1913. 
Tirlfci RURAL NEW-YORKER 
tm 
“POLITICIAN” AND “COMMON PEOPLE.” 
A Milking Machine in Bristles. 
Dairymen find it hard to get good milkers. Some 
of the milking machines give fair satisfaction, but 
they do not always milk clean, and sometimes the 
cows do not stand for them. At any rate, the milk¬ 
ing problem is a hard one—much talked about. We 
imagine the pigs must have listened to this dis¬ 
cussion, for never before have we had 
so many accounts and pictures of 
milking machines in bristles. The lat¬ 
est picture is at Fig. 33S, taken right 
in the barnyard. 
“The Yorkshire pigs and the Hol¬ 
stein cow are owned by Garry O. Half, 
of Long Island. The cow had been 
giving an average of 22 quarts of milk, 
daily. Suddenly this dropped to five, 
and fluctuated between that figure and 
10 quarts. The owner was at a loss 
to know why the sudden change, 
but after two weeks, Sam Miller,, 
one of his assistants, found the cow 
patiently yielding to the pig, which,, 
as may be noticed, is much larger than 
her sisters, although the same age 
Before the photograph was taken the* 
cow with three Jerseys was let into 
the pigpen. The pigs were released 
from the barn and “Politician,” as Mr, 
Ilaff now calls the sucker, made for each 
of the other three in turn, only to re¬ 
ceive a bewildering kick. The “right” 
cow, now named “The Common People" 
by Mr. Ilaff, was finally reached, and 
“Politician” went at the milk, sucking 
with a tremendous vim, and a noise 
like a drinking horse makes when he 
is reaching the bottom of the pail.” 
The patient cow seems on good terms with her 
milker. 
the soil, the financial standing of the owner, and 
had an intimate acquaintance with all the duties of 
this particular farm. During the Summer the 
owner hired an inexperienced student from the city 
and paid him $25 per month to assist in the general 
work of the farm. The older man had to teach the 
young fellow all of his work and be responsible for 
all errors of judgment. The older man became dis¬ 
gusted with his employment before the end of the 
THE FARM LABOR PROBLEM. 
By a Former Hired Man. 
Part I. 
The farm labor problem is not causing worry 
because it is an imaginary evil or because there is 
no reason for the unrest so prevalent among the 
hired men on many American farms. It is a real 
problem, and can only be settled after careful study, 
and it will require the best brains of our most pro¬ 
gressive farmers to bring before their neighbors 
some way to solve the difficulty. There was a time 
in our history when nearly all of the best men in 
the country received 
their first money 
from doing hard la¬ 
bor on the farm. 
They began their 
career and often 
worked many years 
as tillers of the soil. 
When these men 
were old enough to 
take up some other 
vocation or buy their 
own land, along came 
a plentiful supply of 
young men who were 
willing to roll up 
their sleeves and 
earn their living 
next to the soil. The 
present day finds few 
young men who en¬ 
joy working on a 
farm unless it is 
owned by the imme¬ 
diate family; and 
then they use it as a 
Summer vacation job 
instead of a perma¬ 
nent occupation. 
There are several 
reasons for the lack 
of interest among the 
young men that ex¬ 
plain why they can¬ 
not reason out any 
advantages to be gained from working on a farm. 
1 he first consideration is a wage limit, which means 
that no matter how much the man may increase in 
' Hiciency, he still receives about the same remunera- 
tor toil. On one farm an excellent hired 
‘"an vvas employed for $26 per month, and he had 
'lomonstrated his ability and usefulness by remain- 
' ' 0,1 place for five years, lie knew the horses, 
“POLITICIAN” MILKING “THE COMMON PEOPLE.” Fig. 338. 
season, and showed a dissatisfaction with the job 
that had never before been apparent. He left the 
farm and obtained a position in an automobile fac¬ 
tory in a nearby city. 
The important point to consider is not the fact 
that the student earned $25 per month, but the 
experienced man was only getting $26 per month. 
Further inquiry found that the older man had 
started in five years before at $25 per month, and 
in spite of the fact that his efficiency and value on 
the farm had greatly increased, he had only re¬ 
ceived a reward of a $1 increase in his wages. The 
owner figured that as long as the man did not com¬ 
plain about the job, there was no reason for offer¬ 
ing him much more money. This farmhand was 
not the complaining kind of a man, and did not 
THE WORKING FORCE ON a MICHIGAN FARM. Fig. 33P 
realize that any injustice was being done to him 
until he saw the inefficient man draw almost as 
much money and not perform the same amount of 
work in the field. 
The above statement illustrates one of the causes 
of dissatisfaction underlying the farm labor ques¬ 
tion. There are no standards of efficiency developed 
and a man is a man with a right to so much money 
and no more, when he is working on the farm. This 
condition exists, though it is a well-known fact that 
there is no other place where the skilled hand and 
trained mind can be used to better advantage than 
in practical agriculture. The employee on the farm 
has the greatest opportunity to exercise skill and 
judgment in carrying out the orders of the owner of 
the land. He can make money for his employer 
by careful preparation for his work, and by 
earnest efforts to carry out, the 
plans with the greatest efficiency. He 
can lose money every day by the care¬ 
less waste of material and a slow dis¬ 
interested manner of carrying out his 
duties. 
We next come to the question of de¬ 
ciding whether the good farm laborer is 
appreciated and if the poor workman 
also receives his reward in proportion 
to his value. It has been difficult to 
adopt a scale of wages on the farm, 
because every man soon knows the 
rate of his neighbor and looks with a 
jealous eye on the man who deviates 
from the usual scale paid in the com¬ 
munity. The man who is working in 
the field at 15 cents per hour soon tires 
of the job when he finds that his fel¬ 
low workman is getting 20 cents per 
hour. The workman receiving the low 
rate will never stop to consider that 
the high-paid man may be doing twice 
as much work during every hour of 
the day. The only solution to the wage 
problem will be the developing of a 
scale of wages and the using of a 
merit system that will enable the 
trusted and steady man to receive 
more money in appreciation of his 
work. If it is understood in a certain 
community that the men who have worked there for 
several years are getting more privileges and more 
money than the transient labor, it will be an induce¬ 
ment for some men to stick to the farm and not 
hunt for the factory, where a certain reasonable 
increase in their wages can usually be expected. 
Is farm labor usually underpaid? It is usually 
considered that farm labor is underpaid and at the 
Same time we hear that farming is a business and 
requires brains, energy, and capital. The farm 
laborer must have brains and be willing to expend 
most of his energy, but the accumulation of capital 
for the development of his own business is made 
very difficult. Every farmer should adopt some 
means of giving the hired man a stimulation. 
Some fruit farmers should try out the plan of 
giving the men a cer¬ 
tain proportion of 
the profits on the 
peach or apple crop, 
and though the divi¬ 
dend was small, it 
would be sufficient to 
make the men inter¬ 
ested in the job, and 
it is certain that the 
crops would receive 
more care and better 
attention during the 
growing and harvest 
time, than as if the 
men had nothing to 
expect except their 
weekly pay check. 
The man who is to 
receive some per 
cent of the yearly 
earnings will feel a 
new interest in the 
business, and like 
the stockholder in a 
corporation, the man 
will study the best 
methods of increas¬ 
ing the crops and 
improving the land. 
It sounds purely the¬ 
oretical to talk about 
taking the employees 
into the business se¬ 
crets and giving them 
a certain per cent of the yearly income from the farm. 
It is a fact that the best farmers are now keeping 
books, and maintaining a system of farm manage¬ 
ment that keeps them in intimate connection with 
the financial standing of their business. It is an 
easy matter to determine the per cent of profit on 
the investment of time, money and labor and decide 
the investment of time, money and labor, r. g. k. 
