farm for more than a year. They are not only unable to lay by any money, but their children remain uneducated and half clothed. The system is apparently one of the most undesirable, so far as its effect on the community is concerned, without, of course, implying any questionable motive to the owner of the land. The landowner himself is not necessarily at fault. He is obliged to be liberal in furnishing supplies and stock to the tenant, whose manner of using these resources may be the most wasteful. During unfavorable years, the profit may wholly disappear or leave a deficit in his account, so that during favorable years it is necessary to make good the loss.

The tenant system or crop-sharing system, which seems to be the prevailing feature of land tenure throughout the cotton belt, is not regarded as an advantageous arrangement between the tenants and landlords, but, on the contrary, would be gladly gotten rid of for a better system if the conditions permitted it. Where the tenant system prevails, the tenant is furnished with a house, water, fuel, pasturage for his stock, a share of the fruit on the place, a garden, a shelter for stock, and storage for crops. The crop is in some cases divided as follows: One-fourth of the cotton, one-third of the corn, and one-half of the small grain goes to the landlord, the balance to the tenant, the landlord furnishing the land and stock and his share of the fertilizers. Under this system the crop, to a great extent, and the land, generally, are apt to be neglected. The tenant is desirous of expending as little labor as possible and the landlord of getting the largest crop return. The permanent value of the land is apt to be sacrificed for lack of competent supervision, and deterioration of the property in general is quite certain to grow at a more rapid rate than under a different system of occupancy. The renter has little or no interest in the maintenance of permanent improvements. This is especially true where the contract is made for a year at a time, admitting of frequent changes of tenants and enabling them to evade the responsibilities of careful management and methods of cultivation. Consequently both the permanent improvements and the quality of the soil deteriorate under this system. The tenant is, furthermore, at a disadvantage in exchanging his crop for family supplies. He sells his corn at the lowest price to the country merchant from whom he gets his provisions in exchange, paying the highest price the country merchant sees fit to demand. This same corn which is sold early in the fall may have to be bought back from the country merchant by the tenant late in the winter at from 50 to 100 per cent advance. The economic effects of such a system are to the disadvantage of the

tenant in both transactions, both as a producer and a consumer, and no system of such a character has in the history of agriculture ever led, if uncorrected, to anything but failure.

III. AGRICULTURE AND LABOR

A. Workers in Agriculture, 1850-19101

Although the number of persons engaged in agriculture increased almost sixfold during the period 1850-1910, the relative number decreased. In 1850 almost one-half the persons engaged in gainful occupations were on the farms, while in 1910 less than one-third of them were so engaged.

(a) Exclusive of lumbermen, raftsmen, woodchoppers, apiarists, fishermen, oystermen, foresters, owners and managers of log and timber camps, and those engaged in other agricultural and annual husbandry pursuits, so far as separately reported. (b) Free males over fifteen years of age. (c) Free males and females over fifteen years of age. (d) Males and females over ten years of age.

B. Foreigners in American Agriculture, 18992

Contrary to popular opinion many of what are usually called the "later immigrants" have gone into agriculture. The character and extent of this movement is indicated in the following extract:

The overflow of foreign-born population in the cities has turned attention recently to the cultivation of land as a field for immigrants

1 Adapted from the Census Reports, 1850-1910, by Dr. Charles L. Stewart, of the University of Illinois.

2 Final Report of the Industrial Commission (Washington, 1902), Volume XIX of the Commission's Report, 49-54.

to the United States. Among the most successful nationalities are the Italians. Most of them, in southern Italy especially, have been trained in the methods of intensive agriculture. One drawback hitherto has been the absence of any village system of living on the part of the rural population of the United States, such as characterizes agricultural society in Italy, Hungary, and through many portions of Germany and France. Where systematic efforts have been made under the colonizing principle, many communities of farmers have been established in the United States. Among these may be noted, first, the Italian colony at Vineland, N. J. These foreigners brought with them the knowledge of grape culture and wine manufacture; but afterwards, finding that truck farming and the cultivation of sweet potatoes were more profitable, the grape industry became a less important feature of the colony's activity.

Another colony of the same nationality, comprising about 500 persons, has flourished in Brazos County, Tex. There the industry is rice and truck farming. Throughout Texas there are many Italian cotton planters, as well as grape growers. In the Brazos County colony the inducement of cheap land was the cause of locating after the immigrants had finished work upon a local branch of a railroad, for the grading of which they had been imported. At Asti a colony of that name, on the cooperative plan, has been in very successful operation for fully 16 years. It is reported in the Italian Chamber of Commerce at San Francisco, that, of the 45,625 Italians living in 56 counties of California, almost all were engaged in agriculture; they owned 2,726 farm properties. In the vicinity of Denver and Pueblo, Colo., Salt Lake City, Utah, and Cheyenne, Wyo., truck farming has been quite generally in the hands of Italians. Likewise in the vicinity of New Orleans and at Memphis, Tenn., where there are 50 Italian truck farmers who emigrated from the valley of the Po, in northern Italy, and at Daphne, Baldwin County, Ala., there are regularly established sections or communities of foreigners engaged in agriculture. As a rule, the Italians take small tracts of land, and prefer to remain in close contact with neighbors of their own nationality. There are very few Italian farmers in the New England States.

Bohemians, though a rural people in Europe, have less frequently taken to the cultivation of the soil in the United States. The reasons assigned are, first, inadequate capital; second, cost of travel from the seaports to the interior, and, equally, the lonesomeness of farm life in comparison with the village life to which they have been accustomed in Bohemia. Bohemian farmers in individual households have,

however, been very prosperous in Ohio, Nebraska, Texas, and Wisconsin. They rarely come as farm laborers, but are prepared to buy land and develop it. A Finnish colony has been located in Hickman County, Tenn., with satisfactory results.

Attempts at inducing the Jewish portion of the foreign population to engage in agriculture have not been generally successful. The most favorable example is that at Woodbine, in the southern portion of New Jersey, below Camden. Difficulties of clearing land, unsuitable soil for certain crops, the lack of capital, and absence of markets here made themselves felt, until it was found necessary to supplement agriculture by the smaller manufactures, at which the population might occupy itself. At the present time 40 per cent of the 1,400 people at Woodbine are engaged in agriculture and 60 per cent in other pursuits. Russo-Jewish farmers in Connecticut have been especially successful, first, because of their taking farms already in a fair state of cultivation, and second, because of the favorable markets within easy reach. Likewise Jewish farmers have succeeded in the vicinity of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and other localities and adjacent cities clustered around the mouth of the Hudson.

In the several States foreign whites have made different degrees of progress and contributed variously to the agricultural development of the United States. A thriving colony of Swedes is established in a new township called New Sweden, in Aroostook County, Me. This started with 50 colonists directly from Sweden in 1870, and the community now numbers about 1,500 people of the most estimable character, residing in several townships of this county. Maine also has one or more small colonies of Finns, and a colony of Jews. In New Hampshire the advertisement of the 32,000 so-called abandoned farms in 1890 led to the arrival of a number of foreigners who became farm owners. In Cheshire County, Polish labor is the main reliance. There are also some French Canadians. Vermont is represented by Canadian French, Swedes, Norwegians, and Poles, especially during haying and harvesting. Scandinavian labor usually comes from Sweden and Norway direct. Laborers are engaged through employment agencies at the immigration station, in some cases by groups of farmers who divide them up among themselves in the busy seasons.

In Massachusetts the Poles have come in very rapidly in the past ten years, especially in the Connecticut Valley. In the market gardens around Boston many French Canadians are employed. In the Cape section Portuguese are abandoning fishing and going onto the farms. In Rhode Island conditions are somewhat similar to

I those in eastern Massachusetts. In Connecticut the Irish of the second generation are farm owners, and the Italians, Swedes, and Poles perform field labor very satisfactorily. As a rule the Irish and Germans are among the independent farmers. In New York German and Dutch labor is quite common, while Poles, Swedes, Russians, and Hungarians are scattered in different sections. In New Jersey foreign farmers are mainly, as in Connecticut, Irish and German, while Italians are, as mentioned above, of increasing importance. In Pennsylvania the foreign population in agriculture is mainly German, but in the coal regions Poles, Irish, and Italians are gradually becoming a more important element in agriculture. In Ohio the prevailing foreign element is still German, especially in southern Ohio, and a high standard of educational attainment is frequently found among them.

In Indiana German farmers are noted in the southern counties, though there are few of this nationality in northern Indiana. Foreign farm laborers through central Illinois are usually Germans, Danes, and Swedes of a highly intelligent class. In Michigan there are many colonies of foreigners. Among them are to be noted the Dutch, Finns, Danes, and Norwegians. Germans are scattered over the State in smaller groups, and there are many French Canadians who came in originally as lumbermen. The sugar-beet industry has led to the arrival of Germans, Polanders, and Russians, who prove themselves most efficient. In Wisconsin Germans and Scandinavians have proved more successful than the American born as farmers. Most of the foreigners are Germans and Norwegians. Land companies have been quick to recognize this and have made special offers to induce immigration.

Polish people have been settled in the northern counties of Michigan under land-company auspices. These people have been brought principally from Indiana and the mining regions of Illinois and Pennsylvania. Another land company at work in settling the land in northern Wisconsin has sent 71 families into a single county, most of which were gathered from Western towns and the coal regions of Pennsylvania. Wisconsin, it is said, probably contains a greater variety of foreign groups than any other American State. Many of these groups occupy whole townships and control the entire social policy of these communities. The Germans, for example, number 75 per cent of the population of Taylor County, 65 per cent of Dodge County, and 55 per cent of Buffalo County. The Bohemians constitute three-sevenths of the population of Kewaunee County.