This was going to be the biggest wheat crop in U.S. history. The weather had stayed good (TIME, June 19); now in the choking, dusty fields and in broiling sun, the harvest was on. Oklahoma was already piling its record 80 million bushels in the terminal elevators. In Kansas, 185 million bushels awaited the northward sweep of the crawling combines. Providentially, the bonanza had come just when the U.S. had been dangerously close to a critical grain shortage.
Nature had been good, the sun and the skies kind, the land fruitful. The next great problem was manpower. Could the U.S....