6 BULLETIN 440, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
is often employed on contract in felling, limbing, and bucking logs, 
and in piling lumber. These activities can be easily supervised and 
require no capital on the part of the contractor. The standard work- 
ing-day is 10 hours. In sawmills and yards the full time is put in 
at labor, but in the logging and railroad camps the crews usually 
return from work on company time, which often means that not over 
9i or 9J hours are put in at work. A State law of California pro- 
vides that boys under 18 years of age can not be worked longer than 
8 hours daily. 
A workmen's compensation act went into effect in California on 
January 1, 1914. This act renders the employer liable for compen- 
sation for all personal injuries sustained by employees during the 
course of employment, except in the case of injury due to intoxication 
or willful misconduct on the part of the employee injured. It pro- 
vides for the payment of medical and hospital fees for a period of 90 
days after injury, for disability indemnities, and for benefits to de- 
pendents in case of death, all payments to be made as directed by 
the Industrial Accident Commission. Another feature of the act is 
the provision empowering the State Accident Commission to conduct 
a department for insuring operators against the liabilities. One effect 
of this act will undoubtedly be an increase in the amount of labor 
employed on contract. 
Medical attention and hospital treatment have been and are yet 
furnished by most companies at their own hospitals, which are sup- 
ported by deducting $1 monthly from the wage of each employee. 
Smaller operators frequently contract with local physicians to care 
for their men under the same arrangement. The compensation act 
provides that no deduction may be made in wages to carry out its 
provisions, but the present hospital charges are apparently made on 
the basis of care during sickness. 
Lumbering wages are paid at a stated sum per day without board 
or at a stated amount per month and board. The former is cus- 
tomary as far south as Plumas County, and the latter throughout the 
rest of the region, except at sawmills and yards located in towns. 
The first system operates in the employer's favor in the case of loss 
of time through sickness or inclement weather. 
In the lists of representative wages for the season of 1913, which 
follow in Table 1, " North" refers to the territory north of Plumas 
County, and " Central" to the country south of this point. "East" 
refers to the region on the east slope of the Sierras about Sierra Valley. 
The two columns U A" and "B" under each represent different 
localities or operations. 
