Vol. 'LXXVIII. 
Published Weekly by The Rural Publishing Co., 
333 W. 30th St.. New York. Price One Dollar a Year. 
NEW YORK, JULY 12, 1919. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, June 26, 1879, at the Post -m- AXAO 
Office at New York. N. Y.. under the Act of March 3. 1879. 
Farmers’ 
Labor Adjustments 
Ei^ht Hour 
and Tkeir Effect on Farming 
L ONG HOURS.—Every once in a while some 
writer suggests that farmers might do well to : 
tight for an eight-hour day. Many a farmer has 
replied with the good old-fashioned joke: “Farmers 
have an eight-hour day now, eight hours in the 
forenoon and eight 
hours in the afternoon.” 
At the same time they 
realize that their pres¬ 
ent schedule is not a 
joke, but they do not 
know of a remedy. Re¬ 
cently, while talking 
■with a dairyman em¬ 
ploying hired men, he 
said: “My men have to 
work about 14 hours 
each day. I have tried 
to shorten this time, but 
lit seems that nothing 
can be done to shorten 
the hours and still fin¬ 
ish the necessary work.” 
The owner of livestock 
cannot shorten his 
working day and give 
the stock the proper 
care and raise enough 
food to keep the stock. 
A fanner might try to 
do without livestock in 
order to shorten his 
working day, and then 
he might find that the 
farm soon would be¬ 
come so reduced in fer¬ 
tility that he could not 
make a living from the 
crops it would produce. 
P O U LT R Y M E N’S 
CONDITIONS. — The 
poultry man works on a 
time schedule that var¬ 
ies during different sea¬ 
sons of the year, but it 
does not seem that this 
business can ever be 
placed on a strictly 
eight-hour basis. In the 
Spring many poultry- 
men do a full day of 
work outside, and then 
spend the evening in 
turning hatching eggs 
in the incubator, shut¬ 
ting up old hens that 
are broody, treating 
hens to prevent lice, 
packing hatching eggs, 
answering business cor¬ 
respondence, etc. An 
eight-hour day would 
leave the commercial 
poultryman with so 
many things left undone that he would soon have to 
go out of the business. If the morning work on the 
farm-began at eight'o'clock the farmer with livestock 
would find so many little jobs to be done that he would 
not be ready for work in the field until nearly noon. 
A Vine-clad Farmhouse Porch. Fig. SOI. 
THE HIRED MAN’S DAY.—The sentiment for 
the eight-hour day has not been developed so much 
by the busy farmer who likes his trade as by the 
hired man who reads of the working day of many 
city employees in both factories and offices. When 
hired men in general 
demand an eight-hour 
day on the farm it looks 
as if they will not be 
employed for much of 
that work. Many farm¬ 
ers will find that they 
will be forced to do their 
own work, and leave 
undone all that they 
cannot complete with¬ 
out help. A dairy farm¬ 
er had a hired man 
earning $45 per month 
and his board, room 
and washing. The man 
left because the farmer 
could not afford to raise 
his wages. This farmer 
figured that the wage 
of $45. plus the board, 
room and washing, 
made this hired man 
cost him about $75 per 
month. He could not 
pay more than $75 with¬ 
out losing money. He 
is managing to get 
along without a hired 
man. A farmer cannot 
be expected to turn over 
the entire profits of the 
farm to a hired man, 
who has no money in¬ 
vested in the business. 
Farmers have never 
been as lucky as a cer¬ 
tain maker of automo¬ 
biles. who has a large, 
profitable business, and 
can afford to pay large 
wages. It is fine for the 
men who can work for 
such an employer, and 
the farmers do not be¬ 
grudge them their short 
hours and high wages, 
but the farmers know 
that they cannot com¬ 
pete in the labor mar¬ 
ket with such au em¬ 
ployer of labor. If food 
prices were high enough 
to enable farmers to 
pay $5 per day to hired 
men. the writer dreads 
to think of what city 
men would think when 
they paid their grocery 
