described in the report on the Bohemians, Slovaks, and Poles in Connecticut. New London County is almost as hilly and barren, and Middlesex County east of the Connecticut River is rough, stony, and broken almost beyond description. The census of 1900 reports a little less than 30 per cent of the farm land improved in Tolland, about one-third improved in Middlesex and about 39 per cent of the farm land improved in New London County. There are tracts of woodland, not in farms, and many low, swampy areas interspersed. Probbably not 10 per cent of the total acreage is in cultivation.

Chesterfield, 12 miles northwest of New London, is reached by wagon road. The southern portion of the country is fairly level and open and has a semiprosperous appearance; but as one approaches Chesterfield the contour becomes very rough, rugged, and uneven. Rocky, forest-covered hills, narrow ravines, and strait, marshy meadows are the principal features. In the vicinity of Colchester, the Hebrew farms are more or less scattered, but they seem to be located on the roughest and most infertile soils in the vicinity. In Niantic township and near Willimantic, in Columbia, Hebron, and Lebanon townships, the soil is somewhat more fertile and the contour less abrupt. In general, the Hebrew farms are in the least favorable situations, agriculturally.

The soils vary greatly. Most of them are sandy. Some are gravelly loams and there are areas of heavy red clay. The bottom soils along the stream beds are rather wet and cold, but wild grass seems to do well on them. Because of the stones and the steepness of the slopes, the fields are necessarily small and modern horsepower machines are precluded.

Practically all of the soils are very much worn; generations of New England farmers have cropped them until they have been drained of their natural fertility. To raise crops of any kind large quantities of manure and fertilizers of various sorts must be applied. Some old pastures, covered with a sparse growth of blue grass and an increasing growth of brush and small trees-birch, pines, and other forest cover are so exhausted that 10 acres will scarcely support a cow through the summer.

The soils, of course, are glacial in origin, when there are any soils, and represent thin deposits, intermingled with bowlders, laid down on solid bed rock. Frequently the ancient formation appears on the surface, bold, bare, and sterile. Glacial action, except in the central lowland, by scraping and pushing the original soil into the ocean, lessened forever the agricultural possibilities of the eastern highland region of Connecticut.

The chief drawback to successful agriculture is the depleted nature of the soil. Unless the land is managed carefully, fertilized systematically, and planted to crops for which it is better adapted than for the great staples, it is almost impossible to obtain a living from it. Dairying and fruit raising are perhaps the two most readily adapted and most satisfactory lines of farming that can be followed. The Hebrews began with dairying and have kept it up. Next to the keeping of boarders dairying engages most of the attention. But even hay can not be grown very satisfactorily and to keep a numerous dairy herd over the long winter is a serious matter.

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The climate of the State is not severe and although the winters are rather long, the summer is long enough and warm enough to mature the staple crops and fruit-apples and peaches. The mean annual temperature at Colchester is about 48° F., a little less than at Middletown, in the Connecticut Valley. The mean temperature, June to September, over a period of twenty-two years at Colchester is 66.6° F., according to the government records. The first killing frost in the autumn is likely to occur about September 30 and the latest in the spring about May 6, leaving a growing season of almost five months. Winter begins in November and ends late in March or early in April, usually extending over five months of the year. The average annual depth of snowfall is more than 4 feet---51.5 inches. The records of rainfall are not available for Colchester, but the table of precipitation for Middletown shows that the annual precipitation is nearly 50 inches, fairly well distributed throughout the year. Unfortunately June is likely to be a dry month, the average rainfall being only 3.31 inches. Complaints of early summer droughts are frequent.

The table following gives the salient climatological data for Middletown and Colchester, Conn., as compiled by the United States Weather Bureau. It is noticeable that the period of "no frost averages 11 days longer in the lowland (Middletown) than on the highlands near Colchester.

Temperature and precipitation records, Middletown and Colchester, Conn.
[From the Summary of the Climatological Data for the United States, sec. 105.]

An analysis of 159 Hebrew farms in the vicinity of Colchester, Chesterfield, and East Haddam shows that the average farm acreage is not great, if the tax lists may be relied on: Under 40 acres, 23

farms; 40 and under 80 acres, 40 farms; 80 and under 120 acres, 37 farms; 120 and under 200 acres, 48 farms; 200 acres or over, 11 farms. This shows a median farm of 98 acres. The smallest farms are around Colchester and East Haddam, where 18 small farms are reported. The largest farms contain more than 300 acres.

The average holding of the farmers interviewed by Commission agents is somewhat greater than the above estimate. Two-thirds of these farms are 120 or more acres in size, the median farm containing about 150 acres.

The land is nearly all operated by owners. It is so cheap when rightly valued that there is no advantage in paying rent. Many of the holdings are assessed for $40 or less per acre. The original New England owners found lumber and labor cheap. They built substantial houses, warm barns, and miles of stone fences around the little fields they prepared for tillage. Few of them accumulated riches; most of them made a fair livelihood from their crops of rye, wheat, and hay, their cows and other live stock, and their household manufactures. Since early in the last century, however, they have been retiring one by one, following their children to the cities, and either selling the farms or allowing them to decay.

The great body of immigrants who came into the United States during the eighties and early nineties did not remain on the eastern farms, but pushed out into the virgin areas of the West. The Irish, however, at earlier date settled in a large number of localities in New England, and many of them became good farmers, but their children in many instances were among the first to desert the farm for the city.

The most recent influx-chiefly Hebrew in this section-have in a measure taken up old, abandoned farms and are now following closely along the old lines of agriculture. The principal sub-industry is dairying. Each farmer has two or three cows; a few have as many as 16 or 20; 8 to 12 is a fair average. The cows are turned out on the old pastures or roam about the woods in the summer, and in most cases get little grain or hay during the summer months. Most of the milk is sold to creameries, one of which is at Chesterfield. A great deal of milk is consumed by summer boarders, of course, hence the average cash returns per dairy are not high.

The native New England farmers say that most of the Hebrews do not take good care of their herds, feed them sufficiently or properly, or milk them with regularity. There are some good herds, showing the Holstein, the Jersey, or the Guernsey strain, but in general the character of the dairy cows kept is very mediocre indeed.

One or two farmers were interviewed who reported returns of $800 to $1,000 yearly from dairy products, but very few receive an income of more than $300 from this source. Of 23 farms among those investigated reporting sales of dairy products, 12 reported less than $250 worth, 4 reported between $250 and $500, 6 between $500 and $1,000, and 1 between $1,000 and $1,500 worth annually. These are somewhat above the general average.

Very few farmers are able to raise sufficient hay or grain to feed their live stock through the winter, and nearly every farmer interviewed reported some outlay, often amounting to one-third or onehalf of the total income from milk, for cow feed or hay. In some instances the feed bill and the checks received from sales of milk

practically balanced each other. No one was hopeful or enthusiastic about the milk situation except one or two men with large acreages of wild meadow and extensive pastures.

Almost no hay is sold, but nearly every farmer raises hay of some sort-tame grass, wild meadow hay, or grain cut green. The average quantity reported per farm is 23 tons. Hay sells for $15 to $20 per ton, baled, and were the soil carefully worked and fertilized and a careful rotation followed there is little doubt that it would be a profitable crop, even if produced some distance from market. As it is, the yield per acre is small, in instances less than one ton, and the curing is not always the best. In respect to hay the Bohemian settlers are out-doing the Hebrews.

Some rye is raised. On rare occasions a crop of green rye is plowed down for green manuring. One or two farmers were thrashing out the grain with flails, then binding the thrashed straw, unbroken, into bundles to sell for bedding in horse stables. The Hebrews have made little of this crop, which grows well even on poor soil, and handled thus, both as a grain and a straw, makes as profitable a crop as can be produced. The straw sells at about the same price as good timothy hay, and under average conditions will yield 15 to 20 bushels of grain and a ton or more of straw per acre. No one of the Hebrews raises more than a very few acres of rye. The average crop is about 25 bushels per farm.

Almost the only field crop sold is white potatoes. Every farmer has an acre or more of these, the surplus only being marketed. They are hauled to Colchester, Willimantic, New London, or even Hartford, and sold to produce dealers, or they may be shipped to these or other points. Except in a very few cases returns have not been wholly satisfactory. They require a good deal of labor for tillage and harvesting and large applications of fertilizer; the yield rarely reaches 75 bushels per acre, usually 50 bushels or less. Many of the potatoes are consumed at home. Fifteen farmers reported sales of vegetables, usually potatoes; no Hebrew grower valued his crop at more than $250, and two-thirds reported less than $100 per farm annually.

Most farmers have a few acres of corn, that often yield not more than 10 to 15 bushels per acre, rarely more than 25 bushels, which is all fed on the farm. About half of the farms report oats or oat hay. Oats do not mature well owing to rust and blights. Four acres, yielding 20 bushels per acre, is a fair average.

In addition there is an occasional field of buckwheat and, especially around Chesterfield, some miscellaneous garden vegetables-sweet corn, onions, summer squash, cabbage, and the like-which are sold to summer residents; or perhaps a little of the truck is hauled to the New London market at irregular intervals. The physical obstacles in the way of trucking are the long distances from market, the generally poor roads, and the infertile soil. The soil can be enriched, but the long haul by wagon is a great handicap.

One other possible source of income is poultry and poultry products. Some farmers sell a hundred dollars worth or more of poultry and eggs, most of them to summer residents. Usually the sales amount to $50 or thereabout yearly. Very few sell any fruit, apples or peaches, but on almost all farms there are old apple orchards-not large, but sufficient if properly trimmed, sprayed, and cared for to

supply the family with good fruit and a surplus for sale. The Connecticut Hebrews are apparently not good orchardists. Only a very few report any sales of orchard products, and almost none are found with young orchards. The old orchards bought with the farms have in a very few instances been renovated, replenished, or cared for in any way. One or two young farmers seemed alive to the possibilities of fruit-raising on the hillsides of New London County, but little enthusiasm was manifested in this or, indeed, in any other form of agriculture The tables following show the quantity and value of various crops produced and sold by 23 of the Hebrew farmers under consideration:

TABLE 4.—Average quantity and value per farm of crops raised, Hebrew farmers, Chesterfield and Colchester, Conn.

TABLE 5.-Classification of farms by values of specified farm products produced and sold, Hebrew farmers, Chesterfield and Colchester, Conn.

It will be seen that agriculture is at a very low ebb in the Hebrew quarter. Great hopelessness is manifest and much discouragement. Only here and there is there a man whose sons have remained with him or who has had capital, energy, and ambition sufficient to make agriculture successful. Of the recent arrivals-those who have arrived within ten years-the prosperous farmer, the man who is