Farmworker

“ And often the agricultural labourer, having tramped to town, may find no work ready to his hands. I read in the reports of the Société Nationale d’Agriculture of a certain farm in Brie, which has been bought by the Assistance Publique, in order to give work to those unhappy labouring men who have fallen into beggary among the unfriendly streets. Here, on the fields and furrows of La Chalmelle, they touch their mother earth again, like Antæus; thence they repair, sadder and wiser men, to such glebes or vineyards as are short of hire. ”

“ Though born to city life and work I dearly loved the country and a farm, but did not know its duties, nor had I the strength for heavy labor, so I assisted in work in and about the houses in the early hours of the day, and in some of the lighter farming, as planting, hoeing, weeding and driving the oxen, horses and cows; in fact, taking a lad's place in the farm and house employments.
Owing to the amount of labor and the disproportion of female help, some of the young men under age oftentimes assisted after meals in wiping dishes and supplying hot and cold water. ”

“ It was not like the making of one tenth of a pin, which has a strong tendency to reduce the worker to one tenth of a man.
On the farm one usually begins and finishes a piece of work whether it be a hay-rack or a barn; he sees it through—the whole of it receives expression in him. ”

“ Some of my readers will have had experience in the difficult and doubtful process of trying to "run a farm" at long range by means of ordinary hired help: the residence is uninhabitable; the tools are old and out of date, and some of them cannot be found; the well water is not good; the poultry is of the wrong breed, and the hens will not sit; the horses are not adapted to the work; the wagons must be painted and the harnesses replaced; the absolutely essential supplies are interminable; there must be more day labor. Now let this hired man come into the ownership of the farm: presto! ”

“ In all of this activity of cultivation, the rush of harvest, and regularity of day-to-day chores, the farmer worked, not alone, but in conjunction with his family. Unlike the industrial worker, whose employment was discrete and separate from his home life, the farmer's home was his workshop, and his labor directly connected to his sustenance. ”

“ And, unmarried women between 12 and 40 may be required by town officials to work by the year, the week, or day for wages they determine.
All artificers and laborers hired by the day or week shall work from 5 am to 7 PM. All artificers must labor at agriculture at haytime and harvest to avoid the loss of grain or hay. Every householder who raises crops may receive as an apprentice a child between 10 and 18 to serve in agriculture until he is age 21. A householder in a town may receive a child as an apprentice for 7 years, but merchants may only take as apprentices children of parents with 40s. ”

“ Uninterested labor leaves a load of hay in the field to be injured, just because the hour for quitting has come, while interested labor hurries the hay into the barn to make it safe, knowing that the extra half-hour will be made up to it in some other way.
It pays the farmer to take his help into a kind of partnership, not always in his farm, but always in his consideration. That is why my farm-house was filled with papers and magazines of interest to the men ”

“ However, the labor problem on the farm is different from that in the manufacturing industries or in trade and transportation. This chapter will not concern itself with an attempt to settle the farm labor problem, but will undertake to state the character of some of the differences between it and other forms of labor and to discuss some of the changes in recent years.
A large proportion of farm work is done by the farm owner, or renter, and his family. There is not much opportunity to profit by the labor of other persons. ”

“ Such is not the case on the farm; for after the day in the field the chores must be done, and the stock cared for. And even on Sunday, the routine must be carried out. The work of the farm has a tendency, therefore, to become much of a grind, and certainly will become so unless some limit is set to the exactions of farm labor on the time and strength of the worker. It separates the individual from his fellows in the greater part of the farm work and gives him little opportunity for social recreations or play. ”

“ In the agricultural group the unit is the farmstead. By that term is meant the whole complex organization of the farm, including the land and its products, the stock, the barns and the sheds, the whole family together with whatever houses it, the corps of workers, farmer, farmer's wife, sons, daughters, maiden aunts, working people unhired and hired—in fact, everything "animal, vegetable or mineral," as the children say when they play "Forty Questions," that ministers in any way to the success of the farm as a business and to its ultimate object, the happiness of the family living thereon. ”

“ At the next step we find ourselves in the little community, of which the owner of this farm constitutes a portion; and here we find the farmer exchanging his wheat with one neighbour for a day's labour—the use of his wagon and his horse for other days of labour—his potatoes with a third for the shoeing of his horse, and with a fourth for the shoeing of himself and his children, or the making of his coat. ”

“ The work on the farm was varied and intermittent, depending upon the season. Ploughing, planting, weeding, haying, harvesting, threshing, marketing, wood-cutting, etc., are regulated by the farmer's calendar. There are rainy days, when the day laborer loses his hire; and, besides these, there are intervals between the season of one species of work and that of the next, in which no employment is offered him by the farm proprietor. If he had thrift, he would find work of some kind for himself at home; he would save money and own his house. But thrift he does not possess. ”

“ The labourer is in a lower degree of the same class as the third-rate working farmer of the past. He is the old small dairy farmer in a coarser shape. With a little less education, ruder manners, with the instincts of eating, drinking, and avarice more prominently displayed, he presents in his actual condition at this day a striking analogy to the agriculturist of a bygone time. In fact, those farmers of twenty or thirty acres, living in cottage-like homesteads, were barely distinguishable as far as personnel went from the labourers among whom they lived. ”

“ Nothing that happened on the farm went unchallenged. The milk product for the day was a thing of interest; the egg count could not go unnoted; a hatch of chickens must be seen before they left the incubator; a litter of new-born pigs must be admired; horses and cows were forever doing things which they should or should not do; men and maids had griefs and joys to share with mistress or Headman; flowers were blooming, trees were leafing, a robin had built in the black oak, a gopher was tunnelling the rose bed,—a thousand things, full of interest, were happening every day. ”

“ Any single employer of farm labor who is in a position to employ a group of boys may be assumed either to be conducting a large farm on which there is a great diversity of crops extending over a wide range of time of harvesting, or to be a specializing farmer working in an intensive way on a comparatively small area with special crops which are harvested in short periods of time. ”

“ Each farm is provided with an adequate number of cottages, having small gardens adjoining, and every man who is engaged by the year has one of these cottages; his family commonly find employment, more or less, but one female laborer he is bound to have always in readiness to answer the master's call for assistance, and to work at stipulated wages. ”

“ When we understand better the importance of concentrating labor, instead of scattering it,—when we shall come to estimate duly the superior profit of “a little farm, well tilled,” over a great farm, half cultivated and half manured, overrun with weeds, and scourged with exhausting crops,—we shall then fill our barns, and double the winter fodder for our cattle and sheep by the products of these waste meadows. ”

“ If it be conceded, as it must, that the position of the farm-labourer in some parts is one of comparative comfort, that is to say compared with the unskilled labourer in towns and elsewhere, it must be also asserted that his position in other parts, especially in the south of England, is capable of and does require great amelioration. ”

“ He must remain until his piece of work is completed; this is the natural responsibility of a farm laborer, and it is in meeting this responsibility that he is able to rise to the upper grade and to develop his usefulness as a citizen.
It is a large question whether we are to have a distinct working-class in the country as distinguished from the land-owning farmer. ”

“ There is no place like the farm for those unfortunates whose ability to perform crude manual labor is their chief asset. The farmer who must exercise a never failing forbearance in the management of horses and cattle often extends his sympathetic supervision over the mentally defective ones who can be utilized in providing the necessary hand labor. ”

“ Many farmers work in the field very little, while the wife and mother does the housework not only for her own family, but for from one to three laborers. During the rush of crop raising and harvesting, from April to August, she must be up at four in the morning, and she cannot have her supper until the farm work is all done ”

“ Among manufacturers and persons engaged in sedentary employments, it is, I know, very different. The labouring man in agriculture generally carries on his work either in solitude or with his own family—with persons whose minds he is thoroughly acquainted with, and with whom he is under no temptation to enter into discussions, or to compare opinions. He goes home from the field, or the barn, and within and about his own house he finds a hundred little jobs which furnish him with a change of employment which is grateful and profitable ”

“ To complete the comparison with the merchant or manufacturer, who takes his papers or plans home with him for work out of regular hours, one might say that the farmer who lives at a distance from his land, with his flocks and herds gathered about his homestead, has such of his work as needs early and late attention close at hand, while his regular workshop, the farm, calls him away for certain regular hours and regular duties. ”

“ Labourers have great contempt for the work of parsons, lawyers, and indoor workers generally; a farmer who spends much time indoors over correspondence and comes round his land late in the day is regarded as an "afternoon" or "armchair" farmer, and a tradesman who runs a small farm in addition to his other business is an "apron-string" farmer. ”

“ If there were no other reason for practicing a somewhat diversified agriculture, the welfare of the [34] workman and his family should form a sufficient one. Happily, many large and demoralizing wheat ranches are being divided into small farms, upon which are being reared the roof-tree, children, fruits and flowers.
To secure a competence, no more activities should be entered into than can be prosecuted with vigor and at a profit. On the other hand, too few activities tend to stagnation and degeneration. ”

“ In harvest time, the superintendence of work continues till late, and in the autumn labour is not unfrequently prolonged into the moonlight, in order to carry the corn. It is a life, on the whole, of hard work.
In all this I speak of the ordinary middle-class farmer. The life of the higher class of agriculturists, who possess large capital, and employ bailiffs and all kinds of machinery, is of course not by any means so onerous. ”

“ Somebody should be there always to go through the fields, not a mere hired laborer, but a regular farmer, a master who understood the business and would take an interest in the farm. A lone woman could not manage the farming, watch the price of corn and direct the sale and purchase of cattle. ”

“ We hold, that although many of the practical operations of the farm may be rough, laborious, and untidy, yet they are not, and need not be inconsistent with the knowledge and practice of neatness, order, and even elegance and refinement within doors; and, that the due accommodation of the various things appertaining to farm stock, farm labor, and farm life, should have a tendency to elevate the social xii position, the associations, thoughts, and entire condition of the farmer. ”

“ And when it does become a business the actual work of farming the average sort of farm can be done in twenty-four days a year. The other days can be given over to other kinds of business. Farming is too seasonal an occupation to engage all of a man's time. ”

“ Yet what is the position of the mother in the New England farmer's home? The farmer is careful of every animal he possesses. The farm-yard and the stall are replenished with young, by creatures for months dismissed from labor, or handled with intelligent care while carrying their burden; because the farmer knows that only in this way can he secure improvement, and sound, symmetrical development, to the stock of his farm. ”

“ The farm-workers usually make their homes where they work, living there with their wives and children. They have as a rule no other village or chief of their own. Their wives work in the farmer's house. ”