AGRICULTURAL WAGES 809 



in market gardening, dairying, and fruit harvest; in truck fanning, 

 and dairy farming on a large scale in Rhode Island; while in New 

 York the best fruit growers, particularly those who market their 

 product at retail, truck farming, and the breeding of pure-bred stock 

 were designated. 



The special agriculture that sustains the higher wages in New 

 Jersey is fruit growing and general trucking; in Delaware, fruit 

 growing combined with potatoes, both sweet and white; fruit growing 

 and trucking in West Virginia. 



From the state statistical agent for South Carolina the answer is, 

 "intensive diversified farming, planting of cotton, corn, and small 

 grain, with hay and stock raising"; from Ohio the report is, "Diver- 

 sified farming with well-planned rotations enables the farmer to 

 employ help for the whole year; more intelligent laborers may be 

 employed and higher wages paid." 



The situation is thus described in North Dakota: "Our grain 

 farmers pay rather the higher wages, but our mixed farmers are 

 better able to pay higher wages and they get the better men on 

 account of their assurance that men and women will have work for 

 the entire year." 



In Kansas, as well as in other states, wheat harvest pays the 

 highest day rates of wages; otherwise the farmer who so manages his 

 affairs as to be able to employ a man throughout the whole year is 

 able j:o get the better quality of labor and must pay the highest rate. 



In Alabama, "the laborer, good, bad, or indifferent, prefers to 

 cultivate corn and cotton." The rice laborer is paid the best wages 

 in Louisiana for the reason that this crop requires more skilful laborers 

 than others do; the land is plowed with gang plows; disk harrows are 

 used; the grain is seeded with seeders and then harvested with 

 harvesters and binders. 



It is the observation of the state statistical agent for Washington 

 that "fruit growing appeals to the men of a higher order of intelligence, 

 and the competent man in this line is paid the best wages." In Ore- 

 gon, dairying appears to secure the better laborers on account of 

 steady employment, but the commercial apple growers also are able 

 to pay higher wages, and perhaps as a class pay the highest. 



From every quarter the crop correspondents have observed that 

 the higher wages and ability to select the better laborers are found 

 on farms managed in the more intelligent ways and on which the 

 cultivation is of the more intensive sort. 



