DEMAND FOR HARVEST LABOR IN THE WHEAT BELT. 18 
Kansas and tried out on various farms during the last few years. 
Two styles are illustrated (figs. 3 and 9). The stacker wagon seems 
to be a strictly Kansas device. It was introduced about 1915 by 
Winifred Jacobs, of Dodge City, and has been used more or less since 
that time in western Kansas. It is so constructed that it builds a 
stack under the header elevator as the header moves down the 
field, and eliminates the use of two barges. The wagon is usually 
built 20 feet long, 9 feet wide, and 11 feet high. ‘After the wagon 
is filled and ready to unload the stack a rear gate is opened and four 
skids drop from the wagon to the ground. A stake is driven into the 
ground where the stack is to set and a rope which runs over and 
under the load lengthwise, is fastened to the stake and the wagon 
pulled from under the load, leaving it as a stack on the ground.’ 
Fig. 4—Stacking heads of wheat in Kansas. Men on the barge are pitching the heads from barge to stack; 
the stacker is building them into the stack. A skilled stacker is paid 50 cents to $1 a day more than a 
teamster or shocker. 
ACRES CUT PER DAY BY VARIOUS MACHINES. 
The number of acres cut per day by headers varies considerably. 
If a header operates with but one barge its daily cut averages but 15 
to 20 acres; if it operates with two barges its cut will run from 20 to 30 
acres. On about one farm out of six it will exceed 30 acres per day. 
For instance, on a 640-acre farm in Thomas County, Kans., with 360 
acres of wheat, the cut was completed in 84 days of 104 hours each, 
or at an average rate of 42.3 acres per day and 4 acres per hour, with 
one header. ‘This crew was composed entirely of transient labor. 
Another farm near Colby with 560 acres of wheat completed its cut 
in 14 days of 10 hours per day at the rate of 40 acres a day and 4 
6 ‘‘Wheatin Kansas,’”’ Kansas State Board of Agriculture, Topeka, Kans., p. 281. 
71136—24——3 
