32 BULLETIN 1020, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



eastern sections of the wheat States are able each year to get labor 

 more cheaply than the western sections can, while the wages in 

 central and western Kansas and in the northwestern counties of North 

 Dakota tend to be higher than those in the rest of the wheat belt. 

 Since the bulk of the labor supply enters the wheat belt from the 

 east, while the heavy wheat acreage, particularly in Kansas, is in the 

 central and western counties, it costs less and is easier for harvest 

 hands to reach work in the eastern counties, making it necessary for 

 the central and western counties to add a little to the wage paid east 

 of them. Furthermore, since the eastern counties have a much larger 

 local labor supply, transient harvest hands must compete for work 

 there, which tends to keep down the wages. Wages are lowest in the 

 eastern counties, conform roughly to a " standard " wage in the 

 central counties, and tend to rise above the standard in the more 

 sparsely settled and less accessible western counties and at the outer 

 extremities of spur lines of railroad, from which points movements to 

 new territory is difficult. 



Wages also vary from State to State, and this variation provokes 

 much discussion among the harvest hands. The 45 cents an hour 

 wage fixed by the Casselton, N. Dak., meeting for that portion of 

 Cass County, caused many of the harvest hands working in the States 

 to the south to refrain from going to North Dakota, because they 

 thought 45 cents was a State wage. If a State with a small acreage, 

 like Nebraska, however, attempted to pay wages as high as those 

 paid in Kansas, it would be overrun with men unable to find work. 

 The drop in wages which occurs between the Kansas and Nebraska 

 harvests operates as a natural check to prevent thousands of Kansas 

 harvesters from spending their money and time in a fruitless search 

 for employment in Nebraska. 



The essence of the matter seems to be that uniformity of wages, 

 either between States or between the eastern and western sections of 

 the same State, is impossible. The early arrivals in the Oklahoma 

 and southeastern harvests are willing to accept whatever wages they 

 can get during the first two weeks, in the hope of receiving higher 

 wages when the harvest is in full swing in Kansas. Natural market 

 conditions tend to raise the wages when Kansas and parts of Okla- 

 homa are needing men at the same time. The contraction of the de- 

 mand for labor as the Kansas harvest tapers off into the Nebraska 

 harvest throws men out of employment, producing a fall in wages 

 as the men compete for work there. North Dakota naturally en- 

 deavors to adhere to the lower rates, but is forced toward the Kansas 

 price as its harvest nears its height. Neither interstate nor intra- 

 state uniformity of wages seems feasible at present. 



