18 BULLETIN 1211, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Table I of the Appendix records the amount of employment, num-_ 
ber of jobs, earnings, and expenses of 32 harvest hands whose earn- 
ings were less than $100 and expenses over $50. The table includes 
all of the harvest hands interviewed of whom these two facts were 
true—they represent the most unfortunate harvesters encountered. — 
These men had been in the harvest area, on the average, 42.4 days © 
and had lost 69.4 per cent of their time. Thirty-one of the thirty-two 
had been a month or more in the harvest area; 16 of them more than 
6 weeks. The group consists of men who had been in the harvest — 
long enough, therefore, to make some money. Three of them had not 
worked at all, 8 had worked only 5 to 10 days. They had obtained 
on the average only 1.6 jobs per man. While ciarnglaet they had 
to travel and to pay hotel and restaurant expenses. As a result, 
only 5 of the 32 had made any money. One of the five had been in 
the harvest 40 days and had cleared $40—$%1 a day and his board. 
None of the others had done as well. Twenty-five of them had lost 
money, on the average $46.33 per man, by coming to the harvest. The 
average loss of the 30 men reporting surplus or deficit was $35.89. 
In Kansas, where the man who earned $40 was employed, the current 
wages were $4 to $5 a day and board. His net earnings, therefore, 
were only from one-fifth to one-fourth of what they would have been 
if he had had steady employment. 
Table IL of the Appendix furnishes similar data upon the earnings 
and expenses of the men who had earned $100 or more in the 1921 
harvest. There were 83 of these, 7.1 per cent of the 1,164 men 
interviewed. The average period for which these 83 men had been 
in the harvest was almost the same as in the case of the 32 men just 
discussed. The 32 had averaged 42.4 days in the harvest, and the 
83 averaged 41.1 days. But the latter group lost only a third instead 
of 69.4 per cent of their time. Instead of a loss of $46.33 per man 
reporting deficit, they had cleared, on the average, $101.28 per man 
reporting surplus. The average earnings of the 80 men pode: 
surplus or deficit was $94.25. Their earnings per man were higher; 
their subsistence cost lower; their travel expenses a little higher. 
The principal reason that this group which worked more steadily 
spent more per man for travel expenses is that harvest hands with 
considerable money in their pockets ride on passenger trains, while 
the unsuccessful must teaxat on the freights. Comfort and _ self- 
respect cause men to prefer the passenger trains, while the danger of 
being robbed causes many to avoid the freights. 
Thirty-two of the 115 men listed in Tables I and II of the Appendix 
who started harvesting in Texas, Oklahoma, or Kansas and followed 
the harvest north through the Dakotas reported their net earnings. 
Two earned over $300 and one $248; seven others cleared between 
$100 and $200. The other 22 had all cleared less than $100 each 
and eight of them had spent more for subsistence and travel than 
they had earned. 
In 1921, 696 men were interviewed who worked in the 1920 harvest 
and 703 who worked in the 1919 harvest. In Table 13 are shown 
the earnings in the 1920 harvest of 517 of these hands, and in Table 14 
the earnings in 1919 of 443 hands. The wages in 1920 and 1919 
ranged from $6 to $8 per day throughout the Wheat Belt, or roughly, 
a third higher than in 1921. Living costs for harvest hands were 
also high, but not so high in proportion to wages as in 1921. Testau- 
