ations,
because farming is less industrialized.

It is not possible to settle once for all the problem of labor for any
occupation, since changing conditions will give rise to new questions
or new phases of the old problem. Moreover, the problem of labor on
the farm will grow more difficult as farming becomes more specialized
and as the methods of production become more complex.

However, the labor problem on the farm is different from that in the
manufacturing industries or in trade and transportation. This chapter
will not concern itself with an attempt to settle the farm labor
problem, but will undertake to state the character of some of the
differences between it and other forms of labor and to discuss some of
the changes in recent years.

A large proportion of farm work is done by the farm owner, or renter,
and his family. There is not much opportunity to profit by the labor
of other persons. In 1900 there were in the United States 1,812
industrial establishments each of which employed between 500 and 1,000
persons, while there were 675 establishments each of which had more
than one thousand employees. In the same year there were 5,739,657
farms, which employed in the aggregate 4.4 millions of people, not
including the owners of the farms. Moreover, over one-half of the 4.4
million persons thus employed were members of the families of the
farmer. In other words, aside from members of the family, there was
less than one employee to every two farmers. Since a considerable
number of farmers employ more than one person, it follows that the
majority of farmers employ no help other than members of the family.

In another particular farm labor differs from that of other forms of
labor even more widely. There are sociologic as well as economic
questions involved. Baldly stated, custom permits, and necessity often
requires, the laborer to eat at the same table with the farm owner and
in other particulars he mingles intimately with the farmer's family.
In all its bearings, this is a very important fact. It constitutes one
of the greatest difficulties in the problem of securing suitable farm
help. Industrial corporations employ as common laborers largely
Italians, Hungarians, Poles and negroes. The English, the Irish, the
German, the Swede and the Norwegian have been readily received and
assimilated in the American farming communities. The peoples of
Eastern and Southern Europe are often criticized because they do not
be