THE SECOND GENERATION.

The coming generation of the Italians seem to be as energetic and as hard working as their parents. Being situated wholly alone, without any American association, their progress along American lines is somewhat slow, though only a very few of the Italian customs remain. Their standard of living, etc., compares favorably with that of Italian colonies where the Italians have a chance to observe the customs of the Americans.

The Italian children remain with their parents until they are 21 or until they marry. But marriages among the children occur as soon as both parties are of age. After marriage the young husband secures a piece of ground and farms for himself.

Several cases have occurred where parents, after working several years, have saved enough money to make a comfortable home for themselves in Italy. They have helped their children plant the cotton and have then departed about the middle of summer for Italy, leaving the children to make what they could from the cotton crop. The oldest child takes charge and takes the money received from the crop; from this time on until he marries he is the head of the family and the rest of his brothers and sisters follow his instructions.

GENERAL SUMMARY.

Hon. Leroy Percy, of Greenville, Miss., one of the members of the O. B. Crittenden Company, is reported in the Southern Farm Magazine (April, 1904) as follows:

As growers of cotton, they [the Italians] are in every respect superior to the negro. They are industrious and thrifty, and the present generation will not develop the land-owning instinct, they all dream of returning to sunny Italy. * * There doesn't seem to be any race antagonism between them and no race mixture.

*

The Italians make a profit of $5 out of a crop where the negro makes $1, and yet the negro seems perfectly satisfied with his returns. No spirit of emulation is excited by the superior work or prosperity of his Italian neighbor. We had one of them recently return to Italy with more than $8,000 cash, never having worked more than 30 acres of land, leaving behind him a family to work the land with money sufficient to provide themselves for another year.

This statement made five years ago is just as true to-day, for the Italian is holding his own and coming to the front. He is the solution of the labor problem of the South; secure him, interest him in buying land and making a home for himself, and the cotton belt will increase in prosperity with wonderful rapidity.

STATISTICAL DATA FOR SELECTED FAMILIES.

The next table represents the history and economic condition of 10 Italian families at Sunnyside. These families were not selected as being the most successful, but rather because they represent the common average of the Italian tenants found on this plantation. Some of the families were among the first to settle in Arkansas and others have been in this country only four years. The heads of families considered in this table reported that before leaving Italy they had been farmers, farm laborers, or had worked for their parents. Four worked as farm laborers in the Delta region before

leasing property there, but the majority rented land from the company as soon as they arrived. All the land rented was tillable and there has been no increase in the amount rented per family since their arrival. This is because all the land is cultivated, and the Italians would rather concentrate all their energy on 20 acres than to partly cultivate a larger area. Every Italian now owns a horse or a mule; this shows prosperity and progress, for it is only within the past five years that they have had the desire to own their live stock. A few of the Italians keep a cow and some have as many as six, although there is no pasture on the land rented. The levee banks, together with areas that the company turns over to the tenants for a common pasture allow plenty of opportunity for the stock to obtain green feed eight months of the year.