Did you get paid for farm work?

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
Growing up when my brothers, and my self were old enough to help Dad, we did. No matter what it was we did it. We were never paid a wage per hour. In fact I don't remember getting paid much. We didn't get an allowance, but we always seamed to have a little money for different things we wanted, so we must have got some money. I remember asking Dad if I cold get paid. I still remember what he said: I guess If I were laying in a ditch you would ask for money to pull me out. The only one who got paid was Mexican Joe. He got three dollars a day, and ate with us. He lived in a little shack on the place. That was back in the 50's. Boy how times have changed We did have good clothes, good food, and a loving Mom and Dad. Stan
 
By the time I was dating, a twenty on Saturday night, and a tank of .25 a gal gas. I made my money putting up hay for the neighbors.
 
I never got paid but I never did without. I even helped my uncle put up hay for free. I never thought much about it I just thought that was what I was supposed to do.
 
I must have been on the same plan as 504, a 20 and a tank of gas.
I remember asking for a raise...............that did not turn out to good. So 20 it was.
 
When we were kids, we did get paid for walking and weeding our soybean fields. We grew seed back then, and we had to have clean fields for seed production. Pretty much any other tasks were not paid, including baling and stacking hay, repair to buildings, and operating equipment. I guess I loved operating equipment, and it was kind of like a vacation for me, especially if I could get out of a few days of school to do that sort of work.
 
We got paid for work off our farm from neighbors. When we were working on family tasks or even working custom with Pa for neighbors we didn't get paid. With that said we were furnished with shelter, heat, clothes, food, fairly abundant use of the vehicle, and when we reached that age we were given enough spending money to satisfy our curiosity.
 
Never got paid for doing chores for Dad, never had an allowance, either. When I started driving tractor for Grandpa, he'd sometimes give me a silver dollar. Never spent them...still around here somewhere. By the time I was in highschool, Grandpa's parkinsons disease was advanced enough that he couldn't drive tractor any more, and Dad was still teaching and never liked tractors, so I did pretty much all of it, while Dad and Mom did the barn chores (I helped there, too). At that point, I did get paid, something like $200/month.
 
I never got paid cash, but had plenty to eat and clothes. Had gas for the free car one of our Landlords gave me. Didn't really know any better. Wasn't until I got out of high school and got a job that I started finding out what I had missed..lol! I just thought, that being the oldest boy, I was destined to be slave labor - Bob
 
Never was discussed. Never even thought about. We just all did what needed to be done. Folks bought our food clothing and shelter. When we went to the county fairs or state fair they paid for all the food and fun. As soon as I was old enough I started helping neighbors with farm work, mostly baling hay. Folks bought us all used bicycles but when I wanted a new bike I had to pay for myself. Wouldn't change a thing about my childhood.
 
I remember in the mid'50's, I would have been 9 or 10 years old, my dad suddenly offered a 50 cent-per-week allowance. Man, I was pretty excited, couldn't wait to get out and do stuff in the yard, etc. I think that lasted for maybe a week, perhaps two weeks ..... and then it just sort of disappeared into the stratosphere. I still did the same jobs around home but didn't seem to have the same enthusiasm .... ha! I don't remember giving my own kids an allowance but of course, you paid for things they needed and some extra stuff too I guess.
 
Never got paid for anything at home, you were expected to help. Got paid $1 per hr when I bucked bales for neighbors.
 

We usually never got paid or an allowance, but I was able to raise hogs when I got in high school so I had a pretty good checking account by the time I went off to college. We also grew cucumbers for Gedney a few summers and were able to make some money that way. Once I remember Dad paid us 10 cents a hundred for pulling milk weeds in the corn...we ran out of milkweeds to pull :D
 
My older brother and I both had laying hens from a very young age, my Daddy had around 2500 hens, we fed all the chickens and gathered, washed, candled, graded and boxed all the eggs, we delivered our own eggs and a man came after his, he did not pay us in money but He furnished the hen house buildings with electricity plus water and we never paid any rent, we did pay for feed and egg cartons and replacement pullets. It was the same way with the sheep and cattle, we had a few head and they ran with his, we cared for the livestock and we paid no rent, free water and salt, paid for feed, pay a little on lime and fertilize, he never charged anything to haul our livestock to the fair or sale barn. We also paid a share on Rams and Bulls. We did the field work and fencing etc. along the same lines, got the broke bales and corn picked up in the field after the picker free and paid a share on the rest of the home grown feed we used. Work in the garden, grass mowing, orchard pruning and anything our Mama told us to do was all part of being a member of the family. He was more than fair to us and he taught us to save our money though we always had some jingle in our pockets.
 
37 Chief I was told you have clothes shoes boots a roof over your head and plenty to eat end of story. RB
 
When I was in my early teens in the mid 70's they would pay me $2.00 an hour, and if I wasn't paid then I would get hunting privileges on the property, always rather have the money as I wouldn't interested in hunting much at the time so there were lot of days you could say I worked for zero
 
Grandpa gave my sister an I each an orphan lamb to bottle feed and eat grass that sold for a couple Bucks each at the Chicago Stock yards. Money went into our savings account. Never had much money till I was a teenager. Summer I was 14 the BTO came over one morning to ask Dad if he could hire me. Was June 1st and he still had most of his beans and some corn to plant and needed to cut hay for haylage in a couple days. That all turned into a 6 day a week 12 hour a day job for 6-7 weeks. Then I had some pocket money! I worked for him every spring and sometimes in fall for 7-8 years. Paid cash for my first car, 3 yr old Chevy Nova. And wasted lots of money on various too small & too slow motorcycles.

Always seemed to have 2-3 jobs available to keep me busy. Dad had lots of friends who appreciated the help and paid well.

It got to the point one fall before I went back to College Dad asked if I could loan him the $3000 to make the next farm payment. I wrote him a check on the spot without question. He repaid me when I was home at Christmas. My Day job that summer was the Township road commissioner. I got paid once a month, Township board had to approve my check. I knew what it was like to be out of cash. I worked two part time jobs that summer for Pocket money.
 
I never got a regular wage either, but dad would give me money from time to time for comic books and ice cream bars. By the time I was driving, dad ran a tab at the local gas station, and I could fill up when I needed to. I always seemed to have money. I started working after 8th grade graduation, but still got Prom money and such from dad as needed.

The telephone guy came one afternoon in the summer, when I was about 12- said he had to turn the phone off, because mom had apparently forgotten to pay the bill. I told the guy we didn't have any cash but I could write him a check (I was already raising cattle and the feed store guy had helped me set up a checking account). He said he couldn't take a check from me, but was there anywhere around that would cash my check so I could give him cash? I told him the service station, about 2 miles away, so we jumped in his rig and went there. I told Mr. Hughey that I needed 8 dollars and some cents to pay the phone bill, and would he cash my check? He said, "No need to waste a check"- and he just gave me the money out of the till. The phone guy got quite a kick out of it.

As I was getting out when he took me home, he said "Glad we could get this taken care of without the expense of a disconnect, and thanks for giving me a good story to tell the guys back at the shop."
 
Working in the family dairy growing up, I got the usual--food, clothing, shelter. I got a small allowance, maybe 25 cents. When I was a teenager Dad went into business with another guy to cut and bale hay for the surrounding area. Few people owned balers then. Dad and I did all the cutting, other guy did the baling. We did this for several summers. Dad paid me $1.00 an hour--a pretty good wage back then.
 
We shipped can milk back then and when we were old enough to start being of some help,Dad gave us each a cow and we got our own can number,so we each got a milk check of our own. I think I was 9 when he gave me a Jersey. I probably wasn't that much help in the barn at that age,but I did have to pitch the manure out of the gutter in one side of the barn every afternoon after school at that age. My older sister pitched out the other side. I did as much field work as I could at the time,raking hay,dragging,that kind of thing.
When your cow was dry,you still had to do the work,you just didn't have an income from it until she freshened and you started shipping milk again.

My cows seemed to keep having heifer calves so by the time Dad got mad at the milk inspector and quit just before I turned 16,I think I had 9 head with 7 milking or some such thing. I guess getting a milk check since I was 9 was part of what made it so scary to quit milking cows when I was 48.
 
I was never paid but I never went hungry. My father in law thought his kids owed HIM. Gets my dander up just thinking about his morals
 
I never got paid when my Dad threw me in to help neighbors he swapped out labor with but he would pay me $120.00 at the end of Summer and my Uncle would slip me cash or once bought me a huge slot car race track which was way cool! We did tobacco and about 15,000 square bales a year the hardest way my elders could figure how to do it. I never felt cheated.
Wish I could go back---just for a little while :)
 
Nope - not a cent. We all just worked together to get done what needed doing: chores, barn cleaning, gardening/canning/freezing produce, fieldwork, housework, hand dad tools when he was doing mechanic work, take out the trash, etc.

However, with me being the youngest kid - by the time I was 10, Dad rented out the farmland and sold his all his livestock. So Dad had me take over mowing the entire building site with his Cub Cadet (except for the road ditches because they were high and steep)... since he still worked a full-time factory job until my senior year of high school and all my siblings had graduated except one sister who was NOT an outside kind of kid.

Mom and dad would let me go with them to movies at the theater, out to eat at the occasional "supper club" as they called a nice restaurant back in the day... and I got to travel to Colorado and to Massachusetts to visit my older siblings (who all eventually moved back to Minnesota). Dad also rented a cabin on Lake Vermilion the last several summers of my high school years - so I got to vacation more frequently than my older siblings ever did.

The icing on the top of the cake was... dad got new Mercury for my mom... so in high school I got to use their older Cadillac to go hang with friends and "cruise main".

Life was GOOD! I'd do it all over again... in a heartbeat!! :)
 
I never got paid by my dad as a wage but he'd buy something I wanted within reason of course.When I was about 7 I got into raising Game Chickens,pheasants,quail,peafowl etc with the help
of my grandmother,we were great 'buddies'.Even back in the 60's really good purebred game roosters would bring $25 and up as I was able to obtain some top quality breeder stock.From then until I graduated high school I had a pretty good business going.Also when each of us grand kids were born my grandfather gave us a cow and the money from the calf was put in the bank in our own account every year.Was a student school bus driver in high school to make money,also did some bush hogging and other jobs with our equipment.My dad was very supportive of us making money on our own so that helped a lot.He used to say any fool can save a little money the important thing is to learn how to make money.
 
My sister and I fed the calves twice a day- usually 10 or 12 at any given time. Their water was a half a 55 gallon drum, which we filled with buckets from the main watering trough about 20 feet away. Sometimes took a lot of buckets, especially since we were too little to fill them. Sister and I got the bright idea that we should buy a hose- put it on the faucet that kept the main trough full, then take it off when we were done. We pooled our money, and next time we went to town with mom, went to the Coast to Coast store and bought the cheapest 25 foot hose, probably 2 or 3 bucks. We were all excited when we told her about our great idea. She smiled, but didn't say anything. That night, my sis overheard mom "tearing the rag of the bush" about it with Dad- she told him in no uncertain terms that her kids were not going to spend their own money on supplies for "his" farm. Sure enough, next day he came to us and told us what a good idea that was, and that he wanted to buy our hose from us for the farm. We didn't let on like we knew anything had happened. Sure did make life easier.
 
I never got paid. My little brother told dad that he wanted to get paid. Dad told him you are getting paid. But after I take out for rent,food and other items you use around here. You have nothing left.
 
I started working outside the farm when I was twelve. Used to work for a dollar a day plus meals, if I did good I usually got a beer or some homemade wine. Still had to do all the chores at home. Still It was great to have my own money. Worked for my grandmother one summer when I was 16 and mom couldn't take care of us. Uncle went on vacation and left Me to take care of the dairy farm. At the end of three months she handed me a twenty. I said that wasn't right. She told me I had to pay for my sisters room and board. LOL last time I worked there.
 
An older brother told me to take care of the chickens and he would pay me .01 per dozen eggs that I collected. I kept a tally and after several months asked bro to pay up. He had 'forgotten' the deal and of course I didn't have it in writing.

Another older brother farmed me out to a useless lazy cousin. Worked my donkey off all summer for $20.00 and he didn't want to pay that.
 
For Dad? Surely you jest. Wouldn't have occurred to me to ask.

Hired out during hay season most summers after I was big enough, also hired out to a dairy a couple of miles from us for morning and evening chores.
 
not per hour ,,.it was rarely we did recieve a stipend of some kind ,We Never expected it , But P.op Always knew when Morale needed aboost . i recall getting potato money, cantalope ,greenbeans , sweetcorn ,and boy we hit the motherlode with turnip greens ,, we cut most those in the rain one wet fall ..and i think we each got 40 bux for a weeks work after school ,. WOW ! , whenever those crops were done, dad would divvy up some cash to us,so we could buy our own shoes,.. LOL ,. money was not abundant ,but we always had some to spare, and enuf for the fair .. I did get a bicycle for being on the Honor roll ,,. my sister was 10 yr older and she never did,get anything ,. and said so ,LOL ,..so Dad gave her the 57 Desoto ,lookin back i wisht i woulda got that instead of the bike ,. LOL .. Dad Would Get us new Shoes when the Tobacco crop Sold , Bought Us a new Transplanter for all thetobacco and tomatos , peppers ect,. we had at least 10 acres of cultivated hand work crop .. bought us nice equipment to work with ,You all Work Good and i will Get You nice stuff to work with that will last ,,.. and told us to keep it looking nice,. and WE Did ,..
 
I had plenty to eat, clothes to wear and a bed to sleep in at night. If I was sick I got as good of medical attention as there was available. That is pretty darn good pay. In addition I was taught a work ethic that made me realize that nothing is free. I was taught responsibility and compassion. That is better pay than many recieve today.
After I was old enough to, I hauled hay and cleaned out barns for folding money. By the time I got to HS I had bought a few cows that Dad let me run with his. I was charged a monthly rent for each cow so that I learned that the sale of the calves weren't 100% profit.
So looking back, I was paid a millionaire's wage.
 
At 15 I got $15 per week in the summer and $30 month during the winter. At 16 I got alot more but we were buying and selling machinery as well as farming and some weeks I would buy some machinery at auctions for Dad that would make him several thousand dollars. As I got money I started buying weights,top links and hyd cylinders and latter implements to sell. Tom
 
My childhood seems similar to most of the replies. Worked at home for room and board, but if I worked for any of the neighbors, haying or other work anything I received was mine. Bought my first vehicle, 1971 F-150 for cash that I'd earned. Dad went with me and checked it out, said he felt it was a decent buy so if I wanted to too go ahead. However the upkeep was on me. Bought it in 1976 and drove it until 1981.
 
All of us kids helped out with work on the farm, there were 4 boys and 4 girls so everyone had something to do. Got new clothes for school, an ice cream for extra hard work and a bit of cash now and then for major jobs. Not to brag, but none of our parents kids were ever in trouble with the law, all finished post secondary education of some sort, and all have their original spouse. Their parenting was far more valuable than any monetary return. Ben
 
We sold milk from the tank to a few neighbors and my 2 brothers and I shared that money, maybe $10 a month or so split 3 ways. That was til I got my driver's license at 15, then I got a car, the insurance, all the gas I could burn, and $20.00 a week. Of course I had to milk the cows twice a day plus all the other work too. But I had more than most others my age.
 
Never got paid. Daddy raised 15-16 acres of dark tobacco, and we put up enough square bales for 150 cows. Stayed busy most everyday all day. He drouthed out, and lost it all. Made a big impression on me. Hard work does not always equate to success.
 
Good point,I'll have to say looking back over the years probably made the least amount of money when I was working the hardest.Sometimes I made more on a Saturday at an auction than I did
working all week.After awhile I decided to quit the job.
 
Didn't get paid for work on the family farm, but got 3 squares and a bed. The sheep were mine and sold the wool and lambs. Sheared sheep for some neighbors and got paid for that. Had a newspaper route that paid for my bicycle to deliver the papers. One neighbor gave me the wool from his 21 sheep for my shearing them - thought I hit the lottery!
 
Clothes on my back, shoes to wear, and all the food I could eat. He always let me work for the neighbors when they called to make money. But with a brother a year younger, I started punching a clock when I was 15(1986)$2.85 in town for the greenhouse, put more hours there then did on farm(also kept me out of trouble). Been punching a clock ever since.
 
This was in the mid to late 90's, but I was paid a flat monthly wage $215 a month. (Accountant told parents this was a good way to do it) I remember asking one summer if I could get paid a little more during the spring and summer months. My dad being the easy going guy he was said no problem, we'll just pay you less in the winter. I left it alone after that. My parents were very good to me. Neighbors always called for baling hay, and if ours was off, I was free to go and make extra money. I had it pretty made, now that I look back. Dad retired and sold the farm when I graduated high school, and helped me out immensely with college. Forever grateful to that farm and my parents!
 
I never got paid directly for doing farm work. I got "paid" by having a place to live with my wife until we saved up for our own place.
 
Parents put us kids on a commission program where we got part of the take on what we did on the farm. Of course we were part timers on the farm and some enterprises didn't have sales so we pretty much worked those chores for free. I milked the cows and we bootlegged raw milk to a few friends and acquaintances I got half of what we sold milk for but of course didn't get anything on what we drank or feed to calves, on our sow operation us kids all had a sow or two and got the proceeds from the feeder pigs on our sows. In the long run it probably made us more available for work on the home farm as we weren't off all the time working for someone else.
 
There was a list of chores to do at our house that my sister and I split up, with no allowance that I remember.

I loved working on the farm, and remember when Grandpa called me into his office after a day/night of baling and putting the hay away. He had written me a check for like $10. Had me sign it, then paid me $10 cash. Said he needed the check for his records, and it saved me going to the bank. I didn't care, I would have done every minute of the work for free. Good thing, because now I do!

I remember stopping on the way home from football practice one night, saw the ornery old neighbor baling hay at his place all by himself. I just walked out and jumped on the wagon. A couple of days later, Mom told me that GrandMa and Grandpa were bursting their buttons, the neighbor came by and told them how I had stopped to help and would not take any money. He was so thankful, and they were so proud. Worth more to me than any money he could have given me.

I wish I had done a better job with my kids, giving them animals or acres to do their own thing and learn the ropes.
 
Never got paid doing chores. Once in a while when dad sold a load of hogs he would sell one in my name. Never paid any attention how often he did it, just figured it was my duty to help with the work. As far back as I can remember every time dad left the house it was come on lets go. Started helping a neighbor farm when I was around 13 years old. My first paycheck. Had my own bank account, but never had any need to spend any money till I joined the Army. Had to buy my own train ticket to basic training. After I had my first job loaned dad some money to buy a new tractor. Think I had the best life any farm boy could wish for.
 
Suckering corn as a kid. Frank the farmer and owner would have 50 and 75 cent rows. Sore back after three rows. After school let out he would hire us at dollar an hour. Mrs. Blehl his supervisor would fire my friend Schwepp and I after three days working. Next year Frank would give us a job again and Mrs. Blehl would fire us again. We didn't make a third year. Fortunately my work habits changed after high school.
 
Growing up on a farm with 4 brothers and 2 sister and I was next to the oldest, We all got paid. It was 3 squares a day and new clothes to start school each year. We didn't need much money and seemed it was always short, but if you really needed some it came from somewhere. It was a good life any way.
 
Paid for farm work while growing up? Yeah, right! Topic never came up, can"t imagine it if it had. Allowance? Not in the vocabulary. In the 50s, that was not an issue. Getting an animal to raise and sell? No. Never had a chance to earn any money by working for a neighbor- most had plenty of kids, and if they didn"t, I couldn"t help anyway, with my only brother 9 years older, and gone from home, so I was always the choreboy. I had one classmate who when we were Seniors, talked about working for his neighbor, shoveling shxx into a spreader, for 50 cents a load.

After HS graduation, 17 yrs old, I worked at home, the balance of the year, for an oats crop on 17 acres on a recently purchased 320 acre farm. I was the push behind buying that farm, and they sold it a year later for 5 grand more. (1962) I got $65 for that crop...then 7 months later I turned 18, and worked for 3 years at $125 per month, plus room and board. Dairy farm, 7 days a week. Paid mileage to use the car to go anywhere, except to church. At age 20 I got the same story about working for parents for another 3 years, and could take over the farm. Enlisted in the army paratroopers, volunteered for Green Berets, served overseas, went to college, and started farming from scratch on my own. Best thing I ever did was to leave home.

When we raised our 6 kids, they didn"t get an allowance. Mrs, raised in town, mentioned it, but we couldn"t afford it, so it got dropped. But, when each were in high school, last two years, I came up with a plan, like an FFA gilt ring, where they each had 4 sows, and got all of the pigs from them. We paid for sow and litter feed, and they could sell them as feeders, or feed them out, and repay the feed cost. Each had to give 4 bred gilts to the next sibling. Each left home with about $5000 for college money. With youngest daughter, we were out of raising hogs, so I sold equivalent bucks of dairy animals in her name.
 
My dad died when I was five, two of my three older brothers did the farming until about 1960 and one took another job. I had some chores to do and as soon as I could steer a farmall M I drove on the baler with my brother loading the wagon, then raked hay and a little later did most of the mowing/conditioning and raking. Mowed hay for the neighbors now and then and got paid. Never really had an allowance but mom would give me a little money now/then and when I got a little older my brother would come across with some money when he sold hogs, don't remember how much but I had enough saved to pay for my first car, a year old red 64 Chevy Impala 2 door that I didn't drive much cause there was always work to do around the farm. I didn't mind plowing or disking most of the night but I hated doing chores, sorting hogs, didn't milk much but hated when I did. But I guess I got treated ok and the experience didn't hurt me.
 
Only got paid for picking rocks and hauling hay, any thing else was just for the good of the family. Went down the road and worked for a dairy farmer , and got paid for every hour I was there , for every thing I did, and he was glad to get me. Left home at 18, no future for me to say on with dad, and he made the point clear enough. I paid my boys by giving them wages for haying , and calves to raise and sell for themselves. One boy liked the deal and is still farming with me , the other two hated it , didn't like farm work , and just wanted money. Funny part is , they both have jobs away from the farm , and still have no money, lol.
 
Nope! Never got paid, got farmed out to everybody else without pay also. Just the way it was I guess. Never complaned, just did it.
 
The only time I remember getting paid to farm work was the year Grandpa and Daddy planted 7 acres of cucumbers for market. They paid some of us to get them picked.
 
Yeah we got paid. We got a roof over our heads, heated, 3 meals a day plus snacks, clothing on our back, and a dollar a week allowance.
 
Started helping out for real in 1980 (I was 13). Dad usually gave me a 20 at the end of the job (we were custom cutting and baling hay). The next year he gave me $3 an hour. After that he gave me a third of the hay the next year and told me to take over. He was working for the state then in a cabinet undersecretary position so he was travelling a lot.
 
(reply to post at 10:27:12 08/14/17)
I suppose that I was more fortunate than most of the posts I read here. Back in the early 1960's we had about 16,000 egg laying chickens, a fair number of feeder pigs and 70 acres of crops. The chores typically would take up about 2 hours in the morning and another 2 hours in the late afternoon. I was big in the FFA in my high school years and had projects of some number of poultry, pigs and crops. My dad would fund these projects and I would get any profits. So these profits paid for my first car as a HS Junior .. a red 1960 Chevy Impala convertible (which lead to my HS girlfriend, but that's another story!) ! I'd estimate that I averaged at least 3 hours a day of labor when taken over a 7 day week and 52 weeks a year. Or around 1000 hours of labor a year. So I think I was fairly paid!
 
I grew up on a small farm, never got paid for doing chores or helping out, I figured that we got fed, a roof over our heads, a good home. That was pay enough for me.
 

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