A lot of seasonal work was paid as piece time, and a lot of it was both hard and backbreaking, and the men had to look for different jobs as the seasons progressed. George Newman also talks about this here.

The village women also did seasonal work - largely fruit picking in the summer and sprout trimming in the winter.  Certainly the sprout trimming was piece work, and the ladies involved were always upset when they had no work to do as they got ahead of the men who were bringing the sprout stalks in from the fields…    Bernard Ellis describes this vividly here!