American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man”— Washington 
‘ Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
Volume 112 For the Week Ending August 11, 1923 Number 6 
Is a Shorter Farm Day Practical? 
Would Shorter Hours Bring Farmers Skilled Workmen’s Pay 
T HERE seems to be plenty of discus¬ 
sion about long hours on the farm, 
both in the farm papers and by word 
of mouth wherever farmers or farm¬ 
ers’ wives congregate. With all the talk, 
some of which hits the nail on the head and 
some of which is so wide of the mark that 
it isn’t even in sight of it, perhaps it would 
be profitable to ask ourselves a few questions 
in regard to it. A few questions often clear 
up the atmosphere remarkably, and I don’t 
know of anything handier in an argument. 
When your opponent begins to shoot ques¬ 
tions that you couldn’t 
answer to save your 
soul, just look wise, 
don’t attempt to an¬ 
swer them, but begin to 
ask a few questions 
yourself. The chances 
are ten to one that 
you’ll find him just as 
ignorant as you are. 
In the first place. 
‘Why do farmers work 
long hours?” Some 
farmers would say that 
it is necessary, in order 
to make a living, but I 
have known folks to 
get cause and effect 
twisted, so perhaps the 
facts of the case are, 
that they can’t make a 
living because they 
work long hours. The 
rate of pay that men 
get seems to vary as the 
amount of time spent in 
work varies. The less 
time spent, the more 
pay, so perhaps if 
farmers could shorten 
their hours, they would 
take themselves out of 
the common labor class, where they seem 
to be placed, and jump up into the skilled 
labor class. 
One of the principal reasons for long 
hours is the desire to get ahead. A young 
farmer said to me “I can see a lot of ways to 
make money, if I could only get time to do 
the work.” Perhaps he didn’t realize that 
it was merely another way of saying that if 
he could do three men’s work, he could get 
fair returns for one man. Every young man 
who starts on a farm wants to get ahead, 
and to him, one of the surest ways of doing 
it is to put in long hours. It does mean that 
he gets ahead faster than his neighbor who 
puts in fewer hours, but counting in all the 
men who are doing the same as he, it means 
that they are competing against each other 
to see who has the most endurance to pro¬ 
duce a surplus which brings down the price 
for everyone. 
Another reason, which applies more to the 
older farmers, is the fact that they are con¬ 
tinually seeing work that needs to be done, 
and because they can’t do it in ten hours, 
they work overtime, not at time and a half, 
By H. L. COSLINE 
but without any pay. One man says that he 
wants to get on a smaller farm where there 
isn’t so much to do, but one of the hardest 
working men I know, has less than two acres 
of ground. The Union man doesn’t worry 
about the work that needs doing, but the 
farmer is working at his own business, so he 
keeps at it as long as daylight lasts and then 
sometimes does the chores by lantern light. 
Some of the men in this class have lost all 
hope of making more than a mere living, but 
still they keep on, “because the work needs 
to be done.” 
Another reason which affects a smaller 
class, is a feeling, that some folks have, that 
it’s a sin to be idle. It doesn’t seem to mat¬ 
ter whether the work they are doing is re¬ 
turning them a profit or not, so long as they 
are busy their conscience is easy. In many 
cases the work they are doing could be done 
in half the time, by spending a little thought 
about it, but they are too busy with physical 
labor to think. This class doesn’t need any 
sympathy because I suppose they are happy. 
The other folks are the ones who need the 
sympathy, because they must compete with 
folks who will work whether they make a 
profit or not. 
Another question that might be asked with 
profit is: “What are the results of long hours 
on the farm?” 
There is a tendency to pay at least a Jiv¬ 
ing wage, regardless of the length of time 
worked. I suppose that when men first be¬ 
gan to hire other men to work for them, they 
first paid them bigger wages if they would 
work longer hours, and then, when there was 
a surplus of workmen, they reduced the pay 
without reducing the hours of work. The 
only difference with the farmer’s condition 
is that he is working for himself and works 
longer hours in order to get more returns 
and then natural laws of supply and demand 
operate and cause a less return than could 
have been obtained with less work. It is a 
well-known fact that farmers frequently are 
paid more money in a year when weather 
conditions cause a short crop. Why not get 
the short crop by putting in fewer hours? 
There are other and more far reaching 
effects than the low re¬ 
turns caused by long 
hours. It finally results 
in less time for recrea¬ 
tion and improvement, 
greater difficulty in 
maintaining the same 
standard of education, 
for farm boys and girls, 
as obtains in cities, and 
the final draining away 
into the cities of the 
most intelligent and 
progressive young 
people. 
There is also a tend¬ 
ency to return a living 
wage to a family re¬ 
gardless of the number 
of people in the family 
who are working. We 
have heard instances in 
so-called sweat shops 
where the whole family 
would earn only a bare 
living by working for 
long hours, but there 
are farms where the 
conditions are nearly 
as bad. It is no doubt 
better for farm boys 
and girls to be busy 
rather than idle, but when the time comes 
that they must leave school at an early age, 
in order to work, the condition is no longer 
a healthy one. 
Farming is a family occupation, but if 
the whole family is to secure only the re¬ 
turns that could be secured by one member 
of the family, it might be a good thing to 
dispense with the help of the wife and 
children. 
The third question is “Can shorter hours 
be made practical on a farm?” The first an¬ 
swer that one usually receives to this ques¬ 
tion is: “Cows must be milked about twelve 
hours apart, so how can you have an eight- 
hour day ?” True, but what is there illogical 
about having two shifts? At this time of 
year there are about sixteen hours of day¬ 
light, two shifts would work fine. 
I can almost hear the farmers laughing 
about this statement as though it were a 
good joke, but one fact is sure and that is 
that so long as farmers are willing to work 
long hours to feed the rest of the popula¬ 
tion with cheap food, you aren’t going 
(Continued on page 94) 
At no time of the year are farmers’ days so long as at harvest 
