Ralls.-Unlimited time, eight per cent. interest. Good grain country. Randolph.-One to five years, seven to ten per cent. interest. Good land for grain and tobacco. Raise and ship stock of all kinds. Some swamp lands for sale by county court at two dollars and fifty cents per acre. well. Ray-Five years time, eight per cent. interest. Good, steady farmers can do Reynolds.-One to five dollars per acre, interest six per cent. Lands can be leased for a series of years. St. Clair.-Cash one-third, balance six to ten per cent. Low figures and a good county for persons with small means. Ste. Genevieve.-Cash one-third, balance one to three years. Eight to ten per cent. interest. Good, productive small farms can be bought cheap. St. Louis.-Cash thirty to one hundred dollars, six to eight per cent. interest Good inducements offered to settlers with small capital. Saline.-Cash one-third, balance one to three years time. Scotland.-Reasonable terms; cheap lands and good market. Scott.-Land two and half to ten dollars per acre; cash, one-third, balance one to two years. Cheap and productive land, and close to river and railroad transportation. Shannon.-Wild lands two to five dollars per acre; improved land three to ten dollars per acre, interest seven to ten per cent. Every inducement a poor man can ask. Land well adapted to fruit growing, sheep raising and mining. Shelby.-Improved farms ten to twenty-five dollars per acre, interest eight per cent. Good soil, healthy climate and good market. Stone.-Cash, one half, balance one to two years. The face of the country is generally mountainous, and the good land is in small bodies. Families with small captal will find plenty of hard work and poor pay. Stoddard.-Cash, one-fifth, balance two to four years, eight per cent. interest. proximity. Taney.-Good farms three to ten dollars per acre. Good prospects for those who will invest in stock raising. Cotton is the staple production for market. Texas. Any terms to secure immigration. Warren.-Plenty time on good security, at eight per cent. Market prices vary with those of market in St. Louis, fifty-five miles distant. Washington.-One to three years time at six per cent. Wayne.-Part cash, balance one to five years. Webster.-Railroad land on seyen years time at eight per cent. interest, or to rent for one-third crop. Worth.--One to five years time, six to eight per cent. interest. The foregoing returns from 103 counties might have been far more complete and satisfactory, had the law compelled county clerks to answer when requested. After more than a month from date of sending out circular blanks, only 62 counties had reported; then on November 11, 1879, the Bureau issued a notice to each of the derelict counties, which had the effect of bringing in returns from 42 additional counties. The following counties, however, did not make any return, viz: Douglas, Gentry, Holt, Howard, Laclede, Mississippi, Ripley, St. Francois, Schuyler, Vernon, Wright-11 in all. Butler, St. Charles and New Madrid came in too late for tabulation in tables No. 2 and No. 3. The following is a summary of their reports: Butler county.-Our chief products and prices are: Corn, 30c.; wheat, $1.00; potatoes, 75c.; oats, 25c. Location, close to railroad; soil, good. Oxen, $50 per pair; horses, $40 per head; mules, $50 per head; milch cows, $15 per head; sheep, $1.25 per head; hogs, 2c. per pound. Lands can be leased or bought on long time, six per cent. interest, $1.25 to $10.00 per acre. Smallest amount of money necessary to start farming, $150. The county is well supplied with farm hands. Wages per month of farm hands steadily employed, $10 and board. Ten per cent. of farmers' sons migrate every year. St. Charles county.-Soil varied in quality; one to three years' time to buyers, eight per cent. interest; ten miles to shipping point. Farm hands' wages, $18 per month and board. New Madrid county.-Chief products and prices are: Corn, 40c.; wheat, $1.00; cotton, 2c per pound in seed; three miles to shipping point; good land. Draught animals and live stock cheaper than anywhere in State. Cleared land $8 per acre, long time to pay, ten per cent. interest. One thousand immigrants wanted. Farm hands" wages, $12 per month and board. SUMMARY. In securing the estimate of government land undisposed of in the State, the Bureau addressed inquiries to the United States Land Offices. in the State, at Boonville, Ironton and Springfield, and also to the General Land Office at Washington, D. C. Owing to the daily appropriations of the public domain, it is extremely difficult to secure information on this subject with any degree of accuracy. Notwithstanding this, the Land Registers at the above offices made reports to us up to date of November 17, 1879. The Boonville district made a full return by counties. The others were unable to do so. The result is as follows: UNCULTIVATED LAND.-Our returns show a total of 3,833,713 acres of cleared, uncultivated land, and 10,291,434 acres of woodland, making a total of 14,125,147 acres of land uncultivated in the State. There is cleared, uncultivated land in fifty-six counties, and woodland in all. Counting the cleared, uncultivated land alone, it would give 95,843 farms of forty acres each, susceptible of cultivation. With such a large domain of uncultivated land, and knowing the fact that in every county it can be rented or purchased on good terms, there is no reason why settlers or farmers in search of farms should not locate in our State. OPPORTUNITIES AND PRICES.-The smallest amount of money necessary to start with in a few counties is $150, but the average in seventysix counties is $277, and in some as high as $1,000 to $1,500 is required. Colonies of ten to twenty families can rent or purchase land in seventysix counties. The average price per acre for cleared, uncultivated land is $5.32; the highest price, $25 per acre; the lowest, $1.00. Small improved farms average a rent of $2.67 per acre; some as high as six, and a few as low as one dollar-in a few places one-third of crop is the rent. The average distance to market town or shipping point is a matter of great moment to those intending to take up farms. With our great railroad facilities in Missouri, the average, according to our returns, is a distance of 13 miles; some places being only 3 miles distant, a few being 75 miles. AVERAGE PRICE OF FARM STOCK.-Working oxen have entirely gone out of use in 25 counties, and are condemned as "too slow," "behind the age," etc. In a few others they are seldom used, and in 82 counties of the State they are still in vogue. Average price, $57.40 per pair; in some counties, $90; in others, only $40. In most cases they are less than $65 per pair. Horses, $52.70 per head; mules, $64.60; cows, $16.06; sheep, $1.72; hogs, 2 3-16 cents per pound. FARM LABORERS.-In presenting our report as to the number of men who can find employment as farm laborers in the State, we wish to state that county clerks, in many instances, evidently misunderstood the question and thought it meant immigrants or those who could start and employ themselves. At any rate our reports show a total of 10,940 farm hands wanted in 29 counties, while 23 report a corresponding surplus; 19 state there is a demand for more, and 29 make no report. In some counties there is an astonishing number of farmers' sons who migrate every year and abandon farming. A few report as high as 33 per cent., some few as low as half of one per cent. From all accounts, 78 counties report migration of farmers' sons; 44 report an average of 113 per cent. per year; 34 give no stated number, simply reporting that there is such migration. The cause of this may be found in the attractiveness of cities and in the innate desire of youth for social enjoyments. Our young men, born and bred upon a farm to-day, soon grow restive in the isolation of farm life, and become filled with a longing for the life in large cities, and fondly imagine that in them the quickest and surest road to wealth can be found. They learn to look upon farm labor with disdain, and turn their faces to other fields of industry, perhaps less remunerative and more repulsive. Until these youths learn the nobility and honor of all useful labor, the migration of farmers' sons will in no respect be diminished. FARM LABORERS' WAGES.-The three tables of monthly wages of farm laborers, give the following averages per month: Employed the whole year and living on farm.......... Having house on farm, with garden, etc............. Temporary employes, living away from farm.................. Temporary employes, living away from farm, 50 cents to one dollar per day. $13 79 14 75 17 35 CONCLUSIONS.-The evidence herein presented from the different counties, warrants the statements we made in opening this subject. Furthermore, it goes far to show that while there is plenty of uncultivated land in the State, yet there is not a single county where a man can start a farm without at least $150.00. This is certainly a small sum to many, but how are the unemployed poor, for whom farming is prescribed as a remedy, to obtain it? Then, again, are they competent to conduct a farm and make it pay? Along with this there is the fact that there is scarcely any demand for them as farm laborers. Instead of advising unemployed laborers, out of money, to embark in the occupation of farming, it is to the interest of Missouri to seek the immigration of practical farmers, with sufficient means to open up small and large farms, and thereby securely build up the agricultural interests of the State. PART III. WAGES, EARNINGS AND EMPLOYMENT. In presenting this part of our report we wish to call attention to the fact that every branch of labor was included in our investigation, and although the returns do not embrace every establishment in which persons are employed, yet as they are gathered from all the different counties of the State, we are confident that they represent the true condition of the working classes, as far as it can be presented by a picture of their wages, earnings, hours of labor and days work in the year. European reports on earnings, cost of living, etc., of wage-laborers, have never been based upon a number of returns greater than fifty. The United States Government based its reports upon a number no larger. Our returns, in almost every case, closely approach that number, and in some cases are even in excess of it. While we have forwarded our blanks to all classes of workingmen, yet the employes' returns are mainly from the most intelligent and better paid class of workmen; and the employers' returns are from the leading concerns. in their line of industry. Our tables are based upon an average of three hundred and eight working days in the year. The average number of days work in the year varies in each establishment, and employes are greatly affected in wages by stoppage of work, sickness and other causes. In giving the average wages per week, it is often the case that employers, in their returns, include the salaries of officers, clerks, etc., with the pay of wage-labor. And in other cases it happens that the wages of the most. skillful are given as the average of all employed in that occupation, thus: regulating the wages of the many by the pay of the few. This is a very common practice with employers. Yet in spite of this the statement. |