78 
BULLETIN 1271, U. S. DEPABTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
be done before the ground is covered with snow, whereas he can cut 
wood any time during the winter. 
The actual day-to-day adjustment of fixed labor and shifting labor 
on a 260-acre farm is shown in Figure 25. 
In "shifting labor" is included all work listed in columns 2 and 3 
in Table 46, except fall plowing, putting up wild hay, stack threshing, 
and corn husking. These operations are included in "fixed labor." 
Half of the shifting labor was performed between December 1 and 
April 15, at a time when there was the least fixed work. The only 
large amount of shifting labor performed during the busy crop season 
was during a period of wet Weather in May and again between corn 
cultivation and oat harvest in July. Practically all this shifting 
labor done in summer- was performed during the gaps between fixed 
operations or when these fixed operations were delayed by weather 
interference. This represents an excellent adjustment of these two 
classes of labor from the standpoint of securing a uniform distribu- 
tion of total labor throughout the year. 
EXCHANGE LABOR # 
In spite of a most careful adjustment of enterprises and a careful 
day-to-day planning of work there are certain operations, such as 
Exchange L 
at 
-or Received and Rendered 
on a 260-Acre 
Farm 
20 
10 
■ 
EXCHANGE RENDERED 
. 1 . 
d-i 
L t 
1 . 
u 
II 1 
II 
EXCHANGE RECEIVED 
100 
80 
60 
40 
20 
Ada/ 
n . 
. ft 
1 io 20 
JAN. 
10 20 
FEB. 
IO 2C 
MAF 
t. 
10 20 
APR. 
10 20 
MAY 
10 20 
JUNE! 
10 20 
JULY 
10 20 
AUG. 
10 20 
SEPT. 
10 20 
OCT. 
10 20 
NOV. 
10 20 
DEC. 
Fig. 26.— By exchanging labor with their neighbors farmers are able to get their small grain 
threshed and silos filled without hiring large amounts of extra help 
threshing and silo filling, that demand for periods of two or three 
days several times the regular supply of labor available on the farm. 
To hire this extra labor would be expensive and ordinarily it is not 
available. The customary way of providing the large supply of 
labor demanded for these operations in the Windom area is for 
neighbors to exchange labor with each other. The way this worked 
out on an individual farm is illustrated in Figure 26. Two hundred 
and eight hours of labor were required for oat threshing in less than 
two days. The regular labor on the farm could only be expanded 
to provide 45 hours per day, but not over 30 hours of this was avail- 
able for threshing. The additional labor required was furnished by 
