22 BULLETIN 1230, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Rainy weather during the harvest period has a varied influence. 
When the rains are localized, they delay the harvest where they occur, © | 
causing it to come on contemporaneously with areas normally har- 
vested somewhat later. For instance in 1921, north-central Okla- 
homa suffered from heavy rains during the latter part of June, delay- 
ing the harvest in the area about Enid. The harvest in northwestern 
Oklahoma around Woodward, which ordinarily comes on 10 to 14 
days later than the Enid area,’ started on time. As a result, the 
plans of the officials in charge of harvest labor distribution in Okla- 
homa were seriously disrupted. They had estimated that Oklahoma 
would be able to handle its harvest without importing labor from 
other States since many oil fields and other industrial workers within 
the State were out of employment. They expected these men to 
handle the crop in the Enid area and then in the Woodward area, 
but the rains in the Enid area delayed the cutting there until not 
only the Woodward area but also south-central Kansas had started 
cutting. 
On account of hot weather the Kansas harvest came early. “On 
one morning,” said a State agricultural official of Kansas to the 
writer, ‘‘we figured that the harvest was two weeks away. The next 
morning we knew it would start within 24 hours.’”’ The number 
of men needed in northern Oklahoma in 1921 was increased by the 
delay caused by the rain. The grain was handled under difficulties. 
In Kansas the demand for the State as a whole was increased by the 
fact that unusually large areas were ready to cut at the same time. 
In South Dakota on the other hand, because of drought, the demand 
for labor and the duration of the harvest were both below normal. 
Some of the contrasts between counties in the amount of labor needed 
are explained by these variations in local climatic conditions during 
the growing and harvest seasons. 
Rainy weather also causes grain ordinarily cut with headers or 
combines to be cut with binders. Frequent “dry harvests’? cause 
farmers in binder areas, such as Spink and Brown Counties, 8. Dak., 
to use headers, with which short and well ripened grain can be cut 
to better advantage than with binders. Many farmers in north 
central Oklahoma cut all or part of their crops with binders in 1921 
who would have used headers and combines if the weather had 
permitted. 
For instance, on one large farm, the cutting of a field of 1,500 acres 
had been started with a combine. Ten days of rain came on, and 
the combine was so badly mired that two tractors and four mules 
were required to draw it to high ground. It then resumed work on 
the hill tops, but two-thirds of the field had to be finished with 
binders, at greatly increased harvesting and threshing costs to the 
farmer. The change from one method of cutting to another neces- 
sarily affects the demand for labor, both as to volume and as to 
types of men sought, each kind of machine creating a different 
demand for men. 
The weather conditions also affect materially the distribution — 
of the labor supply. When rains delay the harvest of an area the 
harvesters go on to other localities. The farmers do not like to | 
board the men in idleness on the farms, while the men get restless 
“lying around”’ on the farms and want to go to town. In town the 
16 See Department Bulletin 1020, pp. 6, 11. 
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