THE RURAL 
about eight feet high. The braUches afid 
foliage form, within, an oval arbor in which a 
dozen persons may socially gather and enjoy 
its shade. This tree needs constant pruning 
to preserve a symmetrical shape and also to 
remove the branches killed every year by the 
borer, which has penetrated nearly every 
part of it. Fig. 16 is a photographic illustra¬ 
tion of the same tree, taken in early spring. 
On the whole, we don’t prize this tree very 
highly. Its roots extend to a considerable 
distance in every direction, growing near the 
surface and often extending above it. Again, 
the leaves are so late in starting that one 
might reasonably suppose the tree quite dead, 
as he sees |the leaves of other trees about it 
well advanced. 
Ultral {Topics. 
HELP! 
ON TIE Fill; IN HE NOOSE. 
THE QUESTION OF FARM LABOR. 
A Most Important Discussion 
OPINIONS FROM ALL SECTIONS. 
QUESTIONS. 
1. Where do most of the farm laborers in 
your section come from? What nation¬ 
ality? What proportion are American- 
born, and how many of them lay up 
money and finally farm on their own ac¬ 
count? 
2. When and how are they secured? What 
wages are jiaid? Are regular contracts 
signed? 
3. What arrangements are made about do¬ 
ing chores and Sunday work? 
4. On the whole , what treatment is fairest for 
the hired men met with in your section? 
5. Which is the better business—to hire a 
cheap man a nd try to save wages, or to get 
as good a man as can be secured and pay 
him his price? 
6. Has the experiment of trying to break 
city boys into farm work ever been tried in 
your country? If so, with what result? 
FROM T. B. TERRY. 
Most of the farm laborers in this section 
are either Americans or Germans. Some of 
the best of them are saving money to get into 
business for themselves; but it would be diffi¬ 
cult to tell what proportion. We have had 
two, within 20 years, who staid with us four 
or five years, and saved their wages carefully, 
and were men with the elements of success in 
them. They were both German. One had 
nearly $1,000, when he left us. All others 
that I now think of were of the class that live 
as they go, or spend as they make. 
Our help here is generally hired in March, 
for the season (eight months) or a year; 
mostly for the former time. At that time 
there are generally plenty of them looking 
for places. From $15 to $20 a month were 
paid for the season last year. It is a good 
plan for one who hires by the year, to hire in 
the fall, and then he has many to pick from 
and can know the reputation of his men. 1 
generally engage one at this time for the next 
•eason, when we are in need of a new one. If 
one keeps a little watch through the summer 
he can know where there is a good one. A 
neighbor hired a young German who came 
along one spring. In riding by I could not 
help noticing that his plowing was perfect, 
and that he worked as though he was inter¬ 
ested in accomplishing something. When my 
neighbor was through with him, I hired him, 
and kept him season after season. 1 paid him 
$27 a month for the season of 1887, and told 
him he should have more in ’88; but he was 
taken sick and died in June. It was like 
parting with one of the family. Men who 
work out should learn something from the 
above. The faithful man will soon be known; 
but farmers do not always pay such men as 
they should, and thus encourage them. 
I never knew a contract between hired men 
and employer to be written out and signed. 
It is thought to be one-sided. The man can 
hold you; but if he has his money you can not 
hold him. If you hold something back, it 
would make him feel as though he was not 
trusted, which I do not believe is the best 
plan. Our hired men as a rule are as honor¬ 
able as their employers. Treat them like 
men, and there will very rarely be any 
trouble. This is a dairy section, and men are 
expected to and do milk and do necessary chores 
on Sunday. They can find no fault, for they 
know before hiring what will be expected and 
what is the common custom. 
“ On the whole, what treatment is fairest 
for the hired men met in your section?” One 
should tell them, to start with, that he ex¬ 
pects them to be as gentlemanly as he and his 
sons are; then each should be taken right in 
as one of the family. They should not be 
made to sit in the kitchen, or be otherwise 
knew he must keep on the go for 15 hours or so 
a day, he worked accordingly; that if he knew 
he could stop at the end of ten hours, as a rule, 
he would much sooner do the same amount of 
work in the fewer hours; but that no man 
could drive him to his utmost in speed and 
hours both; if he was cheated on the time he 
would be even with his employer on the 
amount accomplished. 
The writer became satisfied not only of the 
truth but of the justice of the above years 
ago, and his men know they are to quit at six 
o’clock. I couldn’t be induced to go back to the 
old way. Where men complain because they 
cannot get as good help as they used to, 
whose fault is it? There are plenty of good 
men; but the best go to the city and get bet¬ 
ter wages and fewer hours to work. The 
remedy seems plain; make the work and 
home life more pleasant and pay them better. 
Where one works right along with bis man, 
all the time, it may sometimes be best to hire 
a cheap hand and save on the wages. The 
saving will depend somewhat on the reason 
why he is cheap. I have known boys of 16 or 
18 who did not expect full wages, that I could 
get along with nicely if right with them most 
of the time. They were strong and willing, 
but not experienced. In this way $50 might 
be saved in a season’s wages. Fifteen years 
ago I might have taken the boy; but now give 
me, every time, the very best man (from 20 
years old to 25 preferred) that can be found, 
who will go ahead and take the blunt of the 
work and expect me to take the lighter jobs, 
as I have to do the thinking and planning. 
Then I would always pay a man his price, or 
not hire him. I would give him no possible 
THE GENEVA GRAPE Frcm Nature. Fig. 14. 
treated as though belonging to an inferior 
race. They should be paid well and prompt¬ 
ly, and encouraged and aided in saving their 
money and investing it safely. They should 
not, as a rule, be required to work more than 
ten hours a day. They should understand 
that you expect a day’s work done; and that 
when it is done they can stop. 
They should be encouraged to wash and 
slick up a little, after their day’s work is 
done. A bath tub with water handy should 
be found in every farmer’s home, and the 
hired man should be made to feel free to use 
it every night during the heated term. He 
will do more work the next day. Then he 
should be furnished with papers and books to 
read, according to his education, the same as 
the rest of the family. 
There is in this town a farm hand whose 
employer has several times told me that he 
was a number one hand, and he thought 
everything of him. The farmer works his 
men a good deal more than ten hours a day. 
The other day this valued farm hand told 
me (of course not expecting it to be repeated) 
that when he worked in a place where he 
excuse for not doing his best. It is the right 
thing to do, and then it pays him and you too. 
If one is small with his employes he shouldn’t 
expect them to be angela Hired men are 
very human as well as the rest of us. Of 
course, the “golden rule” won’t always work; 
but it is the best rule we have to go by, and 
when one fails with it, after having done his 
share, his own conscience is unsoiled. 
City boys now and then come out here and 
get a place. I have tried them. If they 
want to come I would as soon have one 
as a country boy of the same age and 
size, except that the country boy would 
have a little more farm knowledge to start 
with. It is more important what the boy is 
and what he likes than where be came from. 
1 have known for 46 years, one boy who was 
raised in town and city, but had a love for 
farming. He found his way on to a farm 
some 20 years ago, as green at the business as 
any boy could be, and he couldn’t be hired to 
go back. Yes, there are city boys who will 
make good farmers, just as there are country 
boys who cannot bp kept on the farm. Most 
of the farm hands in this vicinity are unmar¬ 
ried men. There seems but one way to do— 
we must take them into our home. Selfishly, 
I should prefer not to; but as it seems to be 
a necessity, let us do the right thing by them, 
and treat them as brothers or sons while they 
stay with us. 
Summit Co., Ohio. 
FROM T. H. HOSKINS, OF VERMONT. 
Our hired men are mostly sons of neigh¬ 
boring farmers; but many come from the 
closely adjoining province of Quebec. 
Many of the latter are French; but I prefer 
the sons of the English or Scotch settlers ini 
the Eastern townships. Many of th 9 French 
are good hands, and the only objection to* 
them is the inability to exchange ideas- 
clearly. They usually lay up money.. 
Several of my young American hired meni 
have done so to acquire an education, and 
have gone through colleges, literary and 
agricultural. The Canadians thiuk less of 
this, and save to get farms for themselves. E 
have had two men working for me, this year,, 
who are paying off debts on their farms; 
which are let on shares while they do this. 
The men apply personally. It is known 
that I pay well and promptly, and I get the 
pick of help. I have usually paid about $25> 
a month for eight months, with board. 
Hands who have families and board them¬ 
selves get about $35; or by the day, $1.25. 
It is understood that all necessary chores 
shall be done at all times; but otherwise all 
legal holidays are allowed. One of my men 
took the first prize in a public running match, 
last Independence Day; but couldn’t hold the 
greased pig. 
The above is satisfactory, as to wages. Fe 
have large lumber mills close by, which pay 
about the same prices for unskilled labor; but 
the best hands prefer farm work, going into 
the woods in winter. Some farm help is 
kept the year round, but most of our farmers 
let their men go on December 1, or earlier. 
There is no such thing as a cheap man. 
You must either pay full wages for a capable 
man, or hire an incapable man at a serious 
loss. Generally speaking, these “ cheap ” 
hands are worth considerably less than noth¬ 
ing. They do not often ask me for a job. 
I no not want city help! Of all—well, con- 
demnable help, the city-bred boy or man is 
the worst of all nuisances on the farm. Such, 
people know all games to “beat” their em¬ 
ployers, and practice them to the full limit of 
their hope for his endurance. Their example- 
is demoralizing to every one that comes in, 
contact with them, even so corrupting their- 
employers as to make them desire to commit, 
murder several times a day. I had one, once, 
a waif from the London market gardens; 
He knew his work—London fashion,—but 
would not learn any American ways, or obey 
any instructions different from his own Hen- 
glish notions. I hired him for the season, and: 
paid him for it, but let him go, gladly, before- 
summer was over. As for the city boy, he is 
only just a little worse than the city man, and 
our village boys, whom we sometimes hire, 
are more plague than profit. Doubtless some¬ 
thing might be made of this class of help in 
the cultivation of land, but only under mili¬ 
tary or reformatory discipline. 
On the general question of farm help, I 
believe in paying good wages to good men; 
but under present conditions it is hard on the 
plain common farmer, far from his market, 
and in competition with others elsewhere with 
more capital and skill, and better railroad 
rates and facilities. The small farmer is 
under the harrow in New England, and flies 
westw-ard, only to find it rather worse there 
than here. What is needed is, first, more 
knowledge of our business. Next, we want 
more capital to do it with to, advantage, either 
our own, or hirable at a 1# w rate of interest. 
Then we want the railroads to help us, by 
putting us directly in connection with the 
consumers of the large towns and cities. Few 
of us grow enough to fill a car at a time, and 
in less quantities the freights and commissions 
take all the profit. Most of our small northern 
New England farmers have relatives and 
friends in the manufacturing places, and 
could supply them with tbo produce they con¬ 
sume, if there was such a thirg as a “ freight 
express ” that would carry the goods to them 
at a rate that would not take all the possible 
profit. If such a course of trade could be 
established, a great improvement w-ould soon 
be seen in our farming; our farmers would 
brighten up and enlarge their operations, and 
the people in the towns would be better and 
more cheaply supplied For lack of this 
many are eloping to the West; and the rest, 
who stay at home, hardly know how to make 
anything at the present cost of labor aud 
price Of products. The clearest solution to 
my eyes is higher farming aud much larger 
aud better crops, enabling the farmer to ship 
direct by the carload. This, however, is 
difficult from lack of knowledge, capital and 
faith; and so our agriculture languishes as a 
