The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1913-07-10
THE TREATMENT OF HARVEST HANDS.

EVERY year at harvest time, the call for
help comes from the fields and entreats the
idlers to hasten to the aid of the farmers.
Down in Kansas they are having the
usual trouble to secure harvest hands. There
is plenty of help, but the farmers in Kan
sas need good, able bodied men to do the
work. College students do not make good
harvest hands, neither can the right sort of
help be secured from the cities. Most of
the Kansas wheat crop is cut with a
'header;' and it takes some man to keep
twelve foot header busy. The days are
long during the Kansas harvest, the work
is hard and the sun is hot. No job for a
weakling, or those who never did hard lab
or. The writer has worked in the Kansas
harvest and writes from personal expert
ence.
The foreigners who occupy large por-
ton of the Kansas wheat country secure
the best men that make the Kansas har-
vest Some of the hands come back, year
after year, to the same farm. The farm
the writer worked on was in the midst of a
Bohemian settlement, and he was the only
harvest hand in the neighborhood who
was stranger to the settlement. These
Bohemians always have plenty of help dur
ing the harvest. They understand the pc
culiar traits of harvest hands and treat
them accordingly.
The American wheat growers in Kan
sas do not or will not treat the harvest
hands, according to the hands ideas of
what they are entitled to. Consequently
the foreigners get the best hands, while the
Americans have to use such help as they
can obtain.
The American expects too much from
his harvest hands, not in labor, but in per-
sonal attributes. The foreigners get their
hands to do more labor and yet have the
same help come back to them year after
year. To make this point clear the writer
will give from personal experience an &C
count of treatment received from both
American and foreigners in the Kansas
wheat country.
The writer went into an American settle
ment in Kansas to make the wheat harvest
a few years ago. Arriving at town that
had advertised for help the writer was soon
aboard farmers wagon, bound for the
fields of waving grain and crying need.
Two dollars and half day was the
wages and good board to be amply pro-
vided. We found the rest of the crew on
the farm, having been hired the day be-
fore. We were provided with sleeping
quarters in the barn, and called at daylight
to breakfast. The meal was good, excel
lent in fact, and dainty served. The far
mer and his family were good people and
tried to make us feel at home. We pitch
ed headed wheat until noon, and after a
to the field and worked until shutdown. We
had good supper, they even gave us ice
cream and lemonade. With all the good
treatment the hands were Disconnected
Why? Because they were not used to that
kind of treatment. The farmer and his
family overdone it, and one of the hoboes
told of place where he worked last year
and was given bracer before breakfast, a
bottle of beer at dinner and had two lunch
es brought to the field between meals; and
slept in the granary.
Next morning all the crew but the writ
er quit and the farmer said: "Well, does
not that beat all? l do not believe those
fellows want to work. But they were