worker or to higher prices of commodities 

 produced or to both of these causes. It appears from an examination 

 of data covering value of products per worker by geographic divisions, 

 that there is at least association, if not the relationship of cause and 

 effect, between high and low farm wage rates, respectively, and high 

 and low average value of product per worker. From lowest to highest 

 wage rates and from lowest to highest average values of agricultural 

 products the geographic divisions maintain the same order. Whether 

 the higher average value of products per worker causes the higher 

 average wage rates, or only makes possible their existence, is a matter 

 for argument which does not enter into the scope of this bulletin. 



In the period of nearly half a century under consideration, during 

 which farm labor passed from abundance to scarcity, relative to the 

 demand for it, there have been some changes in the areas of farm 

 holdings, and it may be worth while to examine these in connection 

 with the relative diminishing labor supply. Theoretically, the 

 tendency is toward confinement to the labor of the operating 

 family. 



In the North Atlantic States from 1880 to 1910 there was a relative 

 increase in the number of farms containing less than 50 acres, and a 

 relative decrease in the number of farms containing 50 and under 500 

 acres. The same general statement with small exceptions applies to 

 the western group of states. 



1 Adapted from Bulletin 94, Bureau of Statistics, United States Department of 

 Agriculture, pp. 44~54, 72-?3- 



