16 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



one week. It has been said that in recent years the laborers 

 in Porto Rico and many negroes in the southern part of the 

 United States, as a result of higher wages, knock off as early as 

 Thursday noon when previously with a lower wage rate they 

 worked until Saturday noon. Thus, it would seem that the 

 economic motive is strictly limited, and that an increase in 

 wages instead of increasing the labor supply may sometimes 

 reduce the labor supply. Another illustration of this same char- 

 acter is found in the farmer who retires in the prime of life 

 because he has accumulated a competence. Thus, as the man 

 of lower civilization works part of a week in order that he may 

 earn enough to live a week, so the retiring farmer of this type 

 works only part of a lifetime in order that he may have enough 

 to live upon for a lifetime. We have here essentially the same 

 motive, the difference being that the latter has a longer-time 

 point of view. 



8. Patriotism and community spirit as motives. In times of 

 great national stress and great need of agricultural products 

 many a farmer will work longer hours and more strenuously than 

 he otherwise would because he feels it his duty to farm more 

 and farm better in order that he may in this way contribute to 

 the national welfare. It is also true that many a man takes 

 great pride in the standing of the agriculture of his native state 

 and is willing to do many things to promote the interests of 

 agriculture not only for his own benefit, but for the benefit 

 of all the farmers of the state. Then, again, the community is 

 sometimes the geographic limit of a spirit of mutual helpful- 

 ness. A community spirit may become established which 

 makes every one desire that his community shall be known 

 for its fine-appearing farms and the quality of its products. 

 More might be done in the way of stimulating community 

 spirit. Public opinion developed by community leaders might 

 be a means of getting more farmers to destroy the noxious weeds 

 which are spreading from farm to farm and which one man can- 

 not eradicate from his farm unless his neighbors attempt to do 

 likewise. It is hard to say to what extent public opinion forces 

 men to be patriotic and public-spirited in their actions, and to 



