Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 289, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1917 — New Farm Labor Scheme Adopted [ARTICLE]

New Farm Labor Scheme Adopted

Washington, Dec. 21.—Military plans for a long war has led to the adoption by the new co-ordinating war council of a constructive program to insure larger production of staple crops on American farms. The threatened shdrtage of farm labor is the first problem officials have set out to solve. This will prove disastrous to next year’s production, according to officials, unless a huge agricultural armyjs raised and put in the field.’ * The war council has approved a program which calls for a countrywide recruiting campaign by the department of labor, serving as a clearing house, through which labor employment agencies of every sort may round up the unemployed as well as the misemployed for service on farms. The reports of field agents of the department of agricultural indicate that farmers everywhere have greatly increased the acreage of grain and other crops. On the basis of acreage reports now in hand it is estimated i that next year’s wheat crop will ap- i proximate 1,000,000,000 bushels, ' about a quarter of a billion bushels in excess of the crop this year.