In the large number of schools that ran farms, there was a lot of work to be done. Keeping dairy cows was especially prevalent because the schools could make use of the milk they provided. Often students could not understand why their dining hall was supplied only with the thinnest of skim milk and lard rather than butter, though they knew that the staff dining room had cream and butter as a general rule. The explanation in at least one school, the Mohawk Institute in the 1920s, was that the principal sold some of the marketable produce, such as butter and eggs, to obtain delicacies and luxuries for himself and his family.

      Farming's seasonal rhythms presented school authorities and inmates with peculiar challenges. Planting and harvesting crops had to be done at particular times, when temperature and precipitation permitted or required. The mechanical schedule of a school curriculum ran head on into these natural pressures.

      The most demanding phase of the agricultural year was the harvest, when most students had just returned front summer vacation. It was quite common on such occasions to pull all the children who were capable of helping from class until the gathering was completed.

      What is astonishing is that school officials seemed only dimly aware of the impact such demands on child labour were likely to have on academic performance. An Oblate brother at Lestock, Saskatchewan, seemed oblivious to the fact that he was not recording a coincidence when he reported in the autumn of 1923 that the harvest had required extra hard work and that the school inspector had not been impressed with the classroom performance of the students.