that a sagging in the rate of wages occurred at the same time as in these neighboring States, though less pronounced. The following statement is obtained from Hon. C. C. James, deputy minister of agriculture of Ontario:

The United States Department of Agriculture has published no detailed results of investigation since 1892, though some inquiries were made in each of the 3 years following, but for some reason were not published,' yet, 2 years ago, in the Yearbook of 1897, the totals of geographical divisions were given, without the State averages from which they were consolidated. It is greatly to be regretted that these important investigations should not be made once in 2 or 3 years at least. The above-mentioned averages are given as follows, in comparison with those of 1892:

From the highest point in 1893 this indicates a decline of over 7 per cent in 1895. As the depressing effect of these periods is continually operative till their close, the culminating point must have been in 1897, as is shown by official investigation in Ohio and Michigan, and it is safe to assume that wages were at least 10 per cent lower in 1897 than in 1893, notwithstanding the localities reported where no apparent decrease was noted. The official investigations, as well as those of most of these local observers, declare the rate of wages lower. It should be added, however, that the men in positions of responsibility, possessed of peculiar skill in technical operations, were too scarce and too highly prized to be affected much, if at all, by the competition of the masses out of employment in the period of business depression. The range of compensation is not usually as wide as that of the requirements of rural operations or as the differences in the native ability and acquired skill of laborThe tendency is toward a demand for average wages by persons of inferior skill, or defective reliability, so that practically the difference is not so great in compensation as in the measure of real value in service.

ers.

In the New England States the medium wage with board is about $18 per month, the better class of laborers getting from $18 to $22 per month, while less efficient labor is lower. In Massachusetts $20 to $25, for positions requiring skill and reliability, are not uncommon rates, and good or bad times affect prices less than the number of persons employed. With labor in other avocations in demand, good men obtain a quite steady rate of remuneration. In Rhode Island rates are very high. Prof. A. A. Brigham, director of the experiment station at Kingston, sends a table showing the annual wages of several classes of unskilled labor, in which the annual earnings of agricultural laborers are placed at $407.28, which is more than those in cotton factories, bleacheries, stonework, and some other lines of industry, and is only exceeded by workers in woolen goods, metals, machinery, jewelry, and woodwork. It is a suggestive fact that colored laborers come up from Virginia in considerable numbers, and get $18 to $20 per month and board as farm laborers, returning in the autumn, thus getting about double the average wages paid there. It is probable that they are above the average of their class in enterprise and efficiency. It is said that they give

1 For farm wages for these and later years see Appendix, pp. 137-144.

good satisfaction. It illustrates, however, the potency of opportunity and encouragement in augmenting the measure of reliability and efficiency of the crowded masses of colored laborers in the cotton States. In Connecticut there was little decrease of wages in the years of depression. Secretary Gold says wages were never higher than at present, while commodities and transportation are cheaper; that wages are so high as to prevent improvement of farms, and to render farm staples unprofitable, encouraging the introduction of specialties that promise better profit.

Wages in the Middle States average about 10 per cent lower than in New England. They are lower in Pennsylvania than in New York and New Jersey, and still lower in Delaware. The more skillful class of laborers in New York receive nearly the same rates as in the Eastern States-about $18 to $22 and board. Hon. Franklin Dye, secretary of the State board of agriculture of New Jersey, testifies that the range of wages with board is from $12 to $18 per month, and without board from $25 to $30, the latter usually including house and garden. In harvest time $2 to $2.50 per day is obtained, and for ordinary farm work 75 cents to $1 per day. From $16.50 to $17 may be considered the present average with board. The more skillful labor is equally well paid in Pennsylvania, but much of the territory is remote from cities, where a larger proportion of the labor is cheaper. In Delaware and Maryland the wages are lower and the range narrower, mostly from $10 to $14.

The average wages in the Southern States, with board or rations, has varied at different dates from $10.75 in 1866, when the scarcity and high price of cotton stimulated effort to meet the demand, to $8.46 in 1879, the year that marked the depth of depression, before the resumption of specie payments.

Wages without board, a mode not much in vogue at any time, averaged at these dates, respectively, $16.63 and $12.65, and since above $14, until, in the recent years of depression, they fell below $13. The recent advance has been retarded by the low price of the cotton of 1898, but the rate appears to be now about $9.50 with board and $14 without board. While wages do not fluctuate with the price of cotton, they are affected more or less by cotton values. Contracts are made at the beginning of the year, and, of course, the sometimes serious price changes, caused by expectation of a large or small crop, can not affect the wages agreed upon for that year, but they do affect the price paid for picking in the autumn.

There is considerable difference in the rates of wages paid in the Southern States, those of the Alantic coast being lower than in the States west of the Mississippi. In Virginia $6 to $12 is paid, according to quality, kind of labor, and location. In North Carolina good labor commands $8, in some instances $10. Cotton districts in Georgia supply labor at $6 to $8, and Alabama about the same. Prof. James H. Lane,

of Alabama, writes: "The average cash wages are about the same they were ten years ago. Farm hands hired by the year average about $75 and board. Day laborers are paid in this section 50 cents and board, or 60 cents without board. In harvesting our oats and the small amount of wheat raised, cradlers receive $1 a day and board. The average price for picking cotton is 35 cents per 100 pounds." In Arkansas and Louisiana higher rates are more frequent, though modes of employment and range of wages vary greatly in the sugar district of the Teche and St. Marys rivers in Louisiana, the rice district of the southwest, and the cotton-growing hill lands of the north. Common labor in Texas is paid $12 per month and board.

Cotton picking is mainly done at a specified price per 100 pounds of seed cotton, which when ginned makes about 33 pounds of lint cotton. The price varies in different States, according to the demand for labor, the Atlantic States paying much lower rates than those beyond the Mississippi. The Department of Agriculture reports, for the crop of 1898-99, an average of 44 cents per 100 pounds, from 33 cents in Virginia, 35 in Georgia and Alabama, to 47 in Texas, 51 in Missouri, and 62 in Oklahoma. Florida paid 58 cents.

The rates of wages in the central West have been quite uniform for many years, or since the inflation period and that of depression following, up to the late era of low prices and rural discouragement, when skilled men were retained without appreciable reduction, those of inferior skill were employed sparingly at somewhat lower wages, and very many were dispensed with, the farmer and his family managing to do the necessary routine work, while avoidable labor and deferred improvements were left to the chances of the future. The tendency for two years has been upward; more men are employed at better average rates, which are now fully as high as former averages, as a whole, though Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri report lower rates than the other States of the central valleys. The Missouri State Board of Agriculture makes the average with board $14.20, and $20.03 without board, which is as high as in the national series of similar investigations since 1880. For a good class of men in Illinois, $21 or $22 with board is a common rate for seven to nine months, with lower rates in winter, or $18 for the year through. Occasionally a man of experience and reliability gets $25 per month for the year. In Wisconsin

$180 to $220 is a rate often paid to tried men, and some stock feeders report rates from $20 to $25 per month. For the better class of laborers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and other States, $18 to $22 and board are not unusual rates, with a wide lower range for the mass of laborers of less skill and experience.

The labor of the arid mountain area is now very fully employed. Mining interests are active and paying very high wages, and agriculture is equally active in feeding cattle, sheep, and lambs, and in producing wool, fruits, potatoes, and other products for Eastern markets, besides providing for the needs of mining camps and other home consumption. Wages are fully as high as in 1892. In Colorado desirable laborers are paid $25 to $30 a month and board. In Montana and Idaho about the same rates are paid. The range in Utah is from $20 to $35. All who wish to work can readily find employment in any part of the mountain district, and for wages above the average of the territory east of the Mississippi.

There is at present a comparative scarcity of laborers in the Pacific States. Reliable men, experienced in dairying, fruit growing, and other rural occupations demanding skill and intelligence, can find employment at good wages in California, Oregon, and Washington. For such men $25 to $30 per month and board are paid. By the year $250 to $350 are common rates for such labor, according to degree of efficiency and kind of service. The tendency is to engagements by the year, which is desirable on the part of both the employer and employed, the only hindrance to increase of contracts of this kind being the inequality of labor requirements of different seasons-the difficulty of finding profitable use of labor between harvest seasons. The need is felt for greater diversification in agricultural operations, for more constant labor requirements than is afforded by most of the single specialties.

2. THE GENERAL COURSE OF WAGES.

Deferring a detailed consideration of the wages of 50 years ago, and coming to that of the reconstructive and scientific progress later, we find that no systematic, general, and thorough inquiry was undertaken till the close of the civil war, when in 1866 a series of such investigations was inaugurated by the writer, as Statistician of the Department of Agriculture, and continued at frequent intervals through a period of 26 years, during which time 9 reports were made of the results of such investigation. The methods of obtaining these averages were similar to those employed in various lines of crop reporting. The county boards of observation investigated and fixed upon county averages, and these averages were consolidated in Washington by applying the rate to the number of laborers in such county, thus making a true average. Of course, as in census work, obvious errors of record, extravagances, and impossibilites were eliminated. Whether a better result could be obtained by attempting a census of the wages of all laborers, even at immense expense, is very doubtful, from the difficulties, not to say impossibilities, of obtaining accuracy and completeness in such an enumeration. The attempt, heretofore, to obtain full returns from individual farmers of the value of all products of their farms, has proved a failure, and such a method of seeking a true average of farın wages would scarcely be less incomplete. Expert investigation and analysis is found to be the only practicable method of obtaining reliable information on many topics of inquiry included within the limitations of a house-to-house census. The result in this case proved to be quite consistent and in a high degree convincing and trustworthy.

As the old subdivision of the country into districts or groups of States was adopted at the outset, it was necessarily continued through the series. The averages at different dates of "wages per month without board," the laborer finding his own board, is thus stated for the several investigations:

These averages are in currency, which was at par with gold after 1879, but prior to that date a reduction to a gold basis would not fairly represent the true value, as

wages did not follow closely the fluctuations of gold in Wall street, and the Pacific coast was practically on a gold basis all the time, though wages were highest there and higher in the boom period following the civil war than at any time since.

The highest wages are paid on the Pacific coast and the States of the Rocky Mountains rank next. This is the inevitable result of situation and circumstances, largely a climatic advantage, which favors the growth of products that can not be produced so well, if at all, in other parts of the United States. Twenty years ago the value of the products of one man's labor in California had become nearly twice as much as in the Ohio Valley, and more than three times as much as in the States of the Gulf coast, and labor properly shared in the superior profits. Far from injurious competition, avoiding overproduction, supplying home wants in cereals, vegetables, fruits, meat, and wool, and having in addition a rich surplus for outside markets of fruits in great variety, nuts, wines, hops, wool, mohair, and other products, California could afford a liberal remuneration for agricultural labor. The average for the fifteen years between the periods of financial depression may be fairly stated at $37.40 per month.

Farm laborers in the arid mountain region were scarce until recently, and not very abundant now, the settlers doing their own work, immigrants arriving without capital engaging temporarily in various kinds of service till opportunity offered for individual exploitation, mining, stock growing, gardening, or fruit growing. For some years hired labor was so small a factor that averages of rates of wages were not included in results of these investigations.

The development of stock growing, and especially of feeding, the increase of alfalfa and potato growing, the production of fruits and vegetables for mining camps and towns, the management of irrigation, and more recently the culture of beets for sugar factories, and other rural enterprises have caused a considerable demand for laborers, and enabled producers to pay a rate of remuneration higher than in any of the States between the mountains and the Atlantic coast.

The next higher rates of wages are paid in the Eastern or New England States, the country of rocks and hills, of "abandoned farms," and high rates of yield per acre. Wages are high here because of the great variety of manufacturing industries, which make a demand for every kind of available labor. The average rate of wages of this group of States for the period of prosperity between 1879 and 1892 is $26.20 per month, when laborers board themselves.

The Middle States between Virginia and the Dominion line, with nearly 5,000,000 people in their three great cities, and demand for all kinds of labor in great industries and personal service, keep rural wages nearly up to the New England levelabout 10 per cent less-or, for an average of 15 years, $23.40 per month.

The States of the central West, the center of national production and source of most of our exports, are becoming almost as conspicuous in manufactures as in agriculture, with a steady and increasing demand for labor, which is represented by a rate of farm wages only a little lower than that of the Middle or Atlantic States, making an average for the period of continued prosperity of $22.47 per month.

The labor of the Southern or cotton States, is mixed; white laborers (relative to population few in number) dominate the mountain districts and foothills of the Appalachian range, while in the alluvial districts the colored race furnishes most of the labor of the great cotton plantations, now farmed to a limited extent by laborers hired by the month, but cultivated mostly under crop-sharing contracts, or a tenant system, with rents payable either in crop or a specified share of the products. As the returns of wages in these investigations refer only to service payable in cash, they represent really only a minor part of the total agricultural production, and yet the uniformity of the average, at these different periods, inspires confidence in their approximate accuracy. The average of the period, 1879 to 1893, is $14.60.

The range of differences is narrower than in that for wages without board, which were high in the days of abnormal prices in the inflation period following the war. This difference representing board was greatest in 1866, when prices of food products and everything else were high. The board allowance was greatest on the Pacific coast, averaging $14.12; next greatest in the Eastern States, $12.49; in the Middle States, $10.82; in the central West, $9.36, and $5.88 in the Southern States. In 1892, as prices of products had declined, the board allowance was reduced in these districts respectively to $11.90, $8.96, $8.05, $7.25, and $4.84, the fall being relatively greatest in the Pacific States and Eastern States. It is seen that the Middle States, with more home production and less dependence on the prairies, afford farm board at a cheaper rate. The central West makes a lower charge for board, but not quite in proportion to cheapness of products, the cost of domestic service being a factor in the charge. The lower cost in the South is due partially to a practical elimination of domestic service, the laborer usually taking the materials and otherwise furnishing bed and board.'"

In the central belt of States conditions affecting wages are more uniform, and here we see remarkable uniformity in the rate of compensation, considering the numerous minor causes of variation, as shown in the following tabular statement:

From Pennsylvania to Iowa, nearly the entire distance from the ocean to the Missouri river is covered, and yet the widest difference in wages, in 1866 from $27.71 in Indiana to $29.91 in Pennsylvania, is only $2.20. Nebraska at that date made the average of $38.37, and is a striking exception to this uniformity, and for a very obvious reason. The war had closed, ex-soldiers were seeking homes, and the soils of that fertile region invited to settlement, while immigrants declined work for wages and bent their efforts toward home making. So rapid was this tide of immigration that for a time production failed to supply fully the current requirements of consumption, and prices were higher than in territory farther East, and therefore wages were abnormally high, though only temporarily, for in 1875 the rate fell 36 per cent in consequence of rapidly increasing supplies of all the products of the farm.

These local variations of the rate of wages are not without causes, which furnish opportunity for interesting and profitable study, as indicated by the following conclusions from a former report:

"Not only are striking differences shown to exist in groups of States, and greater still in individual State averages, but in every State there is variation in its county rates, due to the same causes which operate to differentiate the wages of geographical sections. One of these causes is density of population, as in the neighborhood of cities, which results in high rents and dear food, and wages corresponding. In such vicinage demand for skilled labor in gardening and fruit growing, as well as in general farming, is stimulated by the necessity for large supplies and the relatively high range of prices which they command, producing a competition which raises wages. In a county or a portion of a State marked by high intelligence and general education of its people, farm wages are high, because more in demand for a greater variety of production, and the service is more effective and more valuable. In other counties, distant from market, with scant railway facilities, and especially with poor roads to railway stations, demand for labor is less, and the products of labor are less valuable. As a natural result, in such locality there is less skill and ambition among workers. The more progressive will seek better conditions, and wages are consequently low because of less intrinsic value, of depreciation in quality."

In mining districts any development which gives employment to large numbers, as indicated in the local data of these investigations, causes labor competition and increased demand and price of products, raising the wages of farm labor. The establishment of any productive industry is followed by this economic result, as shown in these returns.

While the variation of rate of wages between these States is not at any given date, nor for any date since the resumption of specie payments, it will be observed that