inder.

Less than 6 per cent of them contain 50 acres or more, and only one farm (of 230 acres) is recorded over 100 acres in extent. Viewed in another way, the holdings may be classified as follows: 100 per cent of the holdings are 230 acres and under in size. 99.6 per cent of the holdings are 100 acres and under in size. 98.3 per cent of the holdings are 80 acres and under in size. 81 per cent of the holdings are 30 acres and under in size. 66.5 per cent of the holdings are 20 acres and under in size. 43.4 per cent of the holdings are 10 acres and under in size.

18.6 per cent of the holdings are 5 acres and more than 2 acres in size.

As has been previously noted, the 50 farmers investigated by the Commission have a larger mean acreage and must be considered above the average farmer. The condition and size of the 50 farms included. in the inquiry are shown in the following table:

TABLE 24.-Condition of land and size of farms now rented and owned by South Italians.

Probably 80 to 90 per cent of this land is in cultivation or has been in cultivation within a few years. There are some old berry fields that have been allowed to run to briars and blackberry canes that have been tilled recently and will be again, should the blackberry market show signs of revival.

In respect of percentage of land improved and cultivated, the Italian is second to no other class of farmers in the community. The wooded acreage and unimproved land represents new farms in process of clearing and waste swamp land that can not be profitably used unless some system of drainage is put in.

The type of agriculture in vogue in the whole region about Hammonton may be characterized as commercial agriculture. All the crops raised are for the market, with a few minor exceptions which will be noted. The crops have been well adapted to the soil and the problem up to 1896 was one of marketing rather than one of cultivation. Since about that date the berry crop has been an uncertain one on both sides, production and sale, and several new problems requiring technical intelligence and business acumen have pressed for solution.

The first notable money crop of the region was the strawberry crop. The soil, especially on the lowlands where there is more moisture and a larger percentage of clay, is well adapted to this fruit. A large number of Italians have raised strawberries from the beginning, and are still producing small quantities for market. The southern growers com

pete with them sharply, however, and those in the southern part of the State, especially at Port Norris and vicinity. For several years the growers about Hammonton have been brought face to face with a short crop or a glutted market. The most careful raisers have frequently been forced to sell their produce at a loss, some receiving returns that did not pay for the crates and the cost of picking. The American growers have nearly all dropped out of the business. In 1901, the New Jersey Handbook estimated 900 acres in strawberries in this section. It is safe to say that there is now not one-third of that area devoted to this crop. The strawberries raised by Italians are of fine quality. They bring as good a price as any on the market, and because they come in early, before the black berries are ripe, and can be tended and picked by his own family, the Italian farmer is likely to raise a few crates yearly for some time to come. Any return above cost of crates and shipping is considered a profit. Of the fifty families studied, twenty-four raised some strawberries. The quantity per farmer varied from 25 to 325 crates of 32 quarts each, the average crop being 89 crates, valued at $1.40 a crate.

Blackberries are by far the most important crop at present. Nearly every Italian who has any land raises some for market. During the eighties and nineties the method followed was to clear a piece of new land of trees and stumps, plow and smooth it with a harrow, and set out blackberry canes in rows 4 or 5 feet apart, the total cost being about $30 an acre. The first year was one of waiting, but the second year there were some returns, often a good crop; the third year the bushes were in full bearing, and from that time on berries were picked from the original planting for eight, ten, or twelve years. There was no manuring, no commercial fertilizer was employed, and no deductions were suffered for loss by disease or insect pests.

There was a good market up to 1890 or thereabout, but thereafter the price dropped below the line of profit, owing to overproduction. About 1896 the Wilson berry began to fail. The variety had "run out," disease attacked the roots, and the plants were unable to withstand the winters. The life of a bearing plant was diminished to almost four years (some patches are not profitable for more than three). Then, too, the soil began to demand large applications of fertilizer, and more careful attention was required. These years were severe for growers, and were keenly felt by the Italian, who is much more imitative than resourceful. He had to wait for the introduction and testing of new varieties, and methods of combating disease and pests; to learn by observation the use and value of fertilizer, and to work harder than ever to set out new patches of berries more frequently. As at Vineland, a new variety of berry, the dewberry, has been introduced to take the place of the Wilson. It is a variety that must be tied or trained to stakes every spring, and in most instances is not as good a yielder as the Wilson. The blackberry, or dewberry, matures earlier than the raspberry and, of course, later than the strawberry, the blackberry season falling early in July, the raspberries coming in toward the end of the month.

The red raspberry is the third berry crop. It brings a higher price per crate than any of the other berry crops, but the picking requires more patience and more time, and costs more than strawber ries or blackberries. More careful culture is required, and there are more failures in the attempt to secure a good stand of bushes. In 1901

he New Jersey Handbook estimated 800 seres in raspberries in Hammonton. At present the acreage is considerably greater. Both his crop and blackberries need to be carefully trimmed each year in order to produce well, and a special fertilizer has been found advantageous. In both these respects the Itsian had to wait upon the American for instruction. Some fine raspberries are raised by I:siian farmers, but taken by and large the product is somewhat inferior both in quantity and quality to that raised by the better grade nonItalian farmer.

The Italian is a hard and persevering hand worker. The women and children do much of the hoeing and hand weeding and there are very few plots that are not clean and well tilled. Horse machinery, with the exception of a one-horse cultivator, is rarely employed to keep the ground well cultivated. This cultivator is kept going between the rows of berry bushes or grapevines from the early spring until picking season.

Every Italian farmer has a small vineyard, and many have several acres set to grapevines. They seem to have a faculty for raising grapes, and, although they were not the originators of the grape industry at Hammonton, they are responsible for making grape culture almost universal. The vines are planted in a deep trench, with a compost of fertilizer, manure, or leather scraps. The vines are not trained on trellises, but to stakes or posts, a method commonly adopted by all south Jersey growers. Frequently a row of vines is set out along the road or the boundary of an Italian's land. The next year a second row parallel to the first one is started by digging cross trenches and layering from the original row of vines. The third year a new row of vines is started in the same way, and before long a fair-sized vineyard is under way, at no cost to the owner for new vines after the first planting. The Italians raise very few grapes for sale. Of 50 farms investigated, but 4 had sold grapes by the ton within two years. One farmer sold 12 tons, the others averaged 1 tons each. There is a good market both for grapes and for grape wine, but the larger part of both is used for home consumption only. Thirty-seven farms report vineyards of greater or less extent, varying from one-half to 5 acres, with a mean area of 1 acres. Notwithstanding the fact that the grapevines produce well, and that most of the fruit is made into wine, only 7 of the 50 families report sales of wine. The average per farm sold annually is 15 barrels, bringing an average return of $293, or about $20 the barrel. The obvious fact made evident by the figures is that the greater part of the wine made is consumed at home. It is a sour wine, the pure juice of the grape, made by crushing the fruit-grapes, stems, and all-in a barrel and draining off the juice. No sugar is added. This wine is used as a substitute for coffee or tea, and is drunk very freely by all classes of Italians, although some of the Italian Americans profess to dislike it. There is a good market for this homemade wine, and it would seem that something might be done to perfect the manufacture of it and to eliminate some unnecessary waste in gathering the grapes and making the wine. The California Italians have made their brands of wine famous, but no attempt has been made to advertise the Hammonton product. The wine sold is shipped to Philadelphia or New York to friends or Italian wine dealers. When grapes are sold they usually go to the Vineland Grape Juice Company; but although grapes are

more universally grown here than around Vineland, they have never become as much of a commercial crop. Both the Concord and Ives seedling are grown, but the latter is now generally discredited, because subject to rot and blight of various sorts.

Another commercial crop is sweet potatoes. Perhaps one-third of the larger Italian farmers raise from 20 to 200 bushels of them yearly per farm. They are of fair quality, and on the heavier soils yield very well well fertilized. Of the farms studied the average quantity per farm produced is only 29 barrels yearly; the price received averaged about $3 a barrel for the previous two years. There are several reasons why the Italians have not gone into this crop more extensively. In the first place, berries had the advantage of a good start, and, as several Italians explained, it takes some time to grub out, plow up, and clear of heavy roots a field that has been in blackberries for a number of years. Not only is it difficult, but the first crops of sweet potatoes are not likely to be up to the average in quality or quantity. Then the ground is not all adapted to sweet potatoes. Much of it is very loose, coarse sand, with little clay or fine sand, and is too porous to retain any but immediately available fertilizers. The non-Italian farmers on some of the heavier oak lands can raise potatoes profitably. In the third place, more intelligence and more capital are required to raise potatoes than to grow berries for market. Tons of fertilizer, heavy machinery, storage facilities, and curing houses are needed if one is to raise sweet potatoes in any quantity with profit. Another objection frequently voiced by many who are even now debating the substitution of potatoes for berries, is that frequently the market price of potatoes is below the line of reasonable profit, and that in years of plenty sweet potatoes are produced at an absolute loss. Carefully analyzed, these reasons resolve themselves into the natural adaptability of the soil to other crops and the absence of the intelligence and capital required in sweet-potato culture. That berries are going out unless more brains are mingled with the labor required to produce and market them seems certain. It is possible that potatoes will some day become the leading crop.

Irish potatoes are seldom raised, either for sale or home consumption, by the Italians. A few Americans are raising them profitably, and the acreage of this crop is increasing among the non-Italians.

Few other field crops are raised. Hay for feeding a horse and perhaps a cow is cut wild from some lowland. Occasionally rye or oats are grown for forage, cut green, and cured like hay. Sometimes a crop of cowpeas is grown for hay, less often for green manuring. Corn is raised on perhaps one-fourth of the farms, an acre or so each, and cut for fodder. On the whole, the farmers find it cheaper to buy corn and oats or even hay than to raise these crops on their farms. Perhaps one-half of the Italian farmers have small peach, pear, or apple orchards. There are very few successful Italian orchardists in the Hammonton group, however. One of the Campanellas has a fine young peach and pear orchard of 35 acres or more. He has the largest Italian farm in the community and sells perhaps $1,000 worth of peaches, pears, and wine from his orchards and 20-acre vineyard yearly. His peaches hitherto have not done well. The blight, the San Jose scale, and other pests have discouraged the Italian and all but the best of the American growers. The capital necessary to plant

id get an orchard into bearing, the long period of waiting between anting and harvesting a crop, the continuous outlay without visle financial returns, the unequal fight which the inexperienced forgner must wage with insect pests and diseases whose name is gion, the uselessness of spraying, pruning, and burning to destroy jurious insects in his own orchard when his neighbor across the ne allows his trees to become infested, are some of the reasons why talian orchards are bearing scarcely enough fruit for home use, and thy so few young orchards are being set out. Patience, courage, ntelligence, and resourcefulness are necessary to raise good peaches ear after year. Few Italians have the requisite qualifications. Of he 50 families investigated, but 2 reported orchard fruit sold. Several with 25 to 100 peach and pear trees said they gathered less han enough for home consumption in normal years.

Of the cranberry crop, it suffices to say that almost no cranberry bogs are owned by Italians. A small bog is not often profitable, and a large one requires a capital investment of $500 to $500 per acre to put in bearing.

The tables below summarize the production of farm produce on 50 Italian farms of the medium and better class.

TABLE 25.-Classification of farms of South Italians, by values of farm products produced and sold.

TABLE 26. Average quantity and value of crop raised by 50 South Italian farmers,