tendent is himself an Italian. In other establishments, such places are filled almost exclusively by members of the "miscellaneous white races. They also find similar employment along with Italians in the wineries managed by Italians.

HOURS AND EARNINGS OF LABOR.

Though a few of the wineries have a ten-hour day and a sixtyhour week, most follow the rule in agriculture and maintain an eleven-hour day and a sixty-six-hour week. The rates of earnings per day of ten or eleven hours of 278 employees from whom data were obtained are shown in the table following.

TABLE 9.--Number of male employees working in wineries earning each specified amount per day, by race.

Most of the wineries being located on vineyards more or less remote. from towns and most of the employees being "miscellaneous white persons or Italians, the majority of the wages paid are in addition to board and lodging. Only 15 per cent of the total-half of these being Mexican laborers--boarded themselves. Board and lodging are commonly reckoned at 75 cents per day.

Of the employees receiving board and lodging, about one-half were paid $1.25 or $1.35 per day (earnings $1.25 and under $1.50), while about one-fifth were paid $1 or $1.15 per day (earnings $1 and under $1.25). Less than 25 per cent received $1.50 or over and only about 7 per cent $3 or over per day. The latter were skilled mechanics and distillers" and wine makers. All foremen and others occupying executive positions have been excluded from the tabulation. Had they been included, the percentage would have been much larger, for they would nearly all have been in the group with the highest rate of earnings.

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Comparing the earnings of Italians and those of the members of the "miscellaneous white" races, it is found that the former are

lower. A few Italians received less than $1, more than one-third either $1 or $1.15, a still larger number $1.25, and only one-seventh $1.50 or over per day with board. None of the "miscellaneous whites" receive less than $1, about one-eighth $1 or $1.15, something more than one-half $1.25 or $1.35, and almost one-third $1.50 or over per day.

This difference in earnings is explained for the greater part by the differences of occupations already commented upon. Eighty-eight per cent of the employees in the more responsible positions and more skilled trades were "miscellaneous white" men, 12 per cent Italians. No part of the difference in earnings is due to discrimination against the Italians. "White men" and Italians are usually paid the same rate per hour for work in the same occupation in the given winery, whether managed by Italians or by others. Any variation from the standard is because of longer service or greater efficiency. Payment is upon an individual, not a race basis. The difference in earnings is due in part to the fact that a larger percentage of Italians are found in wineries managed by Italians than in the others and that the former as a class pay lower wages to the employees of all races in the occupations requiring the larger number of men, as shovelers. laborers and cellarmen. In wineries managed by Italians the wages paid to men working in these capacities averaged a little less than $1.25, in the other wineries a little more than $1.50 per day. The lowest scale is found in some of the Italian wineries, the highest in those conducted by other races. The majority of Italian laborers being employed in the wineries managed by Italians, the effect is to give them a lower level of earnings.

RACE CHANGES.

The changes of races employed in wineries have been very much less marked than those which have taken place in fruit and grape growing, and even in the packing industry where there has been little displacement of races earlier employed. The most important change has been the extensive employment of Italians in recent years, as the industry has assumed a more important position and required a larger number of laborers.

Twenty years ago, when the wine-making industry became firmly established in Fresno County, the vast majority of the employees were native white men and north European immigrants. In some instances Chinese were employed as laborers and shovelers, their assignment to such work no doubt being due primarily to the fact that they were employed as ranch hands and when needed were transferred to the winery department. In a very few instances they were employed in other capacities in the winery. Until fifteen years ago one of the larger wineries employed Chinese alone as distillers, engineers, and in other occupations requiring equal skill. But with the increasing scarcity of Chinese their places have been filled by the members of other races. Some are employed as domestics, others now and then, but rarely, as "shovelers," and a very few old men in other positions they have long occupied.

Most of the Italians have entered winery work within the last ten years, though some were employed during the early nineties. Their

previous training and associations in Italy have attracted them to it, while the Italian interests in the industry and the tendency shown by "white men" to withdraw from much of the work, while the industry has been expanding, has given them easy access to it. Much of the work is dirty and disagreeable, and the wages of laborers have been on the level of those of agricultural laborers. Because of these facts, natives and north Europeans, if they fail to advance to the better-paid positions, frequently leave the wineries to find more agreeable and more remunerative work elsewhere. They have not been displaced, to any appreciable extent at any rate, by underbidding by Italians or other immigrant races.

Japanese and Mexicans have in recent years obtained some employment in wineries. In every recorded case where the former were so employed they were transferred from work in the fields to make good a deficiency in the number of laborers about the winery. As a rule, the feeling that they should not be given "inside work" has been strong enough to keep them from being hired for winery work, though they constitute the vast majority of the "hands" in the vinevards conducted by the owners of wineries. Cooperating with this fact, however, is the further fact that the Japanese can make more money picking grapes than working as laborers in the winery, and they have preferred the more remunerative work. Where laborers in wineries are paid $1.25 to $1.50 per day with board, the Japanese usually earn $2 per day in the vineyard picking wine grapes.

Few German-Russians and practically no Armenians have found employment in the wineries. Other branches of employment equally or more remunerative and located near the main settlements of these races were available.

Thus the racial changes in the industry have been of an unimportant character. Natives, north Europeans, and Italians constitute the vast majority of the wage-earners engaged in it. Such changes as have occurred have not resulted from underbidding and related things, but from the gradual disappearance of the Chinese, the expansion of the industry and the tendency of natives and north Europeans to withdraw from certain occupations to find more agreeable or more remunerative work elsewhere.

EMPLOYERS' OPINIONS OF RACES EMPLOYED.

Little need be said concerning employers' opinions of the few races which have been employed to any considerable extent in wineries. The situation involves no difficult labor problem such as was found in the agricultural work.

The Chinese, where employed, gave good satisfaction both as common laborers and in the occupations requiring more skill and responsibility. They were no more satisfactory than other races, however, and no desire is expressed for a renewed immigration to provide a new supply of labor as there is among the vineyardists and fruit growers.

No distinction is made, as a rule, between Americans and such. north European immigrants as are employed. Both are very generally favored for skilled work and responsible positions to the extent of excluding all other races. In other kinds of work they are re

garded with less favor. Considerable difficulty has been experienced in some wineries because of their intemperate drinking. Nor are they entirely satisfactory at times because of the attitude they assume toward the manual labor performed under disagreeable circumstances. The Italians are generally regarded as more satisfactory because they are seldom intemperate in drinking wine while at work, and because they, as a rule, are not unwilling workers when assigned to disagreeable tasks involving hard labor. Moreover, the experience of some in wine making in their native land, commends them to the employer, though the methods employed here are so different that any previous knowledge is sometimes said to be of little or no value. Largely because they are "foreigners," winery managers, unless Italian, seldom employ them in the more skilled trades or in positions involving responsibility. Italian managers, on the other hand, generally prefer their countrymen for most of the skilled work. Yet they frequently employ natives or north Europeans as engineers, and in some of the other skilled trades when practically all of the other employees are Italians.

CHAPTER V.

IMMIGRANT FARMERS OF FRESNO COUNTY.

INTRODUCTION.

Fresno County is essentially agricultural in its interests and activities, and its population is very cosmopolitan. The opportunities for employment, and for farming, and the climatic conditions have combined to induce many immigrants-most of them in the United States for some time as well as natives to settle there permanently. The laboring classes have representatives from different parts of Europe and Asia, and from Canada and Mexico. Furthermore, several of these races are represented among the landowning and tenant farmers of the county. Danes, Swedes, and Germans representing northern Europe, Italians and Portuguese representing southern Europe, German-Russians, Armenians, Chinese, and Japanese all are found in sufficient numbers to be taken account of in a discussion of immigrant farmers.

It is unfortunate that there are no accurate statistical data which would show the place occupied by each of these races in the tenure of farms and in the different branches of agriculture carried on in Fresno County. In the absence of such data the following more general statements with reference to these matters must suffice.

Though several immigrant races are found among the landholders and their combined holdings are large, the largest part of the land, and even most of the farms are owned by persons born in the United States. That is particularly true of the large ranches and extensive tracts of land not yet subdivided. The next largest class of landholders comprises the north Europeans, chiefly, Danes, Swedes, and Germans, most of whom live well, are fairly well Americanized, and are usually referred to as "Americans" in contrast to certain other elements in the population. Though these races are found in various lines of business and in the professions and trades, the majority are in the rural districts, for they are primarily agricultural in their interests. Nor are they conspicuous as farm laborers. Most of them have come to the United States with frequently if not generally sufficient savings to establish themselves and work on their own accounts. The other immigrant races for various reasons stand out in contrast to these.

The Portuguese-all from the Azores are not a large element in the population. Many of them began as sheep herders, and their chief interest now is in sheep raising and stock buying. Though some engage in various branches of agriculture, their numbers are so comparatively few that they are almost negligible.

Neither are the Italians-most of them from southern Italynumerous. Yet they are conspicuous as growers of vegetables supplied to the limited local market and, far more important, as wine makers and grape growers. However, the vast majority of the Italians are day laborers.

More important than any other immigrant race, save possibly the Danes, are the Armenians. Of the 4,000 and more in the county, something more than one-half live in Fresno, those gainfully em