FARM LABOR AND WAGES 169 



days. The life lacks many of those finer human sentiments 

 which make for good farm hands and for good citizenship. 



Another type of wage worker on farms is the married hired 

 man who lives in a cottage and works for the farmer by the 

 month or by the year. He is usually furnished a cottage, a 

 garden, and often some fuel, and a definite amount of milk 

 per day in addition to the cash wage he receives. Another 

 class of farm workers find places to live and work by the day 

 or month for a farmer who pays cash wages for the work done. 

 These outside workers become less definitely a part of the farm 

 organization. At least two persons (the man and his wife) 

 and often others (the children) have to be contented if the 

 married workman is to be vitally interested in his work. Un- 

 less the family is interested in the farm, he is out of touch with 

 the pulse beat of the farm when not at work. 



While the life may be more satisfactory, the outlook of the 

 married farm hand is not so alluring as that of the single man. 

 A family must live from the wages. The chance of saving and 

 becoming an independent farmer is more remote, and as a 

 result many such families give up the hope of climbing the 

 agricultural ladder round by round from wage earner to tenant 

 farmer, then to mortgaged owner and finally to the free owner of 

 a farm. Without this outlook and this goal the farm hand 

 becomes a different type of man, less to be desired as a work- 

 man and as a citizen. 



In those parts of the United States where colored and oriental 

 laborers dominate, the conditions are very different. The 

 colored laborer lives outside of the farmer's house in a cottage 

 belonging to the farm, or he may live in the near-by village and 

 go to the farm from day to day. In the North the typical 

 farm hand is a neighbor's son, in the South he belongs to a dif- 

 ferent race. This gives ground for a difference in the status of 

 the worker in the farmer's home, which is to be expected. 



Wages. The wage of the farm hand is a complex thing not 

 easily shown in statistical tables. The cash wage is but one 

 of the many considerations. The young man who becomes a 

 part of the farmer's family often makes other matters than cash 



