Fea 
DEMAND FOR HARVEST LABOR IN THE WHEAT BELT. 7 
this respect might have been diminished. Nevertheless the essential 
fact shown by the table would not be altered; the big wheat-growing 
section of Kansas is almost without month hands at harvest time; 
the big wheat section of North and South Dakota finds almost one- 
fourth of its harvest labor force by employing month hands. 
Many farmers in Nebraska, South Dakota, and the Red River 
Valley sections of Minnesota stated that the number of month hands 
employed in their counties was not as large as before the war. They 
said that they had learned during the war how to get along without 
month hands. They now trade work more freely, in some cases 
work longer hours themselves, and arrange their crop acreage so 
they will have less concentration of work in the rush season and a 
more even spread of work in the summer.* 
The scarcity of crop-season hands in Kansas seems to be due to 
the fact that 85 per cent of the cultivated acreage was planted to 
winter wheat and oats (Table 1) and the consequent work to be done 
during the spring months. In North Dakota the farmer does much 
of his soil preparation in the spring just before planting, and, with 
30 to 50 per cent of his acreage in crops other than wheat, frequently 
finds work enough for his spring month hand to hold him over until 
haying begins, soon to be followed by the rye and early oats harvests. 
On the average, for each field hand resident on the wheat farms 
when the harvest begins, whether a member of the farmer’s family 
or a man hired by the year or month, approximately one extra hand 
had to be hired. In Kansas and Oklahoma the number of harvest 
hands considerably exceeded the number of men residents on the 
farms (1,085 as compared with 837) and constituted 56.4 per cent 
of the total harvest force. In the Dakotas and Minnesota, on the 
contrary, the harvest hands constituted less than 40 per cent of the 
total harvest labor force; and in Nebraska, where the farms visited 
were characterized by a wider variety of crops, only 21 per cent. 
TABLE 2.—Number, size, and percentage of farms of certain sizes which hired no harvest 
labor vn 1921. 
Farms reporting. 
Number and size of farms which hired no 
| No labor hired. 
uate Ropakpe | | | | 
num-| <ize Aver- | Percent-| 160 | 161 | 241 | 321 | 401 | 481 | Oy 4, 
ber. | (acres) Num-| age | ageof jacres| to | to | to | to | to | ¢49 
acres). per. | size | total | or | 240 | 320 | 400 | 480 | 640 |. 07 
| (acres). number. | less. | acres. acres. acres.) acres.) acres.| 
eel eae | | = hace | 
SeokIanoma-..... 2. 80 | 368.6 4 | 260.0 5.0 S| Lara eaters jE reel ees etc 
RDGISA A= 55 es ot 387 536. 7 42 | 301.5 | 10.9 12 | 6 14 4 | 2 Dal 2 
mabprasks =. ....-.. 206 | 271.3 90 |} 208.0 | 43.7 46 22 15 2 1 3 1 
South Dakota...... 195 408. 3 | 82 365. 0 42.1 163)/eele 23 9 10 x 7 
North Dakota...... 349 540.0 | 102) 320.0 | 29. 2 aA On ar oe 6 9 19 | 6 
Minnesota.......... 72 442.1 | 26 | 313.0 | 36.1 4 |} 6 9 3 2 ey 1 
OTE ac, tea 1, 289 459.9 | 346 298. 0 26.8 941 56 100 24 25 | 30 | 17 
_Three hundred and forty-six farms, 26.8 per cent of all farms 
visited, hired no labor at all for the. 1921 harvest. Over half of 
these farms exceeded 240 acres in size; 47 exceeded 480 acres. Some 
‘4 For a discussion of this policy in Wisconsin see Farm Labor in Wisconsin by H. C. Taylor and J. D. 
Black, Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 316. 
