In this district the picking of oranges, which demands a great number of men, begins the latter part of October and extends to the end of December. Between 1,000 and 2,000 pickers are employed for the season indicated. Of 486 persons employed on 17 ranches investigated in Tulare County, 301 were temporary pickers averaging about two months' work in this district. At this same season hundreds of men and women are employed to pack the fruit in the establishments in towns. The packing houses employ all of the available resident laborers and must bring in more than one-half of their force, both men and women, from other places, usually from the citrus-fruit districts of southern California. In this northern orange-growing district the proportion of packing-house and fruit-picking workers resident in the community, and also the proportion of regular to temporary employees, is smaller than in the southern part of the State.

In southern California the conditions differ somewhat from those in the northern part of the State. The principal agricultural districts are found in one large valley which extends from Redlands to the ocean shore (about 75 miles). The industries in this valley as a whole are diversified, and where there is specialization by communities, these are not far from other agricultural districts devoted to other crops. The cities and towns are larger and more numerous and accessible for securing laborers in this part of the State than north of the Tehachepi Mountains. The principal industry of this valley from Redlands to Los Angeles, and as far south as Santa Ana, is the production of citrus fruit. The picking of oranges in southern California, when extra men are required, extends from January to July. Lemon picking continues irregularly throughout the year, but requires the greatest number of workers during February, March, and April. Pruning and cleaning up orchards gives employment to a smaller number of men for three to six weeks following the picking of the crop. Nearly 10,000 persons are employed at the height of the season picking citrus fruit, but the number of regular employees working throughout the year is much smaller. Of 1,580 employed on 19 large ranches, where no packing was done, in southern California, 907 were regular employees, while the remainder, 673, were temporary pickers working from three to seven months. The larger percentage of regular employees in southern California is due to the fact that several of these large ranches produce lemons which keep. a larger regular force constantly employed. At the same time that these fruits are picked, the packing houses employ a large force in the packing and shipping. The citrus-fruit industry in this section has many large towns to draw upon, but the surplus population is not large enough to supply much of the demand for temporary laborers during the harvest. The small number of resident, unskilled workers available at the harvest season, are practically all employed in the packing houses and very few work as pickers. Even for packinghouse work the industry depends upon securing workers, both men and women, from Los Angeles and other localities.

Southern California produces a great many grapes, but the principal vineyards are near Cucamonga, in San Bernardino County, tributary to several large wineries. For the picking of these wine grapes in the autumn several hundred laborers are brought in from other

parts of the valley. Near Whittier, in Los Angeles County, and in the northeastern part of Orange County are found a large number of walnut farms, which employ pickers in the fall. The land in the immediate vicinity of Los Angeles is mainly devoted to truck and strawberry farms. Between 1,500 and 1,600 acres are planted to strawberries, while approximately 7,000 acres are employed in producing vegetables for the local market. Close to the sugar factory at Chino there are more than 3,000 acres of sugar beets, while nearer the coast in Los Angeles County, and about Los Alamitos, in Orange County, many thousand more acres are planted to beets. The "peat lands farther south in Orange County include more than 6,000 acres of beets, and near Smeltzer 3.000 acres of celery, which is about three-fourths of the total acreage of celery in the State. There are no large towns in these localities from which resident laborers can be drawn, and it is also true that few white men from neighboring towns and cities will engage in the handwork connected with the cultivation of beets and celery. Most of the Japanese and Mexicans who do such work are secured from Los Angeles, 30 miles distant. In the celery fields some 200 men are engaged throughout the year in handwork connected with the growing of that crop, while on two occasions the number is greatly increased. For transplanting seedbed stock to the fields during May, June, and July between 400 and 600 extra Japanese laborers are employed. For the harvest from October to March some 200 extra men are required to do the cutting, trimming, and crating.

Near the coast in Ventura County the farms are nearly all devoted to producing either beets or beans. Near Oxnard there are about 14,000 acres of land given over to raising sugar beets for the sugar factory in that town, while in the surrounding country there are 57,000 acres of bean land, which is nearly one-half of the bean acreage of the State. These two crops in this district require about 2,000 seasonal laborers. Only a small number of resident Mexicans are available for this work, so that the industries depend upon laborers who come into the district for a season only. In Oxnard resident unskilled laborers are not available in sufficient numbers to supply the needs of the factory during the harvest. Near Betteravia, in Santa Barbara County, there are some 10,000 acres of land used for the production of sugar beets for a factory at that place. The conditions are similar to the other beet districts in the State in that beet growing is the main industry, requires a great number of seasonal laborers, and, inasmuch as no resident laborers are available, must depend upon migratory labor. In 1909 there were ten sugar factories. in these districts of California, running night and day during the season of about three months. Some 2.500 men were employed during this period of operation. A small percentage of these are hired for the year, repairing machinery, preparing for the next season of work, and engaged in shipping the sugar as sold, but the great majority were seasonal factory hands. The labor in these factories is "recruited" largely from the unskilled workers of the large cities and the transient "white" class.

Thus it is seen that most of these districts devoted to intensive agriculture have no other industries which would bring in and support a population close at hand as a permanent part of the community, and even where the districts are close to large cities, the in

dustries in the cities offer employment to most of their unskilled laborers. This lack of unskilled laborers resident in the farming districts makes it necessary for ranchers to depend upon those who migrate to the community for the busy season only. The employers to a certain extent send to other communities for their laborers, but more often this is done through labor contractors, who deal in Asiatic labor, which predominates in most of these districts. White workers usually come voluntarily to the locality as individuals, knowing that during certain seasons many men are needed. To a few districts (the Vaca Valley for example) white people are sent by the employment agencies of the cities. For hop picking in some localities white workers from the cities are secured by a systematic campaign of advertising. Others come as "wagon tramps."

The only laborer who can subsist for the year on seasonal agricultural work is one who "follows the seasons;" that is, migrates from one district to another as the harvest ends in one and begins in another. This necessity of migrating from one district to another is one thing which, together with others to be mentioned later, tends to keep white men out of the temporary work. In the packing houses, besides the residents of the community, many so-called "fruit tramps" are found who "follow seasons," starting with cherries and apricots in the north in the spring, and as the season ends in one district, going to others, usually spending the winter and earlier spring months in the citrus fruit or vegetable-growing districts. As a class the box makers are men who follow the seasons, in that way securing rather steady work, and on a piece basis they usually average over $3 per day. Some white fruit pickers" follow seasons" regularly, but a large number of the transient white men are of the "hobo type, "beating their way" from place to place on freight trains, and not wanting more than a few days' work at a time.

The Japanese are at present the predominant race of hand workers in most districts, because they are present in large numbers and migrate most easily, having few family ties and little property to keep them in one community.

The migratory character of Japanese labor is shown in the following table, which shows in how many localities 316 laborers from whom information was secured had worked during the preceding 12 months: TABLE 3.-Number of localities in which farm laborers 18 years of age or over were employed during the past year.

Number of farm laborers working in each specified number of localities during the past year.

The crux of the difficult problem of securing farm laborers in California is found in the conditions above set forth, which may be summarized as follows:

(1) The localities in which intensive farming is carried on usually specialize extensively in one or only a few crops, which require large forces of laborers for short seasons only.

(2) There are no other industries in most of these agricultural communities which can give employment to these temporary farm laborers for the other months of the year.

(3) There are allied establishments handling the crops during the busy harvest season which use all of the available resident workers of the community and, in addition, frequently require more men from other communities at the same time that farmers are needing the most laborers. These establishments in towns are able to get the resident and most desirable workers because they are convenient to their homes and the work is more agreeable than that in the fields, so that white laborers prefer to work here, even when they receive lower wages.

(4) Thus it becomes necessary for farmers to depend on migratory labor and the necessity for migration on the part of the laborers in order to secure work for the greater part of the year.

In addition to the conditions mentioned above, there are other minor considerations developed largely as a result of these conditions which have deterred desirable white persons from entering such work and have caused seasonal farm work to depend mainly upon Asiatics. Some of these considerations will be pointed out in the following

pages.

One of the important developments of the seasonal demands of agriculture has been the organization of workers into "gangs," and the spread of the "gang" system has in turn encouraged and made possible the rapid development and more extensive specialization of communities in intensive agriculture. An account of this organization on the part of Asiatics as contrasted with the lack of organization on the part of white persons is essential to an understanding of the present situation in California agricultural communities.

ORGANIZATION OF LABOR.

The "American" laborers engaged in agricultural work in California deal with employers individually and not in groups or through agents. As a rule, they are employed as they apply for work at the ranch or may be secured in the towns by the rancher. In some cases they are supplied through employment offices in the cities and towns. But however secured, each man must be dealt with as an individual and is paid personally and not through an agent. Where white men are employed in any considerable number this requires bookkeeping on the part of the employer, as he must take the "time" of each man and keep an account of it separately. The life on the average specialized ranch in California is unattractive to reliable white men, who can get better, steadier, and higher-paid work elsewhere. Consequently the majority of white farm hands are of an irregular class and are extremely nomadic, staying at work, as some ranch books show, for as little as a quarter of the day, when they ask for their pay and leave. These qualities make the employment of white labor very uncertain; the employer can never be sure of an adequate supply, nor, if he has enough men at one time, how long they will remain. Even though they are often uncertain, most white ranchers employ only white men as teamsters and regular ranch hands. But in the hand work, for which large numbers are required at certain. seasons of the year, most ranchers make no effort under present con

ditions to secure white laborers, for the employment of such would involve much bookkeeping, frequent payments, trouble in searching for an edequate number of men, and uncertainty as to whether the work at hand would be done.

are the

The greater part of the hand work, except in cutting, drying, and packing fruit on the ranches, is done by Asiatics, and this is due chiefly to their presence in large numbers and their effective organization into "gangs " under "bosses." Japanese "bosses" most numerous labor agents, as that race predominates in the labor supply. In nearly every town constituting the center of a specialized agricultural community, one or more Japanese "bosses" can be found. These "bosses," "labor contractors," or "employment agents" are the leaders of the groups of Japanese laborers whom they associate with them. Usually the smaller "contractors conduct lodging houses and stores, where their men live on a cooperative plan. The "boss" secures work for his men from the ranchers, and carries on all dealings with the employer as to the wages or contract price for the work, collects the wages of the "gang," and pays the men their individual earnings, of which he keeps their separate accounts. The contracts for the hand work in intensive agriculture are sometimes written, occasionally with a bond required to guarantee the work, but more often they are oral. Some contracts are to the effect that the "boss" is to furnish a sufficient number of men to properly do the work required at the time specified by the rancher, who agrees to pay a certain wage per day for each man.

In some industries, however, the contract provides piece-rate prices. For example, in the grape industry in 1908 the prices paid for picking raisin grapes were 21 and 2 cents per tray of 22 pounds each, and for picking wine grapes, from $1.20 to $1.75 per ton. In the beet fields the contractor agrees to do certain kinds of hand work on specified terms. Similarly in the hop industry, the hand work involved in producing the crop is covered by a contract. Some of the small "bosses" have only ten or a dozen men under them, and they seek work for one small group only. These men usually do the work of the small ranchers, and shift often during the season from ranch to ranch. On the other hand, there are large Japanese contractors, who take contracts for the hand work on many ranches and have hundreds of laborers under them. These "gangs" are sent to the different ranches, each group of men frequently finding work for the entire season on a single large ranch, under the direct supervision of a "boss" or agent of the contractor. The rancher secures any number of men desired through these contractors, and his only concern then is to see that the right number are present and do the work properly. As a rule, the rancher does not instruct, warn, discharge, or in any way deal with individual Japanese workmen, but takes up all such matters with the Japanese "boss," or the foreman, or interpreter representing such contractor in the field. By cooperating with Japanese employment agencies and boarding-house keepers in the larger cities, these "bosses" are ordinarily able to secure any number of men desired. In this way the bosses and contractors direct the migration of Japanese to communities where the season requires a large number of workers, and so tend to equalize the labor supply of the State.