SHALL I BE A FARMER? 



11 



gymnastics. Other persons are never happy when alone. 

 They need moving pictures, theaters, a new song every 

 day, and crowds of people in order to be happy. The 

 farmer sees fewer people, but gets acquainted with his 

 own family. The family that can go a long way toward 

 self-entertainment is in this respect best fitted for farm life. 

 7. The farm is not the place for the inefficient. To 

 manage a farm successfully requires business ability and 



FIG. 5. A negro cabin with two rooms. One of the better class. 



skill in farm operations. Certainly this is not an occupa- 

 tion for inefficient persons. Nor can the farmer use 

 unskilled labor to good advantage. 



In 1890 there were 13.1 per cent of the farm laborers 

 foreign born ; in 1900 only 8.5 per cent were foreign born. 1 

 Many persons have wondered why the immigrants are not 

 hiring out to farmers as mufch as they once did. One 

 reason is that they are of less use than formerly. There 

 was a oime when the farm laborer from Europe made a 

 good farm-hand as goon as he arrived, because so much 

 of the work was done with hand tools which he had learned 



1 U. S. Dept. Agr., Yearbook, 1910. p. 191. 



