8 BULLETIN 1230, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
were farms of over 1,000 acres. (Table 2.) Therefore, the 2,921 har- 
vest hands considered in Table 1 were all employed on 945 of the 
farms visited. : 
Comparison of the number of farms of each size that hired no labor 
(Table 2) with the total number of farms of each size (Table I of 
appendix) shows that the farms which hired no labor constituted the 
following percentages of the total number of farms of each size: 
Forty-seven per cent plus (47.2) of all farms of 160 acres or less. 
Thirty-nine per cent plus (39.2) of all farms of 161—240 acres. 
Thirty-one per cent plus (31.5) of all farms of 241-320 acres. 
Nineteen per cent (19) of all farms of 321400 acres. 
Sixteen per cent plus (16.2) of all farms of 401-480 acres. 
Sixteen per cent plus (16.8) of all farms of 481-640 acres. 
Nine per cent plus (9.9) of all farms of 641 acres and over. 
Twenty-six per cent plus (26.8) of all farms of all sizes. 
These figures indicate, as would be expected, that in the wheat 
belt the smaller farms are less dependent upon transient labor than 
the larger farms. It is one of the advantages of small-scale operation 
in wheat growing. But it also shows that a surprising number of 
large farms hired no labor in 1921. An analysis of the reasons which 
enabled them to dispense with hired labor throws considerable light 
on the factors controlling the demand for harvest labor. 
Examination of Table 2 shows at once that in Kansas and Okla- 
homa nearly all of the farmers hired labor for the harvest. Those 
who did not were widely scattered. 
On all of the four farms in Oklahoma which hired no labor in 1921 
the grain was cut with a binder. Two of these were small farms. On 
each of the other two (a 320 and a 480 acre farm) there were 3 men 
(father and sons) in the family to do the harvesting. Three of the 42 
Kansas farms which hired no labor had no harvest in 1921 because of 
crop failures, 24 cut their grain with binders, 2 used combines, and 
the other 13 cut all of their wheat with headers. The farms which 
used binders were mostly farms of less than 320 acres and were able 
to muster from two to four persons within the family who could work 
in the fields. Six of the farms which used headers had enough sons 
and daughters in the families to operate a header and one barge 
(grain wagon), and the others traded work with neighbors. 
Two or three farmers made up a five-man or six-man header crew 
from the labor resident on their farms and cut the grain on their 
farms in succession. The wheat acreage on these farms was in each 
case less than 150 acres. A quarter section of wheat can be cut with 
a header in from six to eight days; consequently, the grain on all of 
the farms making up such a cooperative header crew could be cut in 
about three weeks. 
The two Kansas farms where the grain was cut with combines, or 
harvester-threshers, without hiring any labor, were farms of 900 and 
960 acres and harvested 500 and 700 acres of wheat, respectively. 
The combine heads the grain and threshes out the heads in one oper- 
ation. The barges haul away threshed grain instead of heads. On 
the 900-acre farm a father and three sons worked in the harvest. 
Two ran the combine and two hauled away the grain. They har- 
vested and threshed 30 acres a day. The other farm has a good-sized 
harvest crew within the family, seven sons, and operated both a com- 
bine and a header. 
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