865] Machinery and Labor 67 



the line of wages for the whole of the United States 

 is very largely controlled by the wage rates in the 

 " Southern States. " It is hardly fair to strike an aver- 

 age of wages by considering together the wages of two 

 such different classes of people as the whites and the 

 blacks. We can avoid this incongruity for a considera- 

 ble portion of the period under consideration. 



Taking the number of agricultural laborers in the 

 Mountain, Pacific, Eastern, and Western States i. e. y 

 the whole of the United States, exclusive of the 

 Southern States), to have been in 1899, as reported in 

 1900, we find that the average rate of wages per month, 

 with board, was, in 1899, 17. 31.' In like manner, 

 the average monthly wage, in the same region, in 1890, 

 is found to have been $15.81 ; in 1879 it was $13.14;* 

 in 1869 it was $12.29* The increase in the average 

 rate per month, during the period from 1869 to 1899, 

 was 40.8 per cent. 



1 In getting this average, I found first the total number of agricul- 

 tural laborers in each of the geographical divisions named and then 

 found the total wage payment in each group at the rates given in the 

 table on p. 65. The sum of these wage payments divided by the 

 total number of agricultural laborers in all the groups, gives the 

 quotient $ij. 31. 



1 The number of agricultural laborers in 1879 is assumed to have 

 been the same as that reported in 1880 and the average rate of wages 

 in the "Mountain States " is assumed to have been the same as was 

 reported for the Pacific States. 



3 The number of agricultural laborers in 1869 is assumed to have 

 been the same as was reported in 1870 and the average rate of wages 

 in the Mountain States is assumed to have been the same as was re- 

 ported for the Pacific States. 



In the matter of the 20,321 agricultural laborers reported by the 

 Ninth Census as being in the Territories, it should be noted that these 

 have been apportioned somewhat arbitrarily, as follows : To the 

 Mountain States, 15,000; to the Pacific States, 1,500; to the Western 

 States, 3,821. 



