Work Simplification

means of increasing worker productivity so that higher wages can be paid and as a means of getting the work done with a smaller labor force. A part, at least, of the difference between the level of mechanization here and abroad is explained by differences in wage rates. As wages go up, it pays to use more machines and fewer men. In recent years, for example, it took about 67 gallons of milk to pay for a week's hired labor on a mid western farm, but only 39 gallons were needed for a week's labor in the eastern counties of England. Two tons of beets or 7.5 hundredweights of grain would pay for a week's labor in the United States, compared with i ton and 3.75 hundredweights in England. These differences in the real cost of labor are reflected in differences in mechanization in the two countries. The third economic factor has been the price of land. Although land values have been rising, land was still cheap enough in 1960 so that it could be left idle if it were not adapted to mechanized farming. Large acreages of former cropland are now in trees, brush, or weeds. Cropland used for crops in the Northeast has declined from 23 million to 15 million acres, and in the Southern States from 116 million acres to 98 million. These lands are mainly stony, hilly, or not worth draining and poorly adapted to a machine agriculture. Vestiges of arable hill-farming remain, but commercial crop farming is moving rapidly toward the flatlands. As crop production has moved out of the hills, the organization of hillfarms has been disrupted. Farmsteads have been abandoned and land has been left idle. Improved machinery for grassland renovation and management, together with cheap fencing and livestock facilities, might make it economical to develop livestock farms in these areas.