Farm Labor Notes

Excerpts: Vermont: Farmers have been able to get their haying done in fairly good shape with the assistance of high school boys and girls, women, workers of the Volunteer Land Corps, and workers from nearby factories in their off-shift hours. New York: Under the recently established Farm Labor Transportation Program workers are being moved from Virginia and West Virginia into the FSA camp in Orleans County. Pennsylvania: Several hundred workers are being transported daily to and from South Philadelphia for harvest work in nearby counties. Michigan: It is expected industrial workers from Chicago will spend a few weeks "vacation" in Benton Harbor to help in the apple harvest late in September. Minnesota: During July the townspeople who registered with the volunteer offices were called upon to do a substantial amount of farm labor after their regular working hours. South Dakota: A large number of women have been helping with the harvest, running tractors, binders, shocking and running bundle wagons. North Carolina: Peanut and cotton growers in North Carolina have asked the FSA to set up a migratory workers’ camp in these areas in the State. Mississippi: School hours will probably be adjusted so that the children can work half a day picking cotton. Montana: Sugar beet growers are requesting more Japanese evacuees for sugar beet harvest to begin shortly after September 15, and the aggregate of such orders placed with the USES recently passed 4,000. California: Women and children are successfully working in the prune harvest, but more men are required for dehydrator work and for shaking trees.