IV. AGRICULTURAL LABOR 



ON THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A HIRED MAN 

 A SOCIOLOGICAL TREATISE 



By M. A. Barber 



[The following article describes, with much acumen, a type of farm laborer 

 which is peculiarly American, and of the nineteenth century. Most American 

 farmers doubtless looked upon the farm hand of that period as normal and 

 took him as a matter of course. But he was a highly specialized development ; 

 probably nothing like him ever existed before and may never exist again. 

 Therefore this description is not only of present scientific value, but will at 

 some future time possess great historic value. Ed.] 



NO REPUTABLE sociologist nowadays ventures to present 

 his work to the public until he can point to a firm basis of 

 personal experience on which to rest his thesis. I hasten there- 

 fore to preface this paper with a description of that period of my 

 life when I was a hired hand on a Kansas farm, and you will 

 readily see by the frequent use I am required to make of the 

 personal pronoun, both subjective and objective, that I am not 

 wholly ignorant of that of which I write. 



On the completion of my junior year in the Burlington high 

 school, I felt that I ought to get out and do some real work, 

 work that should not only preserve me from further idleness, but 

 bring some financial advantages besides ; so I agreed to tend the 

 twenty-five acres or so of corn on the farm of Napoleon and 

 Abigail Thornrich, for the consideration of fourteen dollars per 

 month and keep. Not that Mr. Thornrich would have needed help 

 in ordinary years, but he had been convinced by some insurance 

 company that it would be much more profitable to persuade other 

 farmers to renew their lapsed insurance policies than it would be 



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