16 
BULLETIN 1020, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
year's work. Both of these groups are forced to seek employment 
whereyer it can be found in the harvest States and to move from 
place to place, filling the farmers' needs for extra help. In other 
words, the transient workers constitute the short-time help which 
the farmer hires to carry his " peak load," while the local and con- 
tract groups get the bulk of the steadier haryest jobs. 
The place of residence of 2,407 transient harvesters was investi- 
gated. Some of the men interviewed said that they had none, which 
was literally true. The following summary shows the States from 
which the greater proportions of these harvesters came: 
Missouri 
Illinois 
. 421 
_ 251 
_ 173 
_ 180 
_ 143 
_ 129 
Oklahoma 
Arkansas _ _, 
80 
79, 
Ohio 
Wisconsin i 
New York 
Pennsylvania 
73 
Iowa 
66 
Kansas 
66 
Indiana 
per 
cent of total. 
Texas 
Total : 
Eighteen per cent of total. 
64 
TotaL 
Fifty-four 
_ 1,297 
. 428 
These 12 States contributed two-thirds of the transient harvesters. 
Of the first 400 men placed in the harvest by the Sioux City employ- 
ment office, 307 came from the Missouri group of States, Minnesota 
and Nebraska. The rest of the 2,407 men came from every State 
in the Union, a few from each State. Forty-three were foreign born. 
During the 1919 harvest the Kansas City office of the United States 
Employment Service recorded the places of residence of 14,613 men 
sent into the harvest fields. The figures show that 8,787, or 56 per 
cent, came from Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Kansas, which 
States contributed 1,052 of the 2,407 men interviewed in 1920. While 
the 14,613 men included some from every State in the Union, 84 per 
cent came from 16 States in the Middle West, and only 16 per cent 
from the remaining 32 States. 
Is it true that 50 per cent of the transient harvest force come from 
Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Kansas? The figures show that 
although these States contribute large contingents to the harvest 
field, they do not' contribute a correspondingly large percentage of 
the total force. The data for 1920 were gathered for the most part 
from harvesters who visited the United States employment offices at 
Kansas City, Mo., Colby, Pratt, Wichita, and Salina, Kans., and 
Sioux City, Iowa. Some of the interviews occurred in Aberdeen 
and Redfield, S. Dak., and in Fargo and other cities in North Dakota. 
As the figures for 1919 were compiled at Kansas City, Mo., the men 
interviewed were almost entirely those who entered the harvest fields 
from the East and South. Kansas City, Sioux City, and Fargo are 
gateways from the East into the harvest fields. The men of Ohio, 
