It's a good way of quickly training up farmers. Set them to climbing the tree. Each time they succeed in getting off the ground yank them off again and drop them on the tree to start again. Although they'll fail around half the time, just keep dropping them on the tree and dragging them off until they become trainee farmers. You can then drop them in the sea or the crops to start work, and they can usually be left on their own. It's much faster than waiting for them to complete (or fail) a fishing or harvesting cycle to advance their farming skills.