FARM STATISTICS.

Coupled with the address of Prof. J. W. Sanborn, of the State Agricultural College, delivered to the 2d Annual Convention of Labor Commissioners, we give a compilation of farm statistics, in which is shown the retail prices of the chief articles of provision in each of the Congressional districts of our State, and finally the general average throughout the State. Also, the average monthly wages paid farm hands in the several districts and in the State, and showing in what localities there is a dearth of farm laborers, and where there is a superfluity.

Furthermore, showing-where renting is contracted by sharesthe share of the crop received by the landlord when he furnishes teams and seed, and the part received by the tenant or renter when he furnishes his own teams, implements and seed.

Prof. Sanborn's address will be found to be a very able and enlightening paper, and we think that the farm statistics and prices paid farm hands, renters etc., will prove beneficial to laborers in general.

LABOR AND STATISTICAL PROBLEMS OF THE FARM.

Accurate statistical facts are to become the measure of the development of individual industries and of the world's progress. The children of the thinking few, industrial statistics are not appreciated by the masses, whom they are intended to benefit. They are positive industrial forces, teaching the time, direction, and method of action. Accurate information gives not only a skillful but a bold, energetic poli

cy.

The products of agriculture are the supporters of life, and the parent of all of the arts; hence, agricultural statistics are the most important of all statistics. They inform the producer, as well as the speculator, of crop prospects, and leave the fruits or profits of labor in the producers' hands, where they are of most good to civilization. As nations. in the world's commercial system are no longer isolated units, statistics

should be gathered on an international scheme. Your organizations are concerned with the productive industries of the State. In the amplitude of your field I propose to discuss the labor problems of the farm in their relation to the social and material development of husbandry.

THE WAGE LABORER.

The industrial revolution of this century, which has created new social and material systems, has assisted less the farm laborer than it has the wage laborer of any other important industry. The farm itself, in its relation to labor, has suffered a positive loss. Labor saving machinery, in its division of labor into piece work, and railroads has necessitated centers. Mechanism bas shortened the hours of labor, and in its centers has created a social life attractive to labor. But expansion of labor-saving machinery on the farm has forced the laborer to seek other employment. The more spirited farm laborer has sought the schools, libraries and social opportunities of the town. The barshare plow, requiring three to four men per acre a day of plowing, has given place to the sulky plow, asking for but one man per day for three acres of plowing. The corn planter has replaced ten men; the mower, four to five; the reaper, ten men; and so on for other field operations. The Titan strides of agriculture are revealed in the annual productions of farm mechanism, amounting to $68,940,486 for 1880. Corn planters numbered 68,991; grain drils, 43,222; grains sowers, 20,289; cultivators and harrows, 445,054 ; plows, 1,326,123; harvesters, 25,737; reapers, 35,327; reapers and mowers combined, 54,920; mowers, 72,090; rakes, 95,625; potato diggers, 33,453; and corn huskers, 44,370.

All farm machinery and implements are covered by 35,960 patents, marking a movement unparalled by any age, or by any other industry. Our exports mark the increased power of the laborer on the farm. Those of agriculture are 77 per cent. of our entire exports, and amounted to $619,269,499 for 1883. Within a half century they have gone up from little over $4,000,000 annually. The remark of Socrates that “agriculture is the mother and nurse of all the industries," is no mere sentiment for American application.

When our population numbered 80 per cent. of farmers we exported little. In 1860 it was 51 per cent. only engaged in agriculture; in 1870, 47.35 per cent.; and in 1880 but 44.1 per cent. of all workers were farmers. But with the decrease of the ratio of farms and farm laborers in ratio to population has come an increase of products for exportation. Sir, agriculture has been no laggard, but challenges our admiration. It has measured the advance of social and industrial pro

gress through the labor its better methods have given to the arts. Within a lifetime it has given one-half its former ratio of workings to other callings. Headless and heartless, this farm mechanism has sent to the town the best farm labor to occupy positions of minor trust and to satisfy its gregarious instincts in society. This impulse has been aided by the uncertainty of the tenure of farm labor and its certain long hours of labor. Seven months of sun to sun labor, followed by five months of intermittent and uncertain labor, with its saloon companionships in hours of idleness, has been demoralizing to farm labor. Such laborer, boarded in the family of the farmer, is a burden to the wife and often a moral pest to the children. The old polity has been. wrecked and a new will secure the best labor of the day; in my experience, by the cottage home for the laborer on the farm and for his family, with a garden, a cow, pig, newspaper and steady employment by the year. These bind labor to the farm and to its interests. The system of farming that distributes labor over the year is the most profitable. Landed interests are deeply concerned in securing good labor against the seductive influence of the town, and does not want the nerveless labor the latter refuses. Good homes, regular labor, and stated hours will secure it, as experience teaches. It also induces conservatism in the laborer. He is never a striker, and property finds no enemy in his person. Mechanism has rendered the barbarism of extreme long days of labor, peculiar to the farm, unnecessary. Indeed, ten hours is sufficient to exhaust the normal capacity to work, when faithfully applied.

The diversity of farm operations requires more tact and the executive faculty better developed in the farm laborer than in the labor of any other industry; hence, education of the farm laborer is of more importance than the education of any other class of laborers. I have handled upon three large farms four distinctive classes of farm labor, and must unequivocally indorse the educated farm laborer. He has clearer views of the just relations of capital and labor, and is not only a less captious but is a more perceptive workman. A comparison of northern with southern labor shows this. But Europe presents less abnormal causes and a far greater proportion unable to read and write than the United States. According to Mulhall, Europe produces 16.5 bushels of grain per capita, and the United States 48.1 bushels. Europe produces 51.1 pounds of meat per capita, and the United States 171 pounds. Europe produces 15.06 bushels of grain per acre and the United States 23.3. We till more acres per laborer here by these figures. Portugal had but one in thirty six at school, and grew 11.64 bushels of grain per acre. Spain has 25 per cent. of her population

able to read and write, and grows 12.2 bushels of grain per acre. France had in 1860 58.2 per cent. of her population able to read and write, and obtained 18.5 bushels. In Germany the bulk of population read and write, and the farmers gain 22.05 bushels per acre. While it is true that production follows expansion of manufactures and commerce, it must be remembered that the diffusion of knowlege is the impulse that has developed arts and commerce, and that has created the culture. and wealth to enjoy their fruits. Educated farm labor has enjoyed the fruits of its own energy, and the energy of other educated labor. The department of Agriculture finds that the manufacturing Eastern States pay for farm labor $26.61 per month, while the Southern States pay 15.30. Ohio pays $24.45, and Kentucky, by its side, $18.20. The manufacturing sections of Ohio pay $25.96, and the non-manufacturing sections $22.65. Vermont, manufacturing the least of the New England States, pays $23.70 per month. She has invested in manufacturing $28.80 per capita; while Massachusetts pays $30.66 per month for farm labor, and has invested in manufactures per capita $74.40. Steadily employed farm labor is as well paid as any labor. By Carey's figures in 1836, the price of farm labor has increased by 1866 72 per cent. and by Caird, English rates, from the repeal of the corn laws, had advanced 60 per cent. In the lands of the better class of farmers, his hours of labor have been much reduced. Meat twice a day, tea, sugar, tobacco, carpets, and a paper are now his to enjoy.

PROPRIETARY LABOR.

While a broad distinction exists between wage and proprietary labor, yet in this country the latter is a laborer even in the physical sense of the word. Here the proprietor is the tiller of the soil. The census shows 3,323.876 farm laborers and 4,346,617 farmers, most of whom own the land they till. Herein lies the success of our agriculture against European. Grand results come only from the quickened perception and energy that ownership gives. Ownership is the parent of all broad, permanent farm improvement. The history of Rome and Greece teaches it. The spiritless farming of Spain, Italy and Austria, and in fact of most of Europe, rests in the entailed mischiefs of feudalism, whose influence lives on.

Two States, adjoining, were formerly typical of two systems of labor and land ownership. In 1860 Ohio farms averaged 114 acres ; those of Virginia 324 acres. Ohio raised 15.1 bushels of wheat per acre, and Virginia 9; corn, Ohio, 31.3 bushels, and Virginia 19.1; oats, Ohio, 26.4 bushels, and Virginia 16.2 bushels. The war converted the owners