EMPLOYMENT OF HARVEST LABOR IN THE WHEAT BELT. 3 
Of a group of 995 harvest hands interviewed 110 were born in 23 
foreign countries; 88 of them came from non-English-speaking coun- 
tries. Over a third of these harvest hands were Scandinavians by 
birth; the remainder came from other parts of Europe, Canada, 
Hawaii, and South America. Thirty-seven immigrants were included 
among 148 migratory workers having no permanent places of resi- 
dence; the percentage of foreign born having no permanent place of 
residence was nearly three times that of the homeless native born. 
Fic. 1.—A typical group of harvest hands in the southern area. Most of these men worked in the 
Kansas harvest and then came north to the Dakota harvest. 
REGULAR OCCUPATIONS OF HARVEST HANDS. 
What proportion of the harvest hands were born and raised on 
the farm? This question is answered in Table 2. Considering the 
fact that all of these men were engaged in an agricultural occupation 
when interviewed, it is at first surprising to find that nearly half of 
them were city bred (44.6 per cent) and that over half (52.9 per cent) 
found their first job for wages in a nonagricultural occupation. This 
table demonstrates a fact that the wheat farmer, especially in the 
spring-wheat area, now clearly comprehends: Agriculture is depend- 
ent upon the industrial labor supply for so large a portion of its 
seasonal labor that the state of employment in cities, and the wages, 
hours, and conditions of employment in urban occupations largely 
determine the amount of labor available for farm work in any given 
season and the price which the farmer must pay for it. Many wheat 
farmers, especially in the Dakotas, told the writer that the most 
critical difficulty which they saw in the farm-labor situation was 
the inability of agriculture to compete with some of the urban indus- 
tries In wage rates. 
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