Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1917 — THE FARM ON A BUSINESS BASIS [ARTICLE]

THE FARM ON A BUSINESS BASIS

Farmers who lament the exodus front the farms to the cities may .surprised at being told that 'they' themselves are largely to '’.ire. yet such is the case. They are at fault, in that they have filled to deal with hired help and renters on a business basis. Let us illustrate: Mr. Thompson, who owns a large ■farm, takes John Smith as his hired help and installs him and his family in a tenant house on the He agrees to give Smith his house rent, garden, truck patch, fire” wood and cow pasture, with rerhaps ‘other “favors,” together with a moderate wage for time actually put in at work. Generally speaking, this wage is somewhere around |1 a day, in some sections of the country more. Smith works for a year. He puts in T-ossicly 250 days. At the end of that time he takes stock of his earnings,. and right at this point is where the trouble comes. Smith can see nothing for his year’s work but S±so. He has come to regard the other items in the contract as ‘■free favors,** and consequently values them lightly. He hears of his neighbor, Tom Jones, who has gone to town or the city and is making good wages—s 2 or ?2.50 a day. His own earnings look too puny to suit him, and to town he goes, only to find that for the "*Ttee favors” he has valued so lightly in the country the best part of his earnings in town must be paid. However, he has made the move, and rather than be classed as unstable or unreliable, in town he stays. If Mr. Thompson, in contracting with Smith, had said plainly, “Your house rent is worth so much per month, your fire wood so much per cord, your cow pasture so much,” and so on through the list of “favors,” the whole matter would have worn a very different aspect, and Smith would have seen that instead of being hard his lot was a very easy one. When the- employer and help on the farms learn to place their dealings on a sensible business basis a big improvement will be the result, and more men will stay on the fhruis. .