AGRICULTURAL WAGES 813 



is becoming greater, and efficient labor on the farm is more difficult 

 to secure when needed most. Transient labor for the general farm 

 is very unsatisfactory. As a rule, also, it is not convenient or profit- 

 able to keep the necessary extra labor throughout the entire year, 

 even it it were available. This condition must soon result in the 

 reorganization of a large number of farms throughout the corn belt, 

 and in other sections as well. The main features of these changes 

 must be (i) a better distribution of labor throughout the entire 

 season and (2) systems that will reduce the extra labor required at 

 certain critical seasons of the year to a minimum. 



The average corn-belt farm must be devoted largely to the growing 

 of staple field crops, such as can be planted and cultivated by machinery 

 and handled on a large scale. There is little place in that region for 

 crops that yield a big income per acre, such as truck crops and small 

 fruits, except in a few localities close to cities, where good markets 

 are available. The tendency in most sections is for the labor of the 

 farm to be done by one man or by one man and his family. Occa- 

 sionally it is done by the owner or tenant and a hired man. It is 

 growing more imperative that the efficiency of one man be increased 

 as much as possible in such operations as plowing, planting, and 

 cultivating the farm crops, and that all the labor possible be eliminated 

 in the harvesting of these crops, in order to cover a greater acreage 

 effectively and at the same time to use the greatest economy in the 

 employment of outside labor. 



Already this has given rise to certain well-formed and definite 

 systems which include these elements as prominent features in the 

 management of the farm. In several widely separated places prac- 

 tically the same system has been worked out by farmers themselves 

 as they have been forced gradually to meet present conditions. In 

 all these instances 3- and 4-horse machinery is being rapidly substi- 

 tuted for that of the 2 -horse type, in order to double the efficiency of 

 each man employed. Crops are being grown that do not compete for 

 labor. Live stock is being used in every possible way in the harvest- 

 ing of the crops produced, thus eliminating to a very great extent 

 the necessity of hiring extra labor. The system provides productive 

 labor for practically the entire year and at the same time so dis- 

 tributes this labor as to make it possible for one man, practically 

 without hired help, to handle a large acreage (possible 240 acres), 

 making a net income considerably greater than is at present com- 

 monly obtained in the Corn Belt States. This system also rapidly 



