DEMAND FOR HARVEST LABOR IN THE WHEAT BELT. 21 
urposes than harvesting small grain, the accomplishment per man 
ooks very small. In other areas, like Thomas County, Kans., where 
the amount of labor obtainable is very small the cut per man is very 
large. The figures indicate that it is impossible to generalize for the 
wheat belt, or for entire States, with respect to the number of 
men that will be hired to harvest a given number of acres of wheat, 
if the generalization is to be based upon an assumption that there is 
any general ratio between the number of men to be used and the 
acreage to be cut. 
It is probably true, however, that the figures just given showing the 
average number of acres cut per man overestimate the average per- 
formance per man in some areas. If the labor turnover is high, that 
is, if the individual farmers in a certain area find it necessary to hire 
many new men to replace men quitting before their harvests are com- 
pleted, the average cut per individual would be somewhat lower than 
the figures just cited indicate. On the other hand, the data furnished 
py the farmers interviewed did not show a high turnover on their 
arms. 
Many farmers were unable to give accurate data on the turnover 
of labor on their farms, but figures were obtained from 497. (See 
Table 4.) Approximately 64 per cent of these farmers kept the 
same crew throughout their harvest, and in addition to these, 20 per 
cent kept more than half of their original crew through their harvest. 
Less than 3.5 per cent of the farmers had to hire twice as many men 
as they used at any one time in order to maintain their crews. Tak- 
ing into consideration the fact that over 80 per cent of the harvesters 
hired were from outside localities, it is a good showing. It was very 
noticeable both in the 1920 and in the 1921 investigations that very 
few harvest hands or farm laborers complained of the wheat farmer 
as anemployer. Even men who were severe critics of other kinds of 
employers generally said that the farmers “‘treated them square.” 
INFLUENCE OF CLIMATIC CONDITIONS UPON HARVEST LABOR DEMAND. 
Climatic conditions are another factor that affects the amount of 
labor required to harvest the acreage of any county. Rainy weather 
during the growing season results in long straw, and this materially 
increases the labor necessary to handle the crop, especially in regions 
where the binder is generally employed. The number of bushels 
harvested when the straw is long is frequently no larger than when 
the straw is short, but both the difficulty and the cost of harvesting 
the crop are increased. Lack of moisture during the growing season, 
hot winds, lack of normal snowfall, seed blown out by heavy winds, 
and other climatic conditions often cause grain to be of such poor 
quality that it does not pay to harvest it at all. Fields are abandoned 
and areas that ordinarily require much labor for their grain harvest 
may hire practically none. This was true in portions of north-central 
South Dakota in 1921, as well as in parts of northwestern Kansas and 
restricted areas in the eastern half of North Dakota. Harvesters 
who had worked in these areas year after year came back in 1921 
_ only to find themselves forced to look elsewhere for work. To some 
extent the variation in the amount of labor used in different counties 
- (Table 1) was due to the above-mentioned climatic conditions. 
15 For discussion of climatic factors in 1920, see ‘“‘ Harvest labor problems in the wheat belt,” by D. D. 
Lescohier, U. S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 1020. 
