The study concerns the impact of nonfarm employment opportunities on the hired farm labor force and is based on surveys of labor on farms near one new, one expanded, and one old-established town in eastern England, supplemented with findings of other British studies on mobility of farm workers. The main questions considered are the influence of distance from urban industrial centers on the rate of labor withdrawal from agriculture, the ways in which occupational mobility occurs, and the consequences for workers remaining on farms. Some previous studies have shown that net loses of hired workers are greater from farms near towns; others that urban development helps to stabilize the labor force on nearby farms. In the present study net losses were generally heavier from farms in more isolated areas. The rate at which workers leave farms, their reasons for leaving, and subsequent occupations vary with the strength and nature of demand for labor locally and the length of time alternatives have been available. Better terms of employment for farm workers in areas of high labor competition and advantages for their families of proximity to a town also help to retain workers on farms in more urbanized areas. (Author)