May 5, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



687 



painstaking, actual facts in detail must be 

 secured. What is the actual social and 

 economic status of every farmer in a town- 

 ship? a county? a state? Who knows? 

 History must be studied from a new point 

 of yiew. The very foundation of historical 

 development is public opinion of the com- 

 mon people; and until within the past 

 century the common man w-as the farmer. 

 Agriciilture is the basis of history. The 

 best data of the actual conditions of the 

 people antecedent to the French Revolution 

 are found in Arthur Young's minute de- 

 scription of the agriculture of France. 

 The historian of agriculture is yet unborn. 



As an example of the inadequacy of oiar 

 information on important economic prob- 

 lems, let me cite the most pressing problem 

 just now confronting the American farmer 

 — the question of farm labor. Farm labor 

 is scarce; it is dear; it is inefficient; it is 

 unreliable. Yet we read of the armies of 

 the unemployed, asking for bread. Why? 

 Who can answer? Who has the data? 

 There seems to be not one authority to 

 whom we can turn. It is apparent that 

 these serious pressing problems — scarcity, 

 expensiveness, inefficiency of farm labor- 

 are only symptoms of some deep-seated 

 mal-adjustment. 



A large proportion of the labor on farms 

 is done by the farmer himself or his grow- 

 ing family. The inability to find steady 

 employment for laborers is a very difficult 

 problem. Ordinarily, men desire to work 

 all the time and to use their energy to the 

 best advantage. A farmer's family arrives 

 at the productive age when the parent is 

 between forty-five and sixty. The farm 

 does not offer opportunity for the sons be- 

 cause the father still desires to maintain 

 his activity. The farmer does not take the 

 boy into his business to the same extent 

 that other business men do. The result is 

 that the sons must find employment else- 

 where, and in the nature of the case can 



most conveniently find employment on sal- 

 ary. By the time the father is sixty-five 

 to seventy years of age and feels the neces- 

 sity of giving up the farm, the sons are 

 engaged in other lines of effort which it is 

 not practicable for them to leave. The re- 

 sult is that the farm declines with the de- 

 clining years of the father and upon his 

 death is sold or becomes a rented farm. 

 Occasionally a parent solves the difficulty; 

 and herein a distinct public responsibility 

 rests on the individual farmer. 



Is the farm labor difficulty a too low 

 wage-rate ? Is farm labor inefifieient merely 

 because it is cheap? If so, how must the 

 farm be made to be able to pay a rate in 

 competition with other labor? Has the 

 tariff contributed to the inequality? Is 

 social poverty of the country districts a 

 cause? Is the lack of continuity, or un- 

 steadiness, of farm labor responsible ? Has 

 the decrease in the size of the farmer's 

 family been responsible for part of the 

 trouble? And if so, why has his family 

 decreased ? Must the farmer of the future 

 raise his own labor? Must machinery still 

 further come to his aid? If so, what effect 

 will this have on systems of agriculture? 

 AVill the urbanization of the country tend 

 to establish a regularity of farm labor? 

 Will cheap railway rates from cities for 

 laborers aid in maintaining the supply of 

 labor for those living on the land, making 

 it possible for them to find work during 

 winter in some neighboring community (it 

 has helped in some parts of Europe) ? Can 

 we develop a competent share-working sys- 

 tem, in which the owner of the land still 

 retains directive control ? And if so, will 

 social stratification result? Must there 

 come a profit-sharing system 1 Or must 

 the greater number of farmers themselves 

 become employees of men of great executive 

 ability who will amalgamate and syndicate 

 agricultural industries as they have amal- 

 gamated other industries? Is the agricul- 



