8 BULLETIN 1285, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
school term. During the farming season work on other farms was the 
most available source of employment, except in Bergen and Passaic 
Counties, where manufacturing industries predominated. In winter, 
manufacturing and industrial work offered the chief sources of 
employment practically everywhere. Doubtless in many cases such 
opportunities were insufficient for all desiring work. Many of the 
migratory families found on farms in the summer turn to industrial 
work and common labor upon their return to the cities in the fall. 
The farm workers interviewed were asked what kind of work they 
expected to seek and where they would hunt for it when they left the 
jobs on which they were engaged. Many answers were influenced by 
the fact that it was midsummer when the question was asked, and 
it is probable that the replies would have been very different at 
another season. The replies were also influenced by the length of 
time for which, workers expected their jobs to last, by the kind of 
work the persons expected to seek, and by the wages wanted and 
offered. Of the 683 workers, practically 1 in 5 expected to be kept 
indefinitely by his employer and 1 in 7 to seek other farm work 
for his next job. Thus, 1 in 3 was definitely to continue in agricul- 
tural work. One-fourth of the workers did not know what they 
would do beyond seeking laboring jobs, of whom many would be 
again employed by farmers. One in 10 expected to engage next in 
industrial employment, and over a fifth of the employees were minors 
expecting to return to school sometime in the fall. 
BRINGING TOGETHER FARM JOB AND EMPLOYEE 
SOURCES OF FARM LABOR 
A large majority of farmers found most of their laborers in their 
own or adjoining localities. Noncasual labor was more largely found 
locally than was casual labor. Truck farmers, more than any other 
type of farmer studied, had to go beyond their immediate localities 
for day labor — to Philadelphia and Camden from Gloucester County 
and to near-by cities, especially to New York, from Bergen and 
Passaic Counties. 
Migratory farm labor in New Jersey seems to be found mostly east 
and south of Trenton. Italian families from Philadelphia form the 
majority of migrants east and south of that city; they are employed 
largely on truck and berry farms, where there is much work within 
the strength and ability of women and children. These families 
migrate to farms in time for asparagus cutting or strawberry picking 
in the spring and stay in the country often as late as October, the 
end of the cranberry harvest. Economic necessity compels all mem- 
bers from young to old to work if possible, to which the under- 
nourished appearance of some of the children at times gave eloquent 
testimony, not only among Italians but also among Poles and other 
workers of foreign races. Some families spend up to several months in 
a locality, according to the labor demand : others move from one place 
to another during the season. Because the work in which they en- 
gage i^ largely piecework-, (heir earnings depend much upon weather 
and crop conditions. Families are often paid as a unit. Estimates of 
their earnings per season run up over $1,000. Housing for Italian 
families working on the farms is usually meager, yet. poor as it is, 
