The north European immigrants engaged in farming have in many instances engaged in business or in industry as wage-earners in the West, and then after accumulating some capital have taken up government land (in Montana and Idaho) or have purchased farms. A large number have moved from farms in the Central States along with a large number of natives of native parentage to acquire new homes in the West. This is especially true of the Scandinavians, who in recent years have moved in large numbers from the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to Washington and Oregon, or, to a less extent, to other States of the Western division. Here and there the Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes are colonized to a certain degree. These cases are exceptional, however, and are almost invariably connected with a colonization scheme which has been adopted for disposing of large tracts of land. With the exceptions stated, the farmers of these classes scattered throughout the communities engage in very much the same kinds of farming as the natives, and though, as a rule, married to persons of the same general race group, are thoroughly Americanized. The only feature requiring comment is the strong tendency of the Danes to engage in dairy farming.

In

The only south Europeans engaged extensively in farming in the West are the Italians and the Portuguese. North Italians acquired land near San Francisco before 1870, and near Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle somewhat later. They have been conspicuous as small farmers in the vicinity of Denver for twenty years or more. this latter instance a large percentage are from the southern provinces of Italy, and in comparatively recent years the same element has settled to some extent on farms farther west. Yet the Italian farmers are predominantly from the northern provinces. In all of the cases mentioned these farmers are primarily growers of "green vegetables." The gardeners supplying the San Francisco and Denver markets are very largely Italian and they share chiefly with the Asiatics the Sacramento, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, and other markets of less importance. In addition to these gardeners the Italians are settled on the land in many localities in central California, where they are closely identified with grape growing and wine making, the production of such vegetables as beans, and, less extensively, fruit growing. It is impossible to estimate the total number of Italian farmers or the acreage controlled by them except in certain communities. In 1900, farmers, dairymen, gardeners, etc., of Italian parentage, numbered 2,599 in the West, more than two-thirds of them in California, this number being 8.08 per cent of the entire number of Italians gainfully occupied in this division. If the agricultural laborers are added, the percentage of the whole is 20.51. With the rapid influx of the members of that race during the last ten years, the number of those who have located upon the land has greatly increased, for the Italians from the northern provinces have exhibited as strong a desire to settle upon the land as any European race, excepting perhaps the German-Russian, immigrating to the West.

a

The Italian farmers, except in a few California communities, are closely colonized. This is partly due to the fact that in most places they are engaged in market gardening. The areas suitable for that

a United States Census, 1900, Special Reports. Occupations. Table 41.

purpose are limited, and the necessary cooperation in marketing has emphasized colony life. Clannishness, which exhibits itself in various ways, has also had its effect. Most of the Italian gardens are conducted as partnership enterprises, and generally the Italian farmers have begun farming after a few years' employment as wage-laborers by purchasing a share in a partnership already organized or by gaining a partnership in process of formation for cultivating leased land. In this way the majority of those who have engaged in truck farming have been able to establish themselves upon the land in much less time than the north European immigrants who come without capital. In other kinds of agriculture engaged in by Italians this cooperation is only less marked. However, they usually purchase land in severalty as soon as through extraordinary thrift they are able to accumulate a part of the purchase price.

Thus the Italians usually engage in intensive farming requiring much hand labor rather than in diversified or general farming, and in this, as well as in the frequency of colony life and the partnership form of organization, differ from the native and north European farmers. They also differ in that the wives and older children do much more of the work in the fields and in that because of their thrift their housing is usually below the standard set by the community and the premises and housekeeping are frequently neglected.

The Italians are good farmers. While in growing certain kinds of vegetables they do not obtain as large crops as the Chinese, they have developed their gardens to a great degree of fertility, and as vineyardists they take high rank. In Sonoma County, and less conspicuously in other counties of California, they have converted grazing land and tracts previously used for general farming into productive vineyards and orchards and contributed greatly to the wealth and development of the community.

The Portuguese have immigrated to only a few sections of the United States, among these being California, which in 1900 reported 12,068 of the total of 30,632 in the continental United States. Portuguese from the Azores have been immigrating to California in small numbers for more than fifty years. The first settlers were largely of the sailor class. Later these were followed by farmers immigrating directly and still others coming to the mainland from the Hawaiian Islands, where at different times a large number have been induced to go to work on the sugar plantations. Still others in comparatively recent years have moved west from settlements in the eastern States to join friends or to find better opportunities for farming. Though some of the newer arrivals have worked as common laborers and a comparatively large number have been employed as stevedores, deck hands on the "river boats," and in similar capacities, the Portuguese men have engaged mainly in agricultural pursuits, usually as laborers for their countrymen, then as tenant, and then as landowning farmers. In some communities where land has been available at a low price the second step indicated has been eliminated.

The Portuguese farmers have tended strongly to colonize in certain localities, and the great majority are found in central California and within 100 miles of San Francisco, where most of them have entered the United States. A large number are engaged in dairy farming and

a United States Census, 1900. Population, part 1.

many are occupied in growing potatoes and the coarser vegetables. Such interests are usually combined with general farming, however.

The Portuguese are excellent farmers, and frequently, while improving their land, obtain two or three crops from the same field in the course of the year. In their thrift, investment of savings in more land, in the character of their housing and standard of living, they are very much like the Italians. In some instances, however, their housing is of a distinctly better type. The one important difference between the two races, besides the kind of crops usually produced, is found in the fact that the Italians cooperate in leasing land, while the Portuguese are very individualistic and seldom rent or own land in partnership. Because of this circumstance and the fact that the members of this race, unlike the Asiatics and German-Russians, have not been induced to settle upon the land as a solution of the labor problem, the Portuguese, in spite of their perseverance in their efforts to establish themselves as independent farmers, have usually made slower progress in this direction than the Italians, Japanese, and German-Russians.

Few of the other south European immigrants are engaged in agriculture. A few Greeks have become tenant farmers, but without much success. About Watsonville, Cal., a comparatively large number of Dalmatians have engaged in apple growing, but this instance perhaps stands alone. In fact, immigrants from the south European countries, and the east European as well, Italians and Portuguese excepted, have come to the West too recently to have established themselves. Moreover, in most cases the number of transient laborers is large as compared to the number who have come to this country to make their permanent home. The principal exception to this is found in the German-Russians, an agricultural people, who have come to this country to escape heavy taxation and military service and in search of better land. Within some twenty years several thousand have come to Fresno County, Cal., where they have worked at unskilled labor to begin with, though a comparatively large number have been able to establish themselves as farmers, which is the goal practically all have in view. The acreage controlled by them is roughly estimated at 5,000. In Colorado there are perhaps between 800 and 900 tenant and landowning farmers of this race, occupying for the greater part holdings in excess of 60 acres and not infrequently much larger tracts. This farming has developed within the last ten years and has been incidental to the growth of the beetsugar industry. The sugar companies have brought large numbers of families of this race from Nebraska to do the hand work involved in growing sugar beets. From laborers doing the hand work on a piece basis they have rapidly advanced to tenant and to landowning farmers. Their advance is in part to be ascribed to their great industry, the labor of all members of the family except the smallest children, to their very great thrift, to the liberal advances of capital made by the sugar companies, and the credit extended to them freely by the banks.

Not even the Japanese have made as rapid advance as the GermanRussians. A comparatively small number of German-Russians are engaged in tenant farming in one locality in Idaho also. They, too were brought to the community (from Portland) by the manufacturers of beet sugar, and settled upon the land. In their housing

and the labor of children the German-Russians rank lower than the south European immigrant farmers, and in their thrift they are perhaps equaled by none. Whether aside from their economic contribution they will prove to be an asset to the communities in which they live only the lapse of time will show.

Except in the case of the Italians and Portuguese few of the European immigrants become agricultural laborers in the West, and in the case of the non-English-speaking those who are so employed work very largely for their countrymen as "regular hands." Also, in the case of the Italians and Portuguese, the opportunities for acquiring land by lease or purchase have been so good that thus far laborers of these races have been employed almost entirely by their countrymen. The Portuguese farmers employ their own countrymen largely, and, as a rule, at lower wages than those generally prevailing in the community. This is still more characteristic of the Italians, of whom few work for members of other races except when they are employed in large numbers about dairies. Because of the strong desire to live with their countrymen and be able to have the food and wine to which they are accustomed, they are frequently found working for $1 per day of twelve hours or more upon Italian farms in communities where the current wage per day of ten or eleven hours for the same work is $1.50.

CHINESE.

Though a few thousand Armenians are found in the West, most of them in Fresno County, Cal., and perhaps a thousand Syrians in Los Angeles, most of the Asiatic immigration has been from eastern Asia-China, Japan, Korea, and India. For reasons already given, no special investigation was made of the Chinese. Such data as were obtained were secured incidentally to the investigation of other races and of industries in which Chinese are or have been employed. A few points concerning their number, occupations, and related matters may be commented on briefly, however, chiefly for convenience in discussing Japanese immigration, upon which most emphasis was placed in the investigation made in the Western division.

According to the census, the number of Chinese in the continental United States in 1900 was 93,283. Of these, 88,758 were males and 4,525 were females. In all probability the number of adult males was somewhat larger than the figure reported, as it is almost impossible to enumerate all but a negligible percentage of the foreign-born males living under such conditions as were at that time found among the Chinese. It is impossible to estimate the number of persons of that race now in the United States, as many have died or returned to China since 1900, while others have returned from China to this country, and men, women, and children of the eligible classes to the number of 19,182 have been admitted to the United States between July 1, 1899, and June 30, 1909. Moreover, it is acknowledged by those familiar with the administration of the law that some foreignborn have secured admission as "native sons" while others have been smuggled across the Canadian or the Mexican boundary. However, it has become evident from the investigation conducted by the Commission that the number of Chinese in all of the cities of the West,

a See reports of the United States Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1900 to 1909.

and the number engaged in the different industries in which they have found employment in the past, have materially decreased within the last decade or so. It is unlikely that the migration from the Coast States, mainly from California to the East, and the more general distribution of Chinese throughout the country, explain entirely the decreasing number of persons of that race, including the nativeborn, found in the West.

The immigration of Chinese laborers to this country may be said to date from the rush to California in search of gold sixty years ago. Within ten years a relatively large number of persons of that race, more than 45,000 in fact, found a place in the population of that State. Before the close of the decade of the sixties, they had engaged in a variety of occupations, as the absence of cheap labor from any other source, their industry and organization, and the rapid growth of the country placed a premium upon their employment. The largest number (some 20,000 in 1861) engaged in gold mining; several thousand, many of them imported under contract, were employed toward the end of the decade in the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad, which was to form the first of the transcontinental railways making possible an influx of laborers from the East. Other Chinese engaged in gardening, laundering, domestic service, and hand labor in the fields, while still others found employment in factories and workshops or engaged in business for themselves. As domestic servants in San Francisco, in 1870, they numbered 1,256 out of a total of 6,800, their number being exceeded by that of the Irish only, of whom 3,046 were reported. Chinese laundrymen numbered 1,333 in a total of 2,069 reported. As laborers in domestic and personal service they numbered 2,128 in a total of 8,457. According to the census for 1870, they numbered 296 of 1,551 persons employed in San Francisco in the manufacture of boots and shoes, 1,657 of the 1,811 employed in the manufacture of cigars, 253 of 393 employed in the manufacture of woolens, and 110 of 1,223 employed in the manufacture of clothing, a total of 2,316 of a grand total of 4,978 employed in these four industries." These were the chief branches of manufacture in cities in which they found employment. With the development of salmon canning in Oregon and Washington during the eighties and still later with the development of the same industry in Alaska, they were for many years employed almost exclusively in canning, under contract, the fish caught by white fishermen. They also constituted a large percentage, when not a majority, of the "powder makers" and general laborers employed in powder factories.

For twenty years, beginning in the late sixties, several thousand found employment as construction laborers upon the new railways constructed from time to time and as section hands upon those already constructed. They also found employment as general laborers, engine wipers and boiler washers, and in other occupations calling for little skill in railroad shops. Of still greater importance, however, was their employment, beginning previous to 1870, as hand laborers in the orchards, fields, hopyards, and vineyards of

a United States Census, 1870, Population and Social Statistics, p. 799. These figures may include small numbers of Japanese, of whom there were but 55 in this country at that time.