from Vineland are raised by Italians. During the season of 1909 the freight agents at Vineland estimate that a total of 14,200 crates of 32 quarts each were shipped, approximately 11,200 crates of which were delivered by Italian growers. The gross price received probably did not average more than $1.10 per crate for the entire shipment. The average gross value for two years reported by 21 growers is $1.36

a crate.

These berries are easily grown and cultivated, but on the upland sandy soils are likely to dry up or burn in time of drought and hot weather. This year (1909) a superabundance of rain somewhat injured the quality of the fruit.

The necessary expenses for picking and shipping per crate are: Picking, 48 cents; crates and boxes, 16 cents; freight, 14 to 20 cents; commission, 10 per cent of gross selling price. This makes a necessary total expense of nearly 90 cents per crate, without considering cost of hauling to market, cultivation of the crop, expense of fertilizer, or rent of land. A very good yield is 100 crates per acre; 50 crates is a much more common average.

For some reason the Italians have persevered in this enterprise despite falling prices and increasing production of berries on more favorable areas north and south. The American farmers have largely given it up. Out of a total of 49 Italian farms 21 reported strawberries grown, the production (an average of two years) varying from 15 to 175 crates per farm with an average of 68 crates, worth $93, or about $1.36 per crate. There is reason to believe that the figures on prices received are too high. For instance, this year the canning factories at Bridgeton and Vineland paid $1 or less per crate during the season. On berries delivered to the canning companies there are no freight bills and no commissions to be paid, however.

Blackberries of the dewberry variety are another precarious crop that has declined in recent years, but has a brighter outlook just now. The Wilson berry, formerly the standard, has given place to the dewberry, a somewhat hardier variety that must be trained to a stake. The plants are set out in rows, sometimes 5 by 4 feet, sometimes 6 feet by 2 or 3 feet. In the first instance they can be cultivated by horse machinery both ways. The second season the berries, tied to stakes in the spring, bear a good crop, and continue to bear satisfactorily, if cultivated, trimmed, tied, and well fertilized, for four or possibly five seasons, when it is necessary to reset the field.

The cost of picking and marketing is the same as for strawberries, but the price is somewhat better. This year the Farmers' Canning Company contracted for blackberries at $1.60 per crate. Up to the present date (July 6, 1909) the gross returns from shipment have varied from $2.25 to $3 per crate. Fifty to 75 crates an acre is a good average yield.

The shipments from Vineland last year are estimated by freight agents at 14,000 crates, of which about 12,000 crates were Italiangrown berries. This year shipments will be heavier. The berry season is practically over by August 1. Twenty-eight farms, or 57 per cent, reported blackberries, the average production per farm being 103 crates for the North Italian and 49 crates for the South Italian grower. The South Italian received $72, or $1.48 a crate, for his berries, while the North Italian took in $142, but had to be satis

fied with $1.38 a crate. As a matter of fact, there is no characteristic difference in the quality of the berries grown by these two peoples.

Perhaps the most important crop from every point of view is the sweet potato crop. No other crop raised here extensively requires so great an outlay of labor and capital yearly, and in no other has a greater advance been made in the use of improved methods, fertilizers, and horse machinery. The soil in almost every section is well adapted to sweet potatoes, and for many years this has been the principal money crop of farmers in the region.

Formerly the ground was plowed with a one-horse plow and the plants set out in rows by hand labor by use of a trowel or dibble. The plants were cultivated with a one-horse plow or shovel cultivator and hoed several times, one of the necessities being to keep them very free from weeds. About September 1 digging began, potato forks being used. They are gathered by hand and stored in barns or cellars, where they are subjected to a sweating process. The temperature is raised by means of wood fires to about 80°. After a few days the heat is reduced, and if kept in a dry place above freezing point the "sweets" may be stored all winter without loss, although there is always danger of a black rot, which attacks the heart of the potato.

In a large measure hand culture is giving way to two-horse machines. Two-horse plows, disk and acme harrows, sweet potato planters, sulky cultivators, and horse potato diggers are in use on all the better Italian farms, and others are rapidly acquiring them. Within three years more than 100 horse planters have been sold by Vineland implement dealers, two-thirds of which the dealers say have been bought by Italians.

Some of the large growers raise from 2,000 to 4,000 bushels of "sweets" yearly, and very few farmers near Vineland seem to have less than 4 or 5 acres devoted to this crop. In 1908 the total shipments from Vineland were about 125,000 bushel-hampers, of which approximately 100,000 bushels came from Italian growers. A great many are shipped from stations in the vicinity of Vineland. One hundred to 150 bushels is a very fair crop, although more than 200 bushels are often raised on an acre. Possibly 100 bushels is a conservative average for all sorts, conditions, and seasons.

The bulk of the 1908 crop sold at $1.25 per bushel hamper, or about $3.50 per barrel, the greater part of the crop going by the barrel of 2 bushels. Some are shipped in 3-bushel barrels, but the tabulations have been made on the basis of 24 bushels, 150 pounds. Taking a two-year average, 20 of the 21 North Italian farmers reported sweet potatoes. They sold an average of 215.3 barrels each, receiving $651.50, or $3.03 a barrel, for them. The South Italian farmers reported fewer. Of 28 farms, 24 reported sweet potatoes. The average production per farm was 98.2 barrels, which sold for $237.29, or $2.40 a barrel. Not many of the South Italians have adequate storage facilities; hence they must take whatever is offered in the fall instead of holding for better prices.

Shipments go forward during the winter. Usually the potatoes are sorted by size and shape into three or four grades, the sprouts are rubbed off, the rotted potatoes discarded, and the barrels packed uniformly. This crop takes large dues in labor and fertilizer. A

number of farmers use from 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of high-grade fertilizers to the acre, the cost of which is about $28 per ton, cash in July.

Concerning peppers, some account will be found in the report on Newfield. Approximately 15,300 bushel-hampers were shipped from the two freight stations in Vineland in 1908, nearly all of them by Italian farmers. The center of this industry is at Newfield. Among those investigated, only one North Italian farmer reported any peppers sold.

Of the other crops, corn is raised for feed and as a substitute for hay. Cowpeas and sometimes clover are grown for green manuring, but not to the extent they should be for best results. A great deal of dependence is placed on acid fertilizers.

Some tomatoes, Italian beans, asparagus, onions, and eggplant are grown for market, but, with the exception of beans, no Italians raise these extensively. For some reason, perhaps because of distance from railway, the Italians have not gone into trucking or market gardening very extensively. A few farmers are raising cantaloupes, which sell at good prices for local consumption only.

This season (1909) the Farmers' Canning Company has contracted for a comparatively large acreage of tomatoes at $9 per ton, and a number of Italian growers who hold stock are beginning to raise love apples. Most farmers have a small field of white or "round" potatoes, as they are called, but the total quantity raised for market by Italians is not great. There are few other commercial crops. Some native Italian vegetables are grown in the gardens for home use, the seed originally coming from Italy. But the Vineland Italian is not a vegetable gardener.

Although there are hundreds of acres in peach and pear orchards, few Italian farmers at Vineland have made successful orchardists. A great many insect pests and fungous diseases attack these fruits, and eternal vigilance and the everlasting application of spraying mixtures is the price of good fruit every year. Frosts frequently cut off all hopes of a harvest, and sometimes the market is so low that there is no profit in picking the fruit. One young Italian, who gives his orchard a great deal of intelligent care, reports gross sales of $75 from 14 acres of peach and pear trees in full bearing in 1908. This year, owing to early frosts, he will get even less fruit. More than one Italian has grubbed out entire a young peach orchard badly infested with the yellows and set it out again with new seedlings. The skill required in spraying, pruning, and caring for an orchard; the liability to loss by diseases, insects, or frost; the long period of waiting (five years) in expectation of a crop, are obstacles which only the most skillful of the Italian farmers have been able to overcome successfully. A great many have a few trees, a few have several acres, but very few have well-cared-for, healthy, vigorous orchards of either peaches or pears.

TABLE 11.—Classification of farms by value of specified farm products produced and sold.

TABLE 12.-Average quantity and value per farm of crops produced.

Although most of the Italians have some knowledge of farming operations when they come to this community, very few have any knowledge of modern methods. They learn by imitation of the American farmer or by the teachings of their neighbors who have previously been imitators. All start with the hand, the hoe, the rake, and the mattock, and one of the hardest and most slowly learned lessons is that horse labor is cheaper than human labor. To this day shrewd, intelligent farmers insist that every crop must be hoed several times in order to mature properly and give satisfactory returns. Much of the hoeing is done by women and the older children, but some work is laid out for each one. Among the small farmers the onehorse cultivator is solely employed, and its use is almost invariably followed by the hoe. The skillful manipulation of more complicated machinery is acquired with difficulty, and very seldom does an Italian take the lead in the introduction of labor-saving horsepower implements. Individually they follow the lead of some American farmer. Indeed, one of the greatest contrasts between the Jerseyman and the Latin is in the use of machinery, and one of the most significant signs of progress has been the increase in the number of horses and machines per farm of the best type within a few years.

As to yield per acre of the several crops, the Italian averages are as high or higher than the American and much higher than the average Hebrew, who in Vineland is decidedly incapable of successfully competing with either Italian or American farmers. Counting all costs, the Italian spends much more labor per unit of crop, and it is very evident that many do not employ fertilizers adequately or judiciously. Many use a low grade, a good many have no intelligent ideas on the application of fertilizers, and not one in ten uses all he could profitably apply.

Fertilizers are bought largely through agents, who call on the farmers or appoint a day on which they will meet all who wish to purchase their goods. Each farmer gives his order for the sort desired, the agent aiding in the choice and deciding the amount of it needed. The entire order is shipped in carload lots, the farmers taking it directly from the car when it arrives in Vineland. The best grades used cost up to $32 per ton. A certain discount is made if the order is paid for by July 15, at which date the cash returns from their berry sales enable the buyers to pay if they so desire. Some manure, in carload lots, for which the charge is $2.40 per ton f. o. b. Philadelphia, is used for peppers and garden truck. One man used it on a cantaloupe field. But the total quantity of barnyard manure applied is small.

The culture is clean, and most of the cropped land is well cared for. It is noticeable that the Italians with large areas-say 50 acres in cultivation-have not been able to give the same care and attention to their fields, and many of these fields look weedy, slovenly, and improperly cared for. It is a common mistake of farmers to add land more rapidly than labor or machinery.

Most of the crops raised were introduced before the Italians came. The exceptions are Italian beans and peppers, both of which are raised almost exclusively by the Italians. It is said by some that the method of planting the grapevines in holes or trenches was introduced by the Italians, but this is hard to verify. The most reliable testimony goes to show that very few innovations are to be credited to