of Commerce serves the farmer directly by discovering markets for his products in every part of the world, and indirectly by everything it does to promote the country’s commerce.  The rural mail delivery, the parcel post, and the motor truck service of the Post Office Department are of untold value to the farmer (see Chapter XVIII).  The Department of the Interior has supervision over the public lands, the reclamation of arid lands, and the development of mineral resources (Chapters xiv, xv).

THE QUESTION OF LABOR SUPPLY

The question of labor supply is one of the most serious questions which the farmer has to face.  It is one that he must help to solve for himself: 

As soon as work on the farms is organized, and employment is made steady for all help, just so soon will a better class of laborers be attracted to the farm.  As the farm-owner wishes life to be free from eternal drudgery for himself and family, yielding the fruits of happiness, leisure, and culture, he would do well to consent and arrange to give the farm hand who shares the shelter of his roof a fair chance at the same benefits.  The laborer wants regular hours, a chance for recreation, a good place to live in, and enough wages to maintain a family according to American standards. [Footnote:  W.J.  Dougan and M.W.  Leiserson in “Rural Social Problems,” Fourth Annual Report Wisconsin Country Life Conference, quoted in Nourse, agricultural economics pp. 258-260.]

But there are aspects of the labor problem over which the farmer by his own unaided efforts can have little control.  One of these is the problem of bringing the laborer and the job together (see Chapter xi, p. 133).  The work of the Employment Service in the Department of Labor during the recent war affords a striking illustration of cooperation secured through an agency of government.

THE UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE

The Employment Service had been created in 1914, but was rapidly developed during the war to meet the demand for farm labor to provide a food supply adequate to war needs.  The main offices of Employment Service were with the Department of Labor in Washington.  But each state had a federal director of employment, and branch offices were established in local communities.  The success of the whole scheme depended, first of all, upon cooperation between national, state, and local governments.

Thousands of county agents and local rural community organizations discovered and reported local needs to local employment offices, which in turn distributed the information by means of the district, state, and national organizations.  Fifty-five thousand post offices became farm-labor employment agencies, postmasters and rural carriers acting as agents.  Railroads cooperated both in reporting needs for the districts