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By Charles Moreau Harger

EGINNING early in June and extending far into midsummer, as the zone of ripening grain moved northward, the farmers of the Middle West were engaged in the pleasant but exacting task of gathering a golden harvest. Never before in the history of the prairies was there such a wealth of wheat, and, though the methods of its harvesting did not differ materially from those of preceding years, it called for greater exertion and more numerous laborers.

The fields pr mised well in the autumn, and grew steadily through the open winter, while the favorable spring days seemed fitted especially to mature the crop. Though the sturdy straw and heavy-laden heads told of coming glory, such doubters are the Western farmers as to crop conditions that not until the broad acres were yellow was the perfection of the yield fully recognized.

The present season saw more grain gathered from the fields of Oklahoma and Kansas than in any single year before. A round million acres in the Territory yielded twenty-five million bushels of winter wheat; Kansas, with its older settlement, yet nervously anxious for a large crop return, had from its four and a half million acres fully eighty million bushels more, while the spring-wheat region of Nebraska and the Dakotas added close

to one hundred million bushels to the total.

It was a bountiful gift to the people of the great wheat-growing section, and they cared for it with a due appreciation of what it meant in debt-paying, in the purchase of the good things of life, in prosperity, and in happiness.

Preparations for the harvest begin a month before the grain shows yellow. The farmers examine the implements shipped in by the dealers, make their purchases of binding-twine, engage as many men as possible, and arrange their other farm work so that it can be left for a time. This year's harvest came on swiftly. A few hot days with clear skies changed the waving green to saffron, and all at once hundreds of landowners wanted to commence work, and the question of help became a serious one.

Workers came swiftly and recked not of the manner of their coming. The railroads were generous-and they could not well be otherwise. Not only were they desirous of having their patrons prosper by saving the grain, but the laborers boarded the freight-trains by scores and hundreds, and what could the few brakemen do? So out to the wheat-lands they rode, dusty and often hungry, but on the whole hopeful and good-natured. Some were scarcely more than boys; others were

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gray-haired. College students with cheery songs and lively "yells" mingled with tramps of all degrees. The papers had printed reports that three dollars a day would be paid, but when the wheat-belt was reached the wages were found to be a dollar and a half to two dollars-and board.

The farmers were waiting for them, and when a freight-train arrived the newcomers were speedily engaged and soon were jolting away in farm-wagons to the claims and ranches. The miles on miles of waist-high yellow grain seemed to present a tremendous task, but once attacked by the army of harvesters it was rapidly conquered.

Two kinds of machines are used on the prairies for cutting wheat. The selfbinder is needed where the straw is very heavy, as was the case in most of Oklahoma this year. It is drawn by three or four horses-in rare instances, when the ground is soft or the land hilly, by fiveand not only cuts the wheat six to ten inches from the soil, but collects the severed straw in uniform-sized bunches, and, tying each with a piece of coarse twine, throws them off behind the machine, ready to be carried to the shock by men on foot. The header is a swifter cutter,

It has a wide swath and is pushed ahead of four horses, the driver riding on a tiller-pole behind the whole outfit. The straw is cut just beneath the heads and is lifted on an inclined carrier into a large box-a header-box-drawn alongside on a wagon. When one box is filled it is taken to a stack in the center of the field, where it is emptied, another wagon and box accompanying the machine. This method requires very ripe and dry grain.

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The click and rattle of the self-binder and the whir of the header were first heard on the claims of Oklahoma. than a decade ago not a house was built, not a furrow turned over the broad expanse of sod; now there is an agricultural empire. Claim after claim, each costing the owner only an hour's ride on a swift pony, has been transformed into a valuable farm that this year produced on its wheat-land twenty dollars' worth of wheat to the acre. In Western parlance, the settlers have "taken the Indian out of the soil," and they have found in the abundant fertility and the virgin strength of their possession a veritable treasure-mine. A few years ago poor and hard-pressed, in some instances not owning even the horse on which they made the race for a home, these farmers are now prosperous

and smiling, and their store was visibly increased by this year's harvest.

On one Oklahoma ranch twenty-five binders were running at once and a small army of men was busy, but this was the exception. Nearly every farmer has his own machine, or he "changes work" with a neighbor, and so all are harvesting at once. Unless the threshing is done in the field at the time the cutting is going on or immediately after, all the shocked grain must be put in stacks that will shed water. This requires much work, not alone in hauling the bundles, but in properly placing them so that the stack shall be symmetrical and rain-proof. Even then a high wind may so scatter it as to require doing the work anew.

Carrying the bundles to the shock or pitching the loose wheat from the headerbox is the first task of the harvest laborer. If his hands are soft and white and his muscles unused to toil, the days are very, very long, the deep sleep on the fragrant hay on the barn floor very, very short.

On one farm was an example of this sort among the employees-a slender, pale

faced man who struggled hard to do as much as the others. He nearly gave up the second day, but later gained in strength until he held his own well. At the end of a fortnight he went to the boss and asked for his wages.

"Pay me what you do anybody," he remarked. "I'm not going to spend this money-I'll keep it to show to my wife. She and the girls are in Paris. I'm from Chicago, and wanted to eat and sleep as I used to when a boy-and I've done it." He went to the hotel in town, donned fashionable clothes, and took a Pullman car for a mountain resort.

Many are the difficulties with which the harvesters have to contend. The straw may have been so heavy as to "lodge" in the lower portions of the field; the Hessian fly may have eaten the straw and caused the heads to fall on the broken stem when the wind blows; rain may come when the harvest is on and cause delay and much loss. delay and much loss. Some of these things are being overcome. For instance, this summer a farm-lad discovered that by putting the rake-teeth on the cross-bars of

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a header-reel the broken straws would be picked up, and he saved enough grain to pay for cutting his father's crop.

For the most part it was fine harvest weather. Day after day the sun rode through a cloudless sky and the thermometer marked close to one hundred degrees at noon. It was ideal weather for the work in the fields, even though there were times when the men and horses. of necessity, rested during part of the long afternoon.

On some farms the close of daylight did not stop the labor in the field. Three sets of men and teams were engaged, while, of course, the same wagons and forks and the same machine could be utilized. The workers were divided into shifts of eight hours each, two working in the daylight and the other in the night. When the darkness came, lanterns were hung on the horses and wagons, and by their light the harvest went on under the stars through the clear prairie night. It was in many ways the pleasantest task of the twenty-four hours, for the cool winds fanned the men's faces and the horses had respite from the flies that during the day made life a burden. Of course it necessitated extra work at the house, but that, too, was made possible by extra help. In that manner the wheat was soon cut and the danger of loss of grain by bad weather

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was soon averted. An absence of dew gave opportunity for this method, and never was so much grain harvested in so short a time.

On the other portions of the farm the women and boys of the family managed things.

The girls took the milk to the creamery and assisted in caring for the cows and horses. The boys went to town on errands or drove the teams that hauled the header-wagons. The problem of cooking for the men was in some cases solved by the workers having their own cook and living in tents on the field, but not often. The housewife sacrificed herself for the few days of extra work and prepared wholesome meals in the farmhouse kitchen. Even Sunday was not exempt from labor during the height of the harvest. Many a country church congregation heard the far-off hum of the machines mingling with the cadence of the hymns and considered it no irreverence. Every day was precious to the farmers. The townspeople drove out to watch the work proceed, some of them having a lively interest in the proceeding, for they owned lands on which tenants were gathering the rent-paying crop. chief topic of conversation, in town and out, was the yield and quality of the wheat, and the papers of the Western cities

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