Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-03-11 | Page 5 | Urges Farmers to Arrange for Labor

URGES FARMERS TO HRRSfiGEJR LABOR President D. D. McKay Suggests Meeting Here During Conference. Special to The Tribune. OGDEN, March 10. That the farmers of Utah must take immediate steps to arrange ar-range for their labor In harvesting this year's crops is the burden of a letter sent out last night by D. D. McKay, president of the Utah State farm bureau. He says that, as the government has sent out a. warning that each community will have to depend largely upon its own efforts for lubor, he would sugytst the calling call-ing of a labor conference of the Farm bureau in Salt Lake during conference time to discuss the matter and agree upon some programme. President McKay says in his letter to all the locals uf the state that last year's labor experience was disappointing, and this year's experience is bound to be worse unless something is done. He adds that a plan is being discussed in Ogclen W4hlch may be applied to Utah and Idaho successfully If It is carried out properly. This is to have a labor agent for each bureau in every community, and have the farmer apply to this agent for the labor he may require. By this method each farmer's labor requirement may be catalogued cata-logued from day to day. The bureau executive advances an Idea that every farmer can do a great patriotic service to Uncle Sam if he will, on the one or two days a week he is not busy upon his own farni, take his men and teams and help in the planting or harvesting har-vesting of the crop on his neighbor 3 farm at a uniform and fixed wage. " He said one or two idle days on the farms will be the average on each farm during each month of the summer. If these two dayo are saved on the 25,000 farms of the state, Mr. McKay says, it will be equivalent of placing at least 3000 new men on the farms. This method, he declares, will give the farmers of the state more than the number of men who have been taken from the farms for the federal service.