1904.] Farm Labour in the United States. 



99 



acre, are increasing practices, which involve great activity at their 

 respective periods but leave long intervals unoccupied. 



The monthly wages of farm labourers engaged for the year 

 or season, without board, averaged for the country, as a whole, 

 £4 12s. 3d. in 1902, as against £4 4s. 3d. in 1899 and £3 13s. 8d. 

 in 1895 ; with board the payments were ^3 8s. 4d. in 1902, 

 £2 1 8s. yd. in 1899, and £2 10s. id. in 1895. The day wages of 

 ordinary farm labourers in 1902, without board, averaged 4s. 8|d. 

 per day, and 3s. 8jd. per day with board ; while in harvest time 

 the average rate of payment was 6s. 4^d. and 5s. yd. per day 

 respectively. In consequence of the different descriptions of 

 farming pursued in the United States, including as it does the 

 great stock and grain farms of the West, the cotton, sugar and. 

 rice farms of the South, as well as dairy, vegetable and fruit 

 farms, the variations in the wages prevailing in different States, 

 are very considerable. 



One important factor in connection with farm wages, on which 

 considerable emphasis is laid in this Bulletin, is the interrupted 

 character of the employment. Farming that is limited to the 

 production of local open field crops must, it is observed, have con- 

 siderable periods of unoccupied time in the year, and in the 

 Northern States there are three or four months of winter in 

 which field work practically ceases ; the possibility of cultivating 

 a variety of crops is expanded as one goes southward, and 

 dairying also modifies farm wages by providing occupation* 

 throughout the year. The one-crop farmer, however, whether 

 raising wheat at the extreme North or on the Pacific coast, 

 raising maize in the Upper Mississippi Valley or cotton, rice or 

 sugar in the South, only needs helpers at special seasons, and the 

 able-bodied, industrious man desirous of continuously employing 

 his whole time finds his energies limited by the conditions of 

 ordinary farming. This variable period of activity on the farm, 

 especially when contrasted with the greater steadiness of 

 employment in various manufacturing, commercial or building 

 enterprises, constitutes, it is thought, one of the greatest 

 difficulties in procuring help upon the farm. 



The conditions of labour in the different States are greatly 

 affected by the inflow of foreigners, but the immigration does 

 not seem directly to relieve the scarcity of farm labour, as many 



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