Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1911 — FARM LABORER VERY SCARCE [ARTICLE]

FARM LABORER VERY SCARCE

Missouri Farmers Buy Talking Machine and Reflectors in Attempt to Lure Him to Work.'

Mexico, Mo. —Is the motion picture machine in small towns responsible for luring boys and young men away from the farm? Will the phonograph and the post card reflector In the farmhouse keep him there? Many -farmers in .central Missouri would say “yes” to both of those questions, and many of them are buying talking machines and reflectors in order to combat “the lure of the motion pictures” and keep the boys—and the hired men —on the farm. Many of these men attribute the

present high prices of many of the necessities of life to the scarcity of farm labor. In fact, every condition, except weather, that does not meet the approval of the tiller of the soli is being laid at the door of the existing famine in “hired hands.” In half the corn fields near here last fall there were women helping the men to gather the crop. They were women, for the most part, not accustomed to such labor, but they saw the necessity of getting the harvest completed the snow fell. And If they did not help, no one would.

Last summer many women living on farms near here left their duties in the household to drive a team and help the husband put the crop in. Many of these women were college graduates. A few years ago farm laborers received from sl6 to $lB a month with” the occasional loan of a horse on which to ride to town. Today “hands” are hard to find at S3O a month with every Saturday off and a ride to town In the family motor car. This condition is not peculiar to Missouri alone. It sounds ridiculous, but it is no laughing matter to the farmer with a crop to harvest.