THE AMERICAN FARMERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 319, 19 February 1910, Page 10

THE AMERICAN FARMERS.

American farmers are bo prosperous that figures showing their condition are too stupendous to be comprehended. Last year surpassed all records of American agricultural prosperity. The value of farm products for the fiscal year.l9o9 was £1,752,000,000 (seventeen hundred and fifty-two million pounds), a gain over 1908 of £173,800,000. This increase is sufficient in itself to provide every American farm with a complete new equipment of agricultural machinery. Mr. Wilson states in his annual report for 1909 that the value of American farm products has nearly doubled since 1899, and during the period of eleven years the aggregate value is £14,000,000,000 (fourteen thousand million pounds), which has been used to pay off mortgages, establish local banks, provide better homes, and has helped to make the American farmer a citizen of the world. The American farmers are now persons of considerable affluence. They own motor cars, numbered not by tens or hundreds, but by thousands. At county fairs, where formerly the grounds were surrounded by the farmers' horses and waggons, there are now circles of motor cars. Former luxuries have become common necessities of American farm life. The American fanner's greatest trouble at present is to secure all the labor he wants. He offers 85s to £2 a week wages, with full board and lodging, but even this inducement is not sufficient to secure all the farm hands desired. It is impossible not only to supply the demand for casual workers', required during harvest times, but the men wanted for permanent work the year round cannot be found. One reason for this is the rival demand of factories for men, which is keeping the artisans so fully employed that they refuse to travel to the farms to accept work awaiting them there.