Harvest Hands Are Scarce, and the Bunch Grass Is Turning to Hay
Kittitas farmers face a labor shortage, prematurely ripened grain and a dry-weather hay crop as barley and fall wheat come in.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Harvest hands are very scarce in this locality. It is feared that the crops in some portions of the valley will suffer for want of the necessary help to take care of it. The laborers are not in the country. All the Indian men, willing and able, who know anything about work, are sought after and utilized. The grass on the hills and plains of the surrounding country is literally turned into hay, which will be good until touched by the fall rains. Just think of it, the entire bunch grass country a vast hay field. Can any other country on the face of the globe boast of such a field of hay, where the hand of man has had no agency in its transformation? The harvesting of barley generally, and of a few fields of fall sown wheat, commenced in earnest on Monday last. Some of the grain of all kinds has ripened prematurely, and the consequence will be much shriveled grain in Kittitas this season. Some of the fields are so fired by the dry weather heat that they have been cut for hay, and the grain was merely formed; a good portion of that cut for hay was unwillingly done by the owners, but it was the best thing that could be done under the circumstances.
“The laborers are not in the country. All the Indian men, willing and able, who know anything about work, are sought after and utilized.”
The item describes a familiar rural squeeze: too few workers at exactly the wrong moment, with heat and drought deciding the size of the crop. In Washington's farm regions today, labor availability and climate stress still shape whether a harvest gets saved.
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