The nature of work/status of the farm labourer can differ according to which part of the country the worker was living in apparently, and as the 19th century went on, things also changed. I've just been reading a paper from 1988 -
Rural Life in SW Lancashire 1840-1914 which discusses this question, so I might 'go on' a bit here
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The 'farm servant' was generally employed directly and continuously by one farmer (and farmers themselves were almost always tenant farmers) and if he/she lived in then they were classed as an 'indoor servant'. Most such did literally live in as otherwise the farmer would be responsible for building them a cottage, and in SW Lancashire that was something the farmers classed as responsibility of the landlords (e.g. Lord Derby, the Count de Casteja etc). You can also see from census returns from that area that specifically domestic staff were recorded as such. I think in general, that if someone is listed as a 'farm servant' but living in his own address, then he must have worked for a farmer who either owned his own land or had a very good landlord.
As time goes on you can see that a man who might have been listed as 'farm servant' might instead be listed as 'carter' or whatever his special job on the farm might be. Also, the use of 'farm servants' dies out gradually after a while.
Those who were employed as 'agricultural labourers' were generally either 'datallers' or 'teamsmen', the latter engaged with work involving horses such as ploughing and carting. The 'dataller' was employed on a 'day rate' though in practice he would be in pretty much continuous employment in that district, extra labour was generally bought in from Ireland or provided by wives and children in potato picking seasons (even in the 1970s we called our autumn school holiday 'potato picking week'). In the 20th century, my grandad and his brother were agricultural labourers, but they actually were employed by specialist teams who roamed the district providing threshing services.
Also in that district there were no hiring fairs, wage rates were published in local newspapers, and there were more than the usual number of small farms owing to the high fertility of the land being very productive. Often on small farms, they might employ a youngster as a 'farm seravnt' but otherwise use family and agricultural labourers.
