come with his team of horses for which he received additional wages. In
another variation groups of workers would organize into crews to perform
a specific function (for example, to fill a silo) and travelled from
farm to farm accomplishing this special task.[72]

Many of the laborers in the Floris area came from Willard, a community
of both whites and blacks, just over the Loudoun County line. About 85%
of Fairfax County's black population owned no land in 1934 and supported
themselves solely by agricultural labor.[73] Unlike this large landless
majority, many of Willard's families owned three to fifteen acres of
land. Most of these families grew vegetables on their land and nearly
all kept a cow.[74] A few black families tried to support themselves by
truck gardening, a difficult task when competing with larger more
economical farms. One such farmer, Ernest E. Webb, struggled to maintain
his children by selling vegetables in the city market. Biweekly he took
his goods by wagon across the low, unstable Chain Bridge and along Canal
Road to the markets in Washington, but for this long, exhausting trip
his profits were slim: "We made enough to come back home, feed the
horses, and feed ourselves a little for another trip."[75] To eke out an
existence, most blacks had to supplement any farming income they might
have by working as agricultural laborers.

Those laborers who did not have steady employment had to wait for work
until they were needed for a specific job. When a farmer wanted extra
help, he went to the black community, or sent word by someone else, and
detailed the number of men needed and the job to be done. "In the spring
my father would go up there [to Willard] or send me up there to see if I
could get three or four fellows to help get the spring work going,"
remarked Holden Harrison. "Maybe you could get them and maybe you
couldn't."[76] Sometimes there was a labor shortage, but frequently more
men wanted work than there were jobs to go around. Several area
residents remembered that if word got out that ten men were needed for a
job, often fifteen or more would show up.[77] This was especially true
during the agricultural depression of the 1920s and 1930s, which hit
blacks far worse than the county's white population. The blacks'
landholdings were of inferior quality and generally too small for
efficient operation, and this, combined with their meagre operating
capital and inadequate reserves, made the black