822 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



interests, that wish to develop traffic; real estate boomers, hoping to sell 

 land thereby; the large employers, always demanding cheap labor; and 

 certain other financial and gambling interests, anxious to prevent the 

 farmers from properly controlling the production and marketing of their 

 crops sufficiently to secure a fair and reasonable price. 



Speaking for Mississippi, the Jackson Farmers' Union Advocate 

 has this: 



If some good people from the northwestern part of the United States 

 want to come down here, they will come, and we will welcome them if 

 they take to us, our ideas about local matters such as the negro; but we 

 do not favor a state movement to get them, nor the expenditure of state 

 funds to attract them; because just as sure as that once gets started it will 

 not only bring in some we don't want, but there will be a demand on the 

 part of some to turn it to bringing in the foreign immigrant. 



D. Nominal Wages and Real Wages 



263. REAL WAGES OF THE FARM LABORER 1 

 BY GEORGE K. HOLMES 



Rates of wages do not express the real wages often received by the 

 farm laborer in this country. There were various extras apart from 

 "board. He may receive, without any money reckoning as to value, 

 the use of dwelling and garden, stable for cow or horse; feed for cow, 

 horse, swine, or poultry; pasture for cow, horse, or swine; butter, 

 eggs, milk, fruit, vegetables for family use; firewood for his dwelling 

 and the use of a team to haul it; the occasional use of a team for 

 hauling for other purposes; the laborer may receive in addition to 

 his rate of wages one meal a day, or laundry service, or occasional 

 use of horse and buggy. 



All of the various extras or allowances in addition to rates of 

 wages are not made to the same laborer, nor is any one or more 

 of these allowances made to every laborer, but the general fact is 

 that these allowances as made in practice amount to a considerable 

 addition to the money rate of wages. 



The Commissioner of Labor of Michigan investigated this subject 

 in 1895 and found that, of 4,412 farm laborers, 26.7 per cent received 

 the use of dwelling in addition to money wages, 23.3 per cent received 

 fuel, 19.9 per cent cow pasture, 24.5 per cent had the benefit of use 



1 Adapted from Bulletin 99, Bureau of Statistics, United States Department 

 of Agriculture, pp. 49~S3- 



