Distribution of labor and its relation to farm management

Abstract

The following pages are devoted to a study of labor conditions on four Missouri farms, in an effort to determine if possible, just what those conditions are. The work was started in the spring of 1910, under the direction of the United states Department of Agriculture, and has been carried on since, through cooperation with them. The original purpose was to obtain data on the cost of production, but the new and more productive field for studying the labor problem of the farmer, was broken into, and offered such possibilities, that the major part of the investigation has now this object in view. In order that the work would not be all giving, and no receiving, on the part of the farmer, the cost factor is given quite accurate attention, so that the farmer can be supplied at the end of the year's operations with a summary of the costs on his farm for that year. In the following treatment of the subject of Distribution of Labor, it is recognized that the figures are not extensive enough to draw general conclusions from; so nothing that may be said later, is intended to apply to any conditions save those under which the figures and results were obtained.