The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1904-08-11

4
Iout sprouts with every spring, These
sprouts never grow to saplings of any
size, because every two or three years
there is brush fire. So the country
is covered over with a dense growth OF
scrub oak, perhaps two or three feet
high, dotted with the stumps of muir
dered trees and the phantoms of burned
saplings. On the road between River
head and Wading River you drive past
five miles of this underground and only
lone farm. The owner don't clear it;
neither do they sell. First because they
are ever holding out for a rise in val
ues, and second because there Is no one
to buy.
Nov, in the old days the HELP in
pIoughing and harvest time was COM
posed of farmers sons, as is natural in
any small community. When the sons
began to go, the farmers began to look
for hands elsewhere. 1t is hard to get
hands in a. place like Long Island. The
farmer along regular lines of travel can
pick up wandering workmen or tramps
stricken with a sudden madness for
work. But the roads Of Long Island
lead only to Sag Harbor, and Sag Har-
Dor is not a metropolis
The Long Island farmers had to hus-
tie and do the best they could.
At first the best consisted of Poles.
These Poles weren't satisfactory To
begin with, the, farmers sons had al
ways mixed with their employers on
terms of perfect equality. They lived
| in the house; they ate at the same ta-
Bile. An American farmer hates to
share his victuals with a Polish labor
Eer.4 So there was the social complica-
tion of a separate establishment. Then
the Poles weren't satisfactory as work
men. and they were disposed, as soon
as they got a few dollars ahead, to go
back to Poland So the Long Islanders
bounced the Poles and tried the south
ern negroes. And the negroes didn't
suit thteir employers ideas Of industry,
either. They, too. would make few
dollars and then away to the sunny
south.
All this had a. bearing on the aban-
doned-farqn problem. 1t lis the history
of American farming everywhere that
the country boys don't stay with the
farms. Their places are taken by the
Immigrants, and sometimes the city
men who have come in, begun as farm
hands, and worked into farming, either
as lessees or as owners. The farm
hand of one generation is the indeDen-
dent farmer of the next.
Now, with the farm hands ducking
out as soon as they found themselves
ahead to the amount Of the fare, there
was no one to take up the abandoned
farms. So there they lie; good farms,
too, say the neighbors who have stuck
to the soil, and who seem to be pros
porous.
This was the situation when the Rev.
George j. Newton was called to the
pulpit Of the Sound avenue Congrega-
|tional church, which lies between Riv-
|erhead and Aquebogue. It is the most
prosperous part of the community, new
blood and an exceptional survival Of the
old families having combined to keep
up the farms. No abandoned or waste
ground there. The dead" farms lie
further out on three sides.
Mr.. Newton is an Englishman by
birth, which his congregation didn't
know in the first place, or they'd never
have called him. He kept dark until
they liked him well enough to forget
the awful secret Of his birth. But he
saw the abandoned farms and heard
the farmers kicking about the labor
problem, and he bethought himself of
the English farm laborer, living under
hard conditions. and the underfed, I'M
#derpaid English factory hand.
It has already been told in the news
papers how Mr.. Newton PASSED the
glad tidings of good work and good pay
on to England, and now thirty young
Britishers came over in a bunch and
found work. Thirty more have arrived
since then, and they also are hard at it.
More are to follow. Mr.. Newton in
tends that they shall work here as farm
laborers until they learn all about the
American soil, and then they are to
strike out either as lessees or as own
ers. Some have brought along money
for the purpose. Others are to get
there BY the long process of saving and
leasing. When farm work peters out
they take up wood chopping. All win
ter wood choppers are in demand on
Long Island, and they do pretty we'll if
they stick at it.
The farmers, at least the old, Revolu-
tion-trained lot weren't for the British
help at first. But just now a Long Is
land farmer would take on an Apache
or a Zulu if he looked like good labor
er. So, much against their principles,
they tried it. The British have sue
ceeded.' - pc. = T.
Wouldn't trade him for two blamed
Polaks and three. niggers," says Dick
Wells of his new hired man. - -.
Works like horse and don't ask to
get off even for the circus" says Far
mer VIII Halleck. -.
Halleck and Wells struck real Eng
lish farm hands, who know hayfork
from rake and snake from a belly
band. Some Of the new laborers, how
ever. come from the East Side of Lon.