University of Virginia Library

Albemarle Orchards and Farm Labor

The shortage of labor created by the war was a major problem
which beset the farmer. Even in the summer of 1942 it was necessary
to take steps for the provision of a sufficient number of workers
to harvest the crops. A movement to recruit school children was
started, and twenty-eight students from Charlottesville schools enrolled.
Chesley A. Haden of Crozet and others hired 500 workers
from Georgia and North Carolina to pick fruit. The Farm Security
Administration set up a labor camp on the Hunter Ballard property
for these laborers. Describing the 350 workers imported from
Georgia, Chesley A. Haden said: “Carson, a burly Negro, the leader
of the group, had a picturesque method of enforcing discipline. He
gathered them all round the dinner table, got out a yard long knife,
laid it beside him on the table, gave them orders, and they did not
shirk from that time until they left. It is my belief that our native
mountain labor is far more satisfactory for our labor camps than
any labor that we can get from the deep south, or that we can expect
to get through the Employment Service. We have been spoiled about
labor, for there is no doubt that the native mountaineer is far better
than any labor we can hope to get through the present set-up of the
government employment service.” On the whole, this labor camp
was considered a success, since it saved thousands of bushels of
peaches. Its presence, however, was not unaccompanied by problems.
Disease was one. Another was that many more trucks were
required to get the workers home than to bring them northward, as
they had accumulated a great many possessions while they were here.[14]

An exodus of men into the armed services or war industries so
depleted farm labor by 1943 that a cry of protest went up all over
the country. An Albemarle farmer, father of two boys in the Navy,
echoed this outcry in The Daily Progress when he commented,
“Observing our local conditions and press reports, we are headed
undoubtedly for short crops unless draft of farm help ceases immediately.”[15]
The Extension Service made a study of available labor
on Virginia farms and found that there was twenty per cent less than
in 1942. Through questionnaires sent to 2,000 Albemarle County
farms, H. M. Brumback found that 545 additional workers were
needed from January through March, 765 from April through June,
3,590 from July through September, and 1,960 from October
through December.

A County Farm Labor Committee was appointed by the County
War Board to coordinate the effort of local agencies in recruiting and
supplying farm labor needed in the county. Working together with
it to maintain the labor supply were the Extension Service, the local
United States Employment Service office, the Farm Security Administration,
the county and city superintendents of schools, the Lions

Club farm labor and Kiwanis Club agriculture committees appointed
at the request of the Central Virginia Planning Commission, and the
Chamber of Commerce. Representatives from these groups recommended
to Governor Colgate W. Darden, Jr., that deferred agricultural
workers should be presented an emblem in recognition of their
status as laborers engaged in essential war production.

Late in 1942 a new policy for the guidance of Selective Service
Boards in deferring essential farm labor was approved by the Department
of Agriculture, the War Manpower Commission, and farm
organizations. It provided for the deferment of all agricultural
workers who were responsible for sixteen war units of necessary
products or, under exceptional circumstances, even fewer units. A
war unit represented a measure of these products, for examples, one
milch cow, five acres of corn, or one acre of vegetables for canning.
The Daily Progress regarded this system as another of the astonishing
absurdities which the government sought to put into practice.
The unit system did not, in its opinion, seem to be a practical method
of evaluating the potentialities of a farm hand. What was needed,
it argued, was the kind of farm laborer who could and would give
an honest day's work at a wage within which he could live and which
his employer could afford to pay. “There seems to be no more reason
to test him by these units of production than ... to have him produce
those of his public school record.”[16] Despite the editor's adverse
opinion, the unit system actually proved to be locally an equitable
and adaptable system for assuring the deferment of qualified agricultural
workers. In an effort to apply it fairly, the minimum number
of sixteen war units of farm products was lowered to twelve in
reference to registrants who worked on the steeper and less productive
farms of the county; but the minimum remained sixteen for the more
nearly level farms of the community.

In order to relieve the situation of dairy farmers whose labor supply
was most seriously depleted, dairy hands were given a preferred
claim, exceeding even that of other farm workers, upon deferment
under Selective Service. Conscientious objectors were employed on
dairy farms by the Albemarle County Dairy Herd Improvement
Association, but there was only one of these at a time.

Volunteer city workers who could devote full or part time to
the harvesting of crops were asked to register in May, 1943, by the
Central Virginia Planning Commission in cooperation with the
county agent. R. Watson Sadler, chairman of this Commission's
Farm Labor Committee, was assisted by subcommittees from the
Lions Club and the Young Men's Business Club. Wives of the members
of these subcommittees, together with the High School Victory
Corps, were acting as registrars.

Eugene P. Durrette began work as a farm labor assistant in July
of 1943 and placed 683 persons for seasonal work and thirty-seven

for the full year. Though all demands for workers were not fully
met, early freezes and drought that year somewhat reduced the fruit
crops and other harvests, thus permitting a meager labor supply to
complete the work of gathering in the available produce.

The following year, 1944, when weather conditions were favorable
and fruit crops abundant, the demand for labor was even greater.
Between 2,000 and 2,300 workers were needed for the peach crop,
between 1,200 and 1,500 for the apples. Fruit growers recruited
anyone and everyone. On the seventh of August 260 German prisoners
arrived in Crozet. Approximately 240 of them picked peaches
and apples, filled silos, harvested hay, shucked corn, cut pulpwood,
and sawed logs. D. B. Owen, manager of the Crozet Fruit Growers
Cooperative, was active in organizing their work, which, he observed,
was satisfactory on the whole. Occasional peaches branded with a
swastika or the initials PW were taken from the conveyor belts in
packing houses. “It's exactly the same thing as a 15-year-old
thumbing his nose at you,” said Chesley Haden. “Those Germans
are some of the crack troops of the North African campaign—fine
physical specimens—and they're a little rebellious at times. We have
noted a mixed reaction to their work; some growers say they're all
right, and others say they're worthless.” Though not all of their
employers were satisfied with their production, the overall statistical
record of their work belied any merely prejudiced contention that
the German prisoners were worthless as farm laborers. At the end
of four months they had picked 29,803 bushels of peaches, 133,858
bushels of apples, stacked 370,962 board feet of lumber, shucked
906 barrels of corn, cut 74,113 board feet of saw logs and 105 cords
of pulpwood, pruned 450 peach trees, and done 22,794 hours of
general farm work.[17]

Negroes from the Bahama Islands were hired in accordance with
an agreement between the United States and British governments.
In August, 1944, 285 Bahamians picked and packed Albemarle
County peaches; through October 175 of them harvested apples.
H. L. Dunton, D. A. Tucker, and Marvin J. Powell supervised their
work, which was judged excellent. The British accent of the Bahamians
was noticeable to those who worked with them, and their
fondness for bright dress and zoot suits added color to the harvest
scene. Without their aid fruit valued at $525,000 would not have
been picked. “Importing labor and operating a labor camp is an
expensive business,” said County Agent Scott, “but the expense was
much less than the loss to the nation of essential fruit which could
not have been saved otherwise.”[18]

The critical labor shortage in that banner year for local orchards
was partially alleviated by recruits of yet another picturesque kind.
Seventy-five volunteers of the Women's Land Army—college students,
teachers, business women, and others—went into the peach

orchards and packing sheds. Though comparatively few in number,
inexperienced in physical labor, and previously ignorant of the discomfort
which peach fuzz can produce, they learned quickly the techniques
of picking, grading, and packing the fruit. Soon they had
won the respect of their employers. Mrs. Ruth Burruss Huff arranged
with the White Hall Home Demonstration Club women, under the
leadership of their president, Mrs. L. G. Roberts, to serve as hostesses to
the Women's Land Army. They turned out in full strength to greet
these women upon their arrival. Refreshments were served. Mrs. T.
O. Scott, chairman of the Albemarle Home Demonstration Committee,
welcomed them. Ann and Patricia Odend'Hal, who had been active
in 4-H Club work for the past ten years, served as dieticians for
these peach packers, some of whom were accommodated in private
homes and others at the Afton Hotel. “If it came to rating the various
peach pickers, I'd put the girls first, the Bahamians second, and the
Germans last,” Chesley Haden declared. “Those Germans may be
gorgeous hunks of men, but they're not much when it comes to picking
peaches.” Agreeing with this rating, T. O. Scott added that
the Women's Land Army, which assisted in packing peaches from
August 7 to 19, proved more satisfactory than any other special laborers.
“Growers who were fortunate enough to secure their help have
praised them highly as intelligent, efficient, and willing workers,” he
said.[19]

In addition to the previously mentioned groups, men, women,
and children, recruited through Charlottesville civic clubs, radio station
WCHV, The Daily Progress, and the Chamber of Commerce,
worked during the peach harvest for purely patriotic reasons. Also
gathering farm crops and fruit were fifteen prisoners of the Crozet
Convict Camp, without whom much corn and hay would in all
probability not have been gotten safely into silos.[20]

Farmers and fruit growers were still in need of labor in 1945.
Local Extension Service officials received 911 requests for help, and
one or more workers were placed on some 292 farms in the county.
The total number of farm labor placements for 1945 was 4,592. In
cooperation with the War Food Administration and under the supervision
of Hunter Ballard, a camp was again set up near Crozet for
133 Bahamian peach pickers. Percy Abell organized the 200 prisoners
of war who harvested fruit, as well as the seventy-five who worked
on farms throughout the year. In the fall of 1945 resolutions were
adopted by the Albemarle County Farm Bureau and the Crozet Fruit
Growers Cooperative asking that the domestic migratory labor, foreign
labor, and prisoners of war labor programs be continued through
the next year. Funds available from the War Manpower Commission
and the War Food Administration were to be exhausted by
January 1, 1946, the War Department planned to halt the hiring
of prisoners as farm laborers, and discharged servicemen and war

workers were in most instances not returning immediately to the
fields. So the farm labor shortage was not relieved promptly after
firing ceased.

Nevertheless, Albemarle County orchardists managed to keep pace
with other American farmers in producing larger quantities of “foods
for victory” during the war years of generally favorable weather.
Never before had they nursed their trees with such care, though at
times nothing less than genuine genius was required if scarce but
essential insecticides were to be on hand when needed. The number
of trees they tended actually declined—slightly in the case of peaches,
markedly in the instance of apples—but they had to find more bushel
baskets and packing crates, which became nearly as scarce as the proverbial
hens' teeth, almost every year. Prophets of doom who were
positive that each bumper crop in turn could not be duplicated the
next year had to eat crow annually, the single exception of any consequence
being that they had the satisfaction of seeing the weather
become in 1943 a fruit grower's gremlin with results disastrous to
peaches and quite harmful to apples. A hard freeze late in the spring
and a severe hailstorm early in the summer of 1945 brought forth a
rash of local predictions that production that year would not exceed
ten per cent of normal. But someone evidently forgot in that busy
year of victory to inform Mother Nature that less was expected of
her in Albemarle County. A few months later orchardists' joy over
the Japanese surrender was tempered with worry over the question
whether the drooping limbs of their trees, laden with another bumper
crop of unprecedented or almost unprecedented quantity and quality,
could continue to support the weight of the fruit until it could be
picked. Official figures compiled by the Department of Agriculture
summarize eloquently the epic saga of Albemarle County fruit growers'
victory over the multitudinous enemies of greater food production.

                     

	1940	1945
Apples
Number of farms reporting	1,011	1,168
Number of trees of all ages	356,626	286,555
Number of bushels harvested	583,580	828,952
Value	$390,999	$1,616,456
Peaches
Number of farms reporting	541	758
Number of trees of all ages	288,403	282,034
Number of bushels harvested	229,026	534,067
Value	$240,477	$1,388,574

The volume of apples produced was increased by fifty per cent and
their value by 200 per cent; the value of the peach crop was multiplied
by six while its bulk was merely doubled. The sharp distinctions between
volume and value revealed by these contrasts point to the delusion
which was implicit but hidden in the illusion of apparent prosperity.
Only if the orchardists faced the fact that every thing and every
service they bought cost more, that dollars which came in relatively
copious quantities had declined in purchasing power in inverse ratio
to the rising dollar value of their product, would they lift the veil
of understanding. By so doing they could expose the deceitful disguise
of glittering gilt which masked a boom not truly golden. Like
the beauty of a face camouflaged with too many cosmetics, such inflationary
prosperity was not deep-seated and probably would not
prove to be lasting.

The significant feature of their wartime experience was, therefore,
to be found in the trustworthy fact that they vastly increased the
physical bulk of their production of very tangible and very desperately
needed foods. Where one apple or one peach had been harvested
before, they contrived to pick one and one-half apples or two
peaches. When the nation and the world needed more fruit, the
farmers of Albemarle County did their share—and more—to make
it available.[21]