TRUCK-FARM LABOR IX NEW JERSEY, 1922 
13 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF FARM EMPLOYEES 
Nearly all the farm employees interviewed were working as farm 
hands. A few (3 per cent) were foremen. Occasional mechanics 
were found around the machinery of large farms (see Table 1). 
Half of the workers who were under 21 years of age. and the women, 
were engaged in light work more or less adapted to their strength 
and ability. Half of the minors and most of the women were work- 
ing on truck farms,. on such jobs as weeding, hoeing, picking berries, 
picking up potatoes, and packing produce for market. 
Table 4. — Jobs on which farm employees were engaged when interviewed 
Kind of farm work 
American 
born 
Foreign 
born 
All em- 
ployees 
Light farm work (minors and women) 
72 
370 
6 
21 
7 
16 
5 
11 
167 
83 
Farmhand . _ 
537 
Livestock worker (cattle and poultrr).. . 
6 
Teamster... 
2 
23 
Farm mechanic 
Foreman . ... . ... 
5 
1 
21 
Miscellaneous 
6 
Total cases.. _______ 
497 
186 
683 
At the time of interview one-third of the workers had been on 
their jobs not over a month, one-half not over two months, and three- 
fourths not over six months. Practically one-fifth of the workers 
had been with the same employer over a year, and 27 of the 677 re- 
porting on this point had been with their employers 10 or more years, 
including one for 40 and another for 61 years. 
Three-fourths of the farm workers had been engaged for the 
season or year and expected to be kept by their employers until Oc- 
tober or later : one-fifth had been hired for only a short time or the 
duration of certain work. 
Practically no persons were working under any definite agreement, 
oral or written. 
One-third of the workers had worked on the same farms previous 
to the job held when interviewed, nearly half of them within that 
or the previous season. Two-thirds of the group had got back by 
asking for the work and through their previous acquaintance with 
their employer. 
About two-thirds of the reporting farmers stated that their em- 
ployees were experienced in the work for which they were hired: 
about one-fifth complained of employees' inexperience, and the 
largest proportion of these complaints came from truck farmers of 
Bergen and Passaic Counties. 
In the judgment cf the investigators, three-fourths of the farm 
employees interviewed were of either average or good efficiency in 
the f a-rm work in which they were engaged ; one-third of them were 
classed as better than average ; one- fourth of the workers were child 
laborers: and one-eighth of these employed seemed to be fairly good 
farm workers, but in many cases it seemed plain that they would 
have been more efficient in other employment. Physical handicap 
and poor health limited the usefulness of a few. Only 1 worker in 
10 was classed as a distinctly poor farm hand. Amon_r the most im- 
