10 



BULLETIN 1020, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Table 4. — Irregularity of employment in harvest (time worked and time lost 



by 154 harvest hands). 





Total time 











in harvest 











area from 



Total time 



Total time 



Time lost 



Regular occupation of 154 harvest laborers. 



date of 



worked by 



lost by 



by each 





arrival to 



each group. 



each group. 



group. 





date in- 











terviewed. 











Days. 



Days. 



Days. 



Per cent. 





443 



225 



218 



49.2 





607 

 671 



351 

 436 



256 

 235 



42.2 



Farmers 



35.0 



Laborers 



684 

 647 

 202 

 759 



418 

 394 

 121 

 392 



266 



253 



81 



367 



38.9 





39.1 





40. 1 





48.4 









26 



15 



11 



42.3 







So far as the demand for labor is concerned, the harvest consists 

 of two distinct but connected episodes. Beginning on a small scale 

 in Texas in early June, the southern (winter- wheat) demand has 

 expanded to a large volume by the last week in June, when Texas, 

 Oklahoma, and southeastern Kansas are at work, and reaches its maxi- 

 mum in Kansas about the middle of July. It then gradually tapers off 

 through the winter-wheat harvest of southeastern Nebraska, shrink- 

 ing to almost nothing before the end of July. Beginning during the 

 last two weeks of July on the eastern border of Nebraska, the de- 

 mand for labor for harvesting the spring wheat gradually expands 

 as the harvest goes northward across South Dakota, to reach its 

 maximum by the middle of August in North Dakota, after which 

 it declines rapidly. The largest numbers of men are employed dur- 

 ing the first three weeks of August. 



If all the harvest hands who work in Kansas should desire to fol- 

 low the harvest through North Dakota it would be necessary for 

 fully half of them to remain idle for from two to four weeks between 

 the ending of work in Kansas and the beginning of work in North 

 Dakota, and when they reached North Dakota they would be forced 

 into competition for employment with many thousands of men who 

 had come into the northern harvest from the East by way of Fargo 

 and Grand Forks, or from the West, through Montana. 



As the Kansas harvest nears completion, the transient harvesters 

 dispose of themselves in various ways. A large number do not attempt 

 to go beyond Kansas, and many experienced workers never have 

 worked outside of the winter- wheat region. Some stay in Kansas 

 through the thrashing season, thousands go home or take up other 

 kinds of work, and others move on to the corn-growing sections of 

 Kansas and of Iowa or return to the cotton region. Another con- 

 tingent secures employment in Nebraska through employment offices 

 or by going from town to town. As many who have not worked in 



