Another convenience derived from the employment of Japanese farm labor is the "boss system." It is a form of contract labor in which a farmer employs workers on his farm as a united body through its representative or boss. This frees the farmer from the care of overseeing the work, of arranging the wages with the workers, and of taking other troubles. Although this system has given rise to many regrettable complications through the occasional failure of the Japanese to observe their contracts, which leads to the general belief that the Japanese are unreliable and dishonest; nevertheless, this "boss system" remains as the one distinct feature of Japanese farm labor which is welcomed by the California farmers. There is one more characteristic of the Japanese farm laborers which is unique and extremely important. They are by habit and constitution adapted to the garden farming which prevails in California. Fruit and berry picking, trimming and hoeing, transplanting and nursery work, which require manual dexterity, quick action, and stooping over or squatting, are singularly suited to the Japanese. No other race, save possibly the Chinese, can compete with the Japanese in this sort of field labor. With their training in intensive cultivation, with physical adaptation to the important agricultural industries of California, and with the rapid transitory capacity and advantageous system of contract labor, the Japanese farm laborers constitute an important asset to the agriculture of California. There are, however, serious charges made against this class of Japanese. Perhaps the most pertinent criticism of them is that they do not observe contracts or promises. This question was very ably discussed by Professor Millis in his valuable book, _The Japanese Problem in the United States_, as follows: Much has been heard to the effect that the Japanese are not honest in contractual relations.... So far as it relates to the business relations of the farmers, there has been not a little complaint. Much of it, however, appears to have been due to their inability to understand all the details of a contract they could not read. In recent years more care has been taken to understand all of the conditions of the contract entered into, and the charges of breach of contract have become much fewer. Another source of misunderstanding has been that some of the Japanese, who think more in personal terms and less in terms of contract than the Americans, have sought to secure a change in their leases when they proved to be bad bargains, and have occasionally left their holdings in order to avoid loss. A third fact is that formerly some undesirable Japanese secured leases. These, however, have gradually fallen out of the class of tenants, so that most of those who remain are efficient and desirable farmers.[31]