76 THE BOOK OF WHEAT 



of magnitude is always present, for magnitude is characteristic 

 of every phenomenon and of every operation. The mere sight 

 of a field of swaying, rippling wheat, with its green and gold, 

 and with wave upon wave rolling away beyond the observer's 

 horizon, surpasses description. 



The Harvest Laborer. In the United States, the wheat 

 harvest begins in earnest by June. It is September before the 

 last harvester passes northward out of the Red river valley, and 

 during this time the merry click of the reapers is heard from 

 sun to sun. This harvest-time succession has developed its own 

 typical harvester. He first appears in Oklahoma. As the 

 wheat ripens, he travels northward. Before Kansas and Ne- 

 braska are left behind, his possessions include a little money, a 

 blanket, and perhaps a sooted tin tea pail. He is now one of 

 an army of many thousands, a great number of whom follow 

 the harvest through the Dakotas and beyond the Canadian 

 border. The typical men of this class rarely pay railroad 

 fare. Many of them ride into the bonanza district on the 

 " blind-baggage " of passenger trains. Perhaps most of them 

 ride on freight trains, at times over a hundred on one train. 

 As a rule, the men of this class are not "hoboes," though now 

 and then a tramp does work. The tramp element helps some, 

 especially when laborers are scarce, but they are poor and un- 

 satisfactory workmen, and are avoided when possible. 



Perhaps a large majority of the men required to harvest the 

 wheat of the middle west do not follow the harvest northward, 

 but merely work through the season in one locality. Tempted 

 by low railroad fares and large wages, they come from nearby 

 cities, and from the states east and south of the wheat district. 

 Many of them are farmers and farmers 7 sons. A large per 

 cent are foreigners, especially Scandinavians. The personality 

 of the men varies much. Among them the writer has found the 

 city banker again seeking in the harvest fields during a brief 

 vacation the health and pleasures experienced in younger 

 years; the refined college youth earning the means with which 

 to finish his course in the east; the western pioneer making 

 a desperate effort to keep the wolf from the door of the shanty 

 that sheltered his family, and to save the homestead by paying 

 the interest on the mortagage which drought and frontier mis- 

 fortunes had placed upon it; the dreamy faced wanderer who 



