2 BULLETIN 1230, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
_ The agricultural authorities of Kansas have worked out the only 
available formula for computing prospective labor needs. This 
formula, properly modified, may become the means for more accurate 
forecasts of harvest labor needs. se. 
The Kansas formula was intended for use only in “header terri- 
tory”’ and is as follows: 
= ss (mf + mt) = mo, 
in which A=number of acres of wheat to be harvested within a 
county. The figure ‘‘50”’ used in the first terms signifies an assump- 
tion that each man working in the harvest will, on the average, 
harvest 50 acres of grain. mf=man power of the farms (number of 
farms multiplied by 1.5, which signifies there are resident on each 
farm 1.5 persons, including family Tie and month hands, who will 
work in the harvest).?,_ mt=man power available from towns within 
the county. mo=number of men needed from outside the county. 
The authors of the formula state, in further explanation, that it is 
assumed in the formula “that a crew of six men harvests about 300 
acres, or about 50 acres per man for the season. All small grains 
should be included in the formula if they conflict in date with the © 
wheat harvest. If other farm work, with crops or livestock, must 
be done during the harvest season, more men must be allowed for that 
purpose in the formula. The amount of straw to be moved has a 
material effect on the amount of labor required. When grain all 
ripens about the same time, more labor is required to handle all the 
fields just at this opportune date. When the wheat ripens less 
evenly, binders can be used on a larger acreage and the same crew 
may be able to cut several fields in succession without hiring more — 
men. Help may sometimes be used in one part of the State and later 
in another part. It is quite common for some laborers to finish 
harvesting in southern Kansas in time to get into another run in the 
northwestern corner of the State. In some years, however, the wheat 
all ripens at nearly the same date throughout the State and neighbor- 
ing States, and it is not possible for a man to work in two parts of 
Kansas. Kansas has been, during some years, in competition with 
Oklahoma and Nebraska at the same date.’’ 
The quotation makes clear that those who prepared the formula 
know that it must be applied with care and judgment. It is but a 
rough estimate of the tuber needs. Jf the total amount of labor needed 
by each county is computed with the formula and then the county totals 
are added to get the total needed by the State, the result will ordinarily 
be a considerable overestimate of the State’s demands. Officials import- 
ing labor for the State as a whole will find it necessary to consider 
carefully the extent to which harvest hands are able to work in more 
et one county before combining the county totals into a State 
total. 
The writer has reached the conclusion, after a careful study of 
the actual amounts of labor used to harvest 1,291 wheat farms in the 
?The Kansas formula is also discussed in Harvest Labor Problems in the Wheat Belt, by D. D. Les- 
cohier, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 1020, and Kansas Handbook of Harvest Labor,' Kansas 
State Agricultural College Extension Circular 23, Manhattan, Kans. 
* Kansas Handbook of Harvest Labor. op. cit. 
