All in all, few rural colonies were visited whose members appeared more intelligent or more prosperous than some of the Bohemian communities in Texas. In the Northwest-Wisconsin, for instanceBohemians are reputed to be on a par with the average farmers of any race of the same generation farming under similar conditions. The old settlements in Wisconsin have attained a high degree of prosperity.

SLOVAKS.

There are a few Slovak farmers in New England, a very small number in Pennsylvania and Virginia, a colony of about 50 families in Arkansas, and perhaps a few small scattered groups in other States, but the aggregate is not large. Popular reports of the presence of large numbers of Slovak farmers are apparently greatly exaggerated. The Slovaks seem to be industrial laborers rather than farmers. In a general way they differ little from the Polish rural settlers. The account in the Commission's complete report of the 50 farm families at Slovaktown, near Stuttgart, Ark., deals rather summarily with the conditions of agriculture there, and is probably typical of Slovak farming communities elsewhere.

There seems to be little movement of Slovaks to agriculture, either directly from abroad or from industrial pursuits in the United States. The Slovaks began their settlements in Connecticut very recently and can not fairly be compared with other foreigners in that State. All of those interviewed in Connecticut had been engaged in some form of day labor immediately previous to settlement in the rural community. A whole group of the Slovaks of Slovaktown, Ark., was recruited by a colonization company from the coal mines of Illinois and Pennsylvania. The colony is but fifteen years old, and while the settlement is to all appearances successful, very few additions have been made in recent years. The comparative isolation of the colony may have had an adverse influence on its development. This is the only colony of Slovaks of any importance in the States visited by the Commission.

MAGYARS.

Only two groups of Magyar farmers were found-one settlement of five or six families in New York, where they have just begun to establish themselves, and a few families in Louisiana. Here and there a Magyar farmer is found in a Polish settlement, and not infrequently a Lithuanian, Slovak, or Russian moves into a farming section with a group of Polish farmers. The few members of these races soon become lost in the general mass of Poles, by which name they are likely to be known. The Magyars are not engaging in agriculture to any extent east of the Mississippi River.

JAPANESE.

The discussion of the Japanese in Texas comprehends practically the entire number of that race engaged in agriculture in the State. The Commission's report on Japanese and other immigrant races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States deals in detail with

a Japanese and other Immigrant Races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States. Reports of the Immigration Commission, vols. 23-25. (S. Doc. No. 633, pt. 25, 61st Cong., 2d sess.)

the character of their agriculture west of the Rocky Mountains, where by far the greater number of Japanese in agriculture are reported. East of the Rocky Mountains Japanese farmers are chiefly confined to Texas and Florida, where perhaps 20 adult males have taken up pineapple and truck raising with rather doubtful results; there are some laborers in sugar-beet fields in Wisconsin, and perhaps a few in Michigan. The significant facts of Japanese agriculture east of the Rockies are discussed in the chapter dealing with Texas.

The Japanese in Florida are raising pineapples and vegetables, while those in Texas are engaged in capitalistic or specialized agriculture-rice, fruit growing, trucking, nurseries. Most of the Japanese in Texas have invested comparatively large amounts of capital in their enterprises, from which they have not yet realized correspondingly large net returns. The gross incomes reported may lead to a false impression of their economic progress unless the comparatively heavy capital investment and the expenses for labor be taken into account. On the other side, the recency of their settlement in Texas must be considered, and the fact that the land, the cultivation of the crop, and the methods of marketing are in most instances new to them, and that they are largely single men, or married. men whose wives are still in Japan. Some of the Japanese farm proprietors are agricultural students and experts in particular lines of agriculture or related subjects. A number have been business men in Japan. They very soon learn the English language and American methods; many have a knowledge of English before emigrating.

PORTUGUESE.

The Portuguese farmers are discussed in the Commission's report on Japanese and other immigrant races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States and in the Commission's complete report on recent immigrants in agriculture, where a sketch of the history and distribution of Portuguese in the United States is given in connection with the report on the Portsmouth (R. I.) potato planters. The greatest numbers of Portuguese farmers in the East are found in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in a very limited area, the Portuguese headquarters being New Bedford, Mass. The white Portuguese immigration, which comes largely from the Azores, is not large, but compared with the population of the islands is relatively important. The total number of Portuguese admitted during the year ending June 30, 1910, was 7,657, this number including both the white Portuguese from the mainland and the Azores and the dark-skinned immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands. The islands whence they come are agricultural and densely populated.

The dark-skinned Portuguese are either seasonal agricultural laborers or dock hands. The white Portuguese become farm laborers, general laborers, mill hands, and farmers. As farmers and farm laborers the white Portuguese fill an important place in the agriculture of southeastern New England. They make steady, reliable, efficient farm hands and farmers. Just how many are engaged in farming for themselves it was impossible to ascertain accurately, but all along the "Cape," from Providence, R. I., to Provincetown,

Report of the United States Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1910.

Mass., they are operating small farms which they have purchased or rented.

The potato growers in Rhode Island are in part tenants and in part owners of the land they operate. They are industrious and energetic, but they are able to succeed better than their native New England neighbors, chiefly because they have a lower standard of living. They supply practically all the agricultural labor in this vicinity, and by buying or leasing the farms from native owners they have been supplanting the original American farmers.

SEASONAL AGRICULTURAL LABORERS.

INTRODUCTORY.

In a certain sense the large majority of farm hands are seasonal laborers, since the average yearly period of farm labor is usually not more than eight months, extending from March or April to November. The employment of farm laborers by the year is becoming more customary where dairy farms or live-stock farms are common, but in grain farming, vegetable growing, or fruit raising the seasonal laborers far outnumber those employed by the year. In addition to the men employed for the entire crop season, however, there is another large body of laborers who are employed for specific tasks, sometimes by the piece, sometimes by the day, their season of employment ranging from four to six or eight weeks in the main.

This class of laborers in some sections of the United States is usually composed of foreign-born persons, who work in gangs and who are recruited outside of the neighborhood in which they find employment. For these reasons their employment raises a number of questions, interesting from the point of view both of agriculture and of immigration. There are thousands of such laborers employed yearly in all parts of the United States where specialized crops, for whose culture a relatively large amount of hand labor is essential, are produced. The present report deals only with seasonal laborers in a few selected agricultural industries east of the Mississippi River.

The complete report of the Commission includes accounts of the South Italian berry pickers in New Jersey, the South Italians and the Poles on the farms of canning companies in the western part of New York State, the black Portuguese cranberry pickers of Massachusetts, the Poles and Indians on the Wisconsin bogs, and the sugarbeet laborers in Wisconsin and in northern Ohio. These groups were selected as typical of much greater numbers all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, in the trucking and berry districts, of great numbers in the canneries in Maryland, New Jersey, and elsewhere, of sugar-beet employees wherever beets are grown extensively, and of fruit pickers of all sorts. Many day laborers also are at work in the market gardens near New York, Boston, and other large cities.

The methods employed by the Commission of gathering this information differed a little from those adopted in settled rural communities of foreigners. No family schedules for the seasonal laborers were secured. The information was obtained by visiting the different farms on which gangs or groups of foreigners were employed, interviewing the employer, the foreman of the gang (where a foreman was employed), and some of the laborers, inspecting the housing conditions, the

conditions of labor, food, and sanitation, and collecting such outside information or opinions of observers or neighboring farmers as could be gathered. Account was taken of the location and city home surroundings of the laborers, of the conditions of living, of their annual itinerary, of their seasons of labor, and their earnings. The personal results-economic, social, educational, moral, and physicalwere considered and some attempt made to weigh them fairly. The more obvious effects on agriculture, on the community, and on society as a whole of these shifting bodies of laborers were looked into. A few of the more salient findings are here summarized.

RACE COMPOSITION.

The races more usually engaging in seasonal farm labor are the South Italians, the Poles, the black Portuguese on Cape Cod, an increasing number of Greeks and Syrians, and, in sugar-beet culture, Belgians, Bohemians, Finns, Poles, Hungarians, Japanese, and Indians, among whom the first named are the most prominent. In almost all cases the employees belong to a class of cheap laborers, who engage in unskilled day labor when not working on farms. In berry picking, and to some extent in beet cultivation, the present supply of laborers has been but recently installed, having supplanted other foreigners or native Americans. The Poles, Finns, and Italians have given away to the "Bravas" on the Massachusetts cranberry bogs, native Americans and Germans have left the berry fields of New Jersey to the South Italians, and the Japanese and Belgians appear about to monopolize the sugar-beet labor in some large districts.

Near Geneva, N. Y., South Italians are beginning to feel the competition of Greeks, who have been entering upon farm labor since 1905. In the vicinity of Oneida, N. Y., the Syrians and South Italians are both engaged in seasonal farm labor. While the Syrians at present number less than one-fourth of the whole, they are making a place for themselves, and with their comparatively low standards of living are proving no mean competitors for the South Italians. Picking berries and hoeing and weeding beets and vegetables are very simple operations, requiring little special skill, strength, or intelligence; consequently the laborers are heterogeneous, belonging to the occupational group of day laborers or to the otherwise unoccupied class. They have very low standards of living and receive comparatively small and uncertain earnings.

A fact of importance is that much of the labor required is within the comprehension and strength of the women and children under 14 years of age. This is particularly true of berry picking. In vegetable cultivation, however, children can weed and gather the product with as much facility as men or adult women. Since children and women can work efficiently, the laborers, particularly the South Italians, make the family the working unit. This means that the whole family engages in farm labor or berry picking and the earnings of all go into the family fund. Frequently only those members engage in agriculture who have no other gainful occupation. Husbands and children over 16 years old who can secure permanent employment in other industries do not go to the berry fields.

Another fact of economic significance is that work on farms is prosecuted most vigorously at a season of year when the children

enjoy a vacation from school duties and some of the factories are closed. Not that school duties would deter the children from engaging in agricultural labor, but were there no berry picking vacation would be a time of idleness in many households; consequently men, women, and children engage in nearly all seasonal occupations. One exception is sugar-beet culture, where fewer women and children and more single men are found than in the other occupations studied. This is partly because of the nature of the work, which is heavy, monotonous labor considered as a seasonal employment. Certain tasks are easy, but some of the hoeing, pulling, and topping can not be performed by weak or immature persons, and the long hours can not be endured by the women and younger children. Moreover, sugar beets are grown in sections where a sufficient supply of floating or semiunemployed laborers with families can not be recruited from points near at hand.

SOURCES WHENCE RECRUITED.

The seven groups, studied a little more in detail, reveal some points of likeness and numerous contrasts. The Hammonton, N. J., berry pickers are typical of thousands of South Italians, Poles, "hoboes," and negroes from Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and some other cities, who move with their families to the country early in the season for the purpose of picking berries. They begin by picking strawberries in Delaware or southern New Jersey sometime in May and follow the berry crops northward to Hammonton and vicinity, where they gather blackberries and raspberries. Practically all studied in this group were South Italians from Philadelphia, largely family units, who are in the habit of spending their summers in the berry fields and cranberry bogs and their winters in Philadelphia. The main season of employment extends from May 15 or 20 to the end of July, with sometimes a month's work in the cranberry bogs in September and October. The interval between the blackberry harvest and cranberry picking they occupy in gathering huckleberries on the New Jersey wild lands. Practically all return to Philadelphia by October 15.

The cranberry pickers of Massachusetts, on the larger bogs, at least, are chiefly "Bravas," or black Portuguese. They are largely recruited from the ranks of dock laborers near New Bedford and neighboring seacoast cities, and unless they are regular bog laborers they spend about six weeks of the year on the bogs. Five-sixths of them are men or boys, many of them single or without families in the United States. They have succeeded in forcing out the Poles, Italians, and, to a large degree, the Finns.

The cranberry pickers of central Wisconsin are Indians or Poles. The Indians are often employed at occasional occupations in the rural districts and are well adapted to berry picking. They are transported by the growers from neighboring reservations and bring their families with them to the bogs. Usually several families, accompanied by an Indian manager, boss, or foreman, come in one company and find employment with the same cranberry grower. The Poles employed in this work are small farmers who welcome the opportunity to add something to the meager incomes from their