ONE OF THE GREAT QUESTIONS 15 



among the young people, it is the right system for the 

 average person to adopt. If it will keep the young folk 

 away from the cities and make them love their homes, 

 it beats the old method immeasurably. 



Furthermore, if these results are accomplished, the 

 help question will no longer be a serious one. To gain 

 so much is worth the best efforts of the American 

 farmer. 



With the ordinary family no help is needed on a little 

 farm except where there is a considerable crop of fruit 

 or vegetables, for which there is a ready cash return 

 sufficient to meet the expenses of operation. 



The old method is driving young people away from 

 the farm and it has become next to impossible to keep 

 hired help. Men will not work on a farm when they 

 come to understand that they can get employment in 

 town or on the railroad at higher wages and with shorter 

 days. Nine or ten hours a day will not do on the old- 

 fashioned farm. It is fourteen or more and seven days in 

 the week at that. The average in the city, taking all 

 classes of employment together, is about nine hours. 



Then again, clerkships are very alluring to boys and 

 girls, especially after they have had a taste of farm life, 

 where the family labors from daylight to dark. Under 

 existing conditions it has come about that the farmer 

 finds himself, in many cases, without hired help or the as- 

 sistance which is ordinarily expected from his sons and 

 daughters. 



