SOME PROBLEMS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOR 851 



horses. A fanner descending a wheat-stack lost his balance and fell 

 on a pitchfork, sustaining injuries from which he died. Two threshers 

 were going up hill on a threshing engine. The machine "reared up" 

 as a horse rises on its hind legs. They jumped and ran. The machine 

 came back to the ground and, uncontrolled, followed one of the men 

 to the fence, crushing him to death. Two others were crushed, but 

 not seriously, between an engine and a separator, because of the 

 breaking of a coupling-pin. A farm laborer fell in front of a gang- 

 plow. He was caught by the plow-share, and his leg was terribly 

 lacerated. A farmer trimming one of his trees fell to the ground and 

 was killed. Another was thrown from a wagon that tipped over 

 while turning. His shoulder and several ribs were fractured. 



B. Finding Men and Finding Jobs 

 274. HARVEST HANDS IN KANSAS 1 



The bumper and super-bumper crop in the West is making insis- 

 tent and desperate demands for more laborers for the coming harvest. 

 A report from Kansas given to the New York Evening Post says that 

 the need in that one state includes 42,000 extra men, 6,300 extra 

 teams, and 2,300 cooks. In explanation the account continues: 



The average county in the wheat section has a small population. The 

 farms are large, the towns small. Take Pawnee County, for instance, out 

 in southwest Kansas. It has a population of 8,500 or 1,700 families. 

 There are 275,000 acres of wheat to cut and thresh. If every available man 

 in the county could be put at the job, the work could not be done during 

 the short period during which wheat must be handled. Once ripe the 

 heads shell freely, and the grain must be garnered. As harvest approaches, 

 the farmer begins to call for help. This has been developed into a system. 

 With a State Labor Bureau in correspondence with county officers, city 

 officers, city clerks, farmers, and township officers, the needs are tabulated. 

 Even the fraternal orders have taken a hand and have sent back to Indiana, 

 Ohio, and other states to fraternities to send men west. Hundreds of 

 college boys have been enlisted and have come to the harvest fields for the 

 experience and to earn vacation money. 



The railroads are co-operating, either willingly in acting as agents 

 for the farmers, or willy-nilly as the furnishers of under-car berths and 

 side-door Pullmans to those who do not stop for the formality of ticket 

 purchase. In the latter case, the railroads, realizing the extremity 



1 Adapted from the Literary Digest, XLIX (July 4, 1914), 37- 



