30 BULLETIN 1285, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Table 12. — Day icages at harvest, icith and tvithout board, etc. — Continued 
Class of employees 
Women without board: 
Number of reports. . 
Average wage 
Most common wage- 
Women with board: 1 
Number of reports. . 
Average wage 
Minors without board: 
Number of reports. . 
Average wage 
Most common wage. 
Minors with board: 1 
Number of reports. . 
Average wage _ 
Type of farm 
General Truck Dairy Fruit Potato All farms 
15 
$2.58 
7 
$2.13 
$1.59 
$1.38 
38 
$2.68 
$2.50 
3 
$2.33 
43 
$1.85 
2 
$0.92 
2 
$1.34j, 
$2.23 
$2.00 
1 
$2.00 
11 
$1. 60 
1 
$1.50 
1 
$6.00 
2 
$5.75 
73 
$2 59 
$2. 00 or $2. 50 
11 
$2.17 
67 
$1.88 
$1.50 
$1.29 
1 Figures for most common wage can not be given because of the small number of cases reported. 
Many pieceworkers, including adults, at times earned much less 
than average day wages, in some cases as low as $1 per day. 
The farmer's method of reckoning and payment of wages to 
casual labor was usually by the day or piecework. Each of these 
methods was used exclusively by one-fourth of the farmers report- 
ing. Tw T o-fifths of farmers used one of these methods together with 
some other method, such as by the hour, week, or month, but the 
last was seldom used. The method used varied somewhat with the 
type of farm, kind of work, and district. Alone, or with another 
method, piecework payment was the most common method em- 
ployed on truck and potato farms. In fact it' was used on all of the 
potato farms. Day rates were the rule on general farms and hour 
rates on fruit farms, but piecework rates were common on both. 
Piecework and hour rates were frequently necessary because of the 
irregularity of work. Migratory families working on piecework 
were often paid as a whole. Payment was made to the head of the 
family, or, sometimes in the case of Italians, through the padrone. 
Regardless of the method their employers used in figuring it, 
three-fifths of the employees who gave information upon the sub- 
ject stated they received their pay Aveekly; one-fifth were paid 
monthly. A few were paid daily, every two weeks or twice a month, 
on request or at the end of the job or season for which they were 
engaged. This last method applied especially to pieceworkers in 
harvest. 
The practices of determining payments and of paying farm work- 
ers at the end of the season sometimes cause trouble. Farmers and 
employees occasionally do not or can not agree on the amounts the 
latter have earned; or at the end of a season of poor financial re- 
turns, the farmers may actually have difficulty in raising the money 
necessary to pay off their help. It sometimes takes the intervention 
of a third party to straighten matters out, especially if the workers 
are more or less illiterate foreign born. 
Noncasual wage rates by the month for male farm hands averaged 
$67.26 without board. The most common rate reported was $65 per 
month. Wage rates with board for the same workers averaged $41.38 
