Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1883 — Farmers* Help. [ARTICLE]

Farmers* Help.

Philadelphia Record. It is now a recognized fact that the successful cultivation of the soil is both a science and an art A high degree of scientific knowledge is not only requisite to determine the character of the crops that shall be raised on different qualities of land and to preserve the strength and fertility of the soil, but great skill is demanded in the art of planting, cultivating and securing the crops. Ignorant, unskilled labor is as unprofitable in farming as it is in the mechanical industries. The demand of skilled farm help is as great in some other sections of the country as it is in the Southern States. Experience has demonstrated that skilled farm help is not to be found among the majority of immigrants who come to this country. The working classes of foreigners, unless they belong to some of the mechanical industries, have no aptitude for. any special pursuit. For digging on the railroad, in the ditch or canal, or f<y street labor, where only physical strength and endurance are requisite, they do very well but when it comes to working on the farm they are incapable of any intelligent assistance. They first must learn by experience, and the details of farm labor are not to be acquired in a single year Yet this class of laborers, notwithstand-

ing, expect to receive the wages that are paid to experienced farm handr>. What i« wanted everywhere in this country are practical farmers. And there is no reason why there should be a scarcity of this class, any more than that there should be workmen in any mechanical branch. It has already been shown in these columns that the remuneration of this branch of labor is equitable as compared with other industries. The inducements are in every way as desirable. If farmers’ sons themselves would only understand this, the lack of skilled labor for the farm would in some degree be mitigrated. But let young men generally be taught to believe that labor on the farm is as honorable as any other employment and even more pleasant and desirable than the majority of industrial pursuits; that all the skill and knowledge they may acquire may be put to profitable use in the science aud art of agriculture, and that constantly they will receive an increased reward for their experience and industry, and the great scarcity Of sk’lled E elp for theform will soon cease to be felt A Jefferson County farmer found a lamb a few days ago,' that had been misst ing for two weeks, in a dry well, thirteen > from the surface. It had had nothing to eat in all that time.