ABSTRACT
Traditionally, the need for labour at harvest time had always extended the resident farm labour force and even the local supply of workers. While agricultural workers themselves, therefore, did not represent the total harvest labour force, the main problem was one of deployment rather than of any absolute shortage. It is true that pockets of absolute shortage did occur, but these arose mainly because of the impossibility of any exact calculation of labour requirements until harvest time itself. For the annually hired labourers the extra summer earnings, apart from the Michaelmas Money paid at the end of their year’s service, were restricted to the harvesting of the hay and corn crops on their master’s farm. The state of the corn, whether upstanding or badly flattened by a past or immediate storm, and the concurrent ripening of crops made exact estimates of labour requirements a matter of uncertainty.
