The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-01-10
State Council of Wheat Grow.
ers Urged by E. e. Frizell.
Says Hands Should Be Paid BIZ
Hour Instead of Day.
KANSAS NOT A CORN STATE
State Should Raise More
Kafir, OklahOman Says.
He Quotes State Statistics To
Prove His Assertion.

council of delegates from each
'of the Kansas wheat growing coun-
ties to decide upon uniform wages to
be paid in this state for harvest help
was urged before the Kansas agricuf-
tural convention today by E. E. FrizeIl,
state farm help specialist Larned.
Frizell declared that such a conven-
tion should be called in May, at the
latest.
Frizell asserted that farmers must
become reconciled to the prospect Of
paying their harvest hands higher
wages next summer. "And they must
be paid by the hour. and wages should
be the same in every county and on
every farm, hence the need for the
wage council" he said.
Can't Get Skilled Labor.
Last year we induced mechanics
and highly skilled men to come into
the harvest fields and help save the
wheat crop, because the war was on
and the nation needed 1t If victory
was to be won. This year we cannot
expect these men to come to our res
cue for lower wages. as they did last
year"
The farm help expert declared that
the harvest problem this year will be
serious. Only a few of the men in
the army will have returned he said.
Frizell cited the fact that 90 per
cent of the laboring men of the United
States are now being paid by the
hour, and that it is an injustice to
ask men to work by the day for q
certain amount-especially when men
on adjoining farms work different
hours.
Determination of Kansas farmers
to grow corn in the last two years
in preference to dry farming crop.
namely kafir, cost them s1e4.sI7,-
1916 according to John Fields. ed
itor of the "Oklahoma Farmer" Ok
| lahoma City. Fields spoke on Max
ing Farming Safe for the Plains" and
declared in order to do this dry farm
ing crops must be planted in Kansas,
/ Okla homa and Texas.
Fields cited statistics compiled by
the state board of agriculture which
show that for the year just ended the
average value of the Kansas corn
/ kafir crop was valued at $23.54 an
acre. You persist" he said. "in
wasting the profits which you make
from other crops in as vain attempts
to maintain a place in the cornbeit
i-as the kaiser and his Huns made to
get a place in the sum-
"If the corn fields of Kansas during
1917 and 1913 had produced as much
money to the acre as the kafir fields
of Kansas produced during these
y
, have received additional revenue
greater than all of the investments in
/ Liberty bonds made by all of the peo-
pie of Kansas.
i, He Quotes Records.
These are the facts concealed with
! in the records which you yourselves
/ have written, published by the Kan
sas State Board of Agriculture which
maintains the most efficient system
of crop reporting in the United States.
Many other things are written there.
and L am glad of this opportunity OF
endeavoring to interpret a few OF
them, for they have to do not only
with the future of agriculture in Kan
sas-they are fundamental to making
{ farming safe on the plains, in Okla
homa and Texas as well as in your
own great state.
You planted 9,162,23 acres to corn
worth $13.16 an acre while the acre.
value of your kafir was $22.19. The
difference is 5000 to the acre or ss2,-
/ 734.a54.96 for the entire acreage
planted to corn.
You planted 6,195,624 acres to corn
in Kansas in 1918. The crop was
worth s10.34 an acre while the acre.
value of your kafir was $23.54. The
difference is 1920 to the acre CT
s1,7S2,2 1850 for the entire acreage
planted to corn.
Your determination to make corn
grow where your own records show
that 1t has been unprofitable. almost
without exception. cost you s164,517.-
1915 while the war was on, and you
Continued on Page Twol