BULLKTFX 1220, U. S. DEPARTMENT <>E AORICrT/TURE. 
was made during tobacco 
The canvass in the Connecticut Valley 
priming and cutting, when labor demand and supply was at its height; 
laborer schedules were taken in only part of that district, as that part 
of the work was not begun until the larger part of the employers there 
had been interviewed. The work near Barre and on Marthas Vine- 
yard Island was done somewhat after the greatest need of labor for 
the summer had passed, but most of the men were still at work. In 
the Falmouth strawberry district few were employed in strawberry 
work; almost all the laborers interviewed there were engaged in 
general farm work. In lower Plymouth County many of the laborers 
interviewed were engaged in general upkeep of cranberry bogs and 
in general farming; the cranberry-picking season had not come. 
Around Colerain general farming was in progress; apple picking and 
its demand for pickers was soon 1 o begin. In lower Middlesex Count y 
the season's market gardening was still at its height. 
Fig. 1. — Localities visited and principal type of agriculture in each. 
oil parts of the State.) 
(Data were gathered by mail from 
To the employer schedule, 622 useful replies were obtained. Only 
farm laborers working for wages were interviewed; 395 were reached. 
On farms visited where only a few were employed, nearly every em- 
ployee was reached; where many were working not all of them were 
interviewed, but enough to be representative of the workers. 
NUMBER, CLASSES, AND SEASONS OF EMPLOYMENT OF FARM 
EMPLOYEES. 
The most usual numbers of employees on the Massachusetts farms 
studied were one or two (Table 1); the average was brought up 
to four by large places such as market gardens and tobacco and 
onion farms. Dairy and livestock and general farms had the least, 
except for strawberry farms, where practically all the ordinary work 
is handled by the farm family. In rush times, usually harvest, almost 
equal numbers of farmers employed one to four hired workers per 
farm, and as a whole the number of paid workers more than trebled. 
Cranberry picking demands large numbers of hand workers, and the 
