8o8 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



Farm implements and machinery, in the use of which animal labor 

 is employed, as well as that of men and women, have been the means 

 by which the agricultural labor of the United States has enormously 

 increased its productivity, and so made possible higher rates of wages. 

 The value of implements and machinery on farms increased from 

 $406,520,055 in 1880 to $1,265,149,783 in 1910, and each interme- 

 diate census recorded an increase over the preceding one. It is true 

 that the increase of value of implements and machinery on farms 

 is not an accurate measure of increase in their number, for the reason 

 that prices change, but it is a fact that the implements and machinery 

 used in agriculture have steadily increased in efficiency and have 

 constantly made human and animal labor applied to agriculture 

 more productive. If prices have increased, the increased invest- 

 ment of farms in implements and machinery implies an increasing 

 dependence on these aids to labor and is an evidence of their economic 

 gain in production. 



In pursuing the nineteenth investigation of farm wage rates 

 throughout the country for Bulletin 99, many thousands of corre- 

 spondents were requested to mention the special manner of farming 

 and the special crops that enabled farmers to pay the higher wages 

 and get the better laborers. The information received in response to 

 this specific inquiry is not uniform and, indeed, cannot be so in a 

 country possessing the great variety of agricultural and market con- 

 ditions found hi the United States. The general fundamental fact, 

 however, is that the higher rates of wages in any community or larger 

 region are sustained by the more intensive agriculture. This kind of 

 agriculture embraces the more profitable lines of production in each 

 community or larger area and probably the intensive methods are 

 the cause of the profitable results. The intensive agricultural method 

 carried on by intelligent men sustains a higher agricultural wage 

 rate. 



The question was, "What special manner of farming and what 

 special crops enable farmers to pay the higher wages and to get the 

 better laborers?" 



The state statistical agent for Maine reported that this question 

 would be answered differently for the different counties of the state, 

 and that in Aroostook County the advantageous product is potatoes; 

 in other counties where butter factories are in operation that dairying 

 would be the favored specialty, while in still other counties it would 

 be sweet corn for canning. In Vermont the higher wages are found 



