16 



BULLETIN 1020, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



year's work. Both of these groups are forced to seek employment 

 wherever it can be found in the harvest States and to move from 

 place to place, filling the farmers' needs for extra help. In other 

 words, the transient workers constitute the short-time help which 

 the farmer hires to carry his " peak load," while the local and con- 

 tract groups get the bulk of the steadier harvest jobs. 



The place of residence of 2,407 transient harvesters was investi- 

 gated. Some of the men interviewed said that they had none, which 

 was literally true. The following summary shows the States from 

 which the greater proportions of these harvesters came : 



Missouri 



Illinois 



Ohio 



Iowa 



Kansas 



Indiana 



421 



Oklahoma 



80 



251 



Arkansas _ _, 



79, 



173 



Wisconsin 



73 



ISO 



New York 



G6 



148 



Pennsylvania 



0G 



129 



Texas 



64 





Total 





297 



. 42S 





Eighteen per cent of total. 





Total 1,297 



Fifty-four per cent of total. 



These 12 States contributed two-thirds of the transient harvesters. 

 Of the first 400 men placed in the harvest by the Sioux City employ- 

 ment office, 307 came from the Missouri group of States, Minnesota 

 and Nebraska. The rest of the 2,407 men came from every State 

 in the Union, a few from each State. Forty-three were foreign born. 

 During the 1919 harvest the Kansas City office of the United States 

 Employment Service recorded the places of residence of 14,613 men 

 sent into the harvest fields. The figures show that 8,787, or 56 per 

 cent, came from Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Kansas, which 

 States contributed 1,052 of the 2,407 men interviewed in 1920. While 

 the 14,613 men included some from every State in the Union, 84 per 

 cent came from 16 States in the Middle West, and only 16 per cent 

 from the remaining 32 States. 



Is it true that 50 per cent of the transient harvest force come from 

 Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Kansas? The figures show that 

 although these States contribute large contingents to the harvest 

 field, they do not contribute a correspondingly large percentage of 

 the total force. The data for 1920 were gathered for the most part 

 from harvesters who visited the United States employment offices at 

 Kansas City, Mo., Colby, Pratt, Wichita, and Salina, Kans., and 

 Sioux City, Iowa. Some of the interviews occurred in Aberdeen 

 and Redfield, S. Dak., and in Fargo and other cities in North Dakota. 

 As the figures for 1919 were compiled at Kansas City, Mo., the men 

 interviewed were almost entirely those who entered the harvest fields 

 from the East and South. Kansas City, Sioux City, and Fargo are 

 gateways from the East into the harvest fields. The men of Ohio, 



