The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-07-10

Why do peasants from Bohemian beet
fields or Croatan vineyards betake them
selves in America to mines and foun-
dries, making no use of the experience
of a lifetime and of a skill which If often
primitive is sometimes of a high order.
It is not because they are eager to taste
city life but because of the hard neces-
sity of the case.
At home the immigrants either had no
property or probably more commonly
owned a tiny piece of land. The money
they are a BILE to raise Is hardly more than
enough to bring them to America. They
cannot think of buying a farm here. The
position of a farm laborer pays less than
other employments that are open, and it
lasts only part of the year, so necessarily
they settle in the city By the time a
family has saved the sum needed to
buy land its members are accustomed to
city life.
Also the obstacle of language is far
more serious on the farm than in the fac
tory. A man having once been taught his
special task in any highly organized work
is once for all initiated and there Is like
ly to be a fellow countryman at hand to
interpret If need arises. On the farm
there is a constant change of tasks and
endless opportunity for mistakes from In
ability to understand orders.
Farm life is made forbidding to the
foreigner by the strange food, the lack
of his own church and, above all, by his
separation from those of his own speech
and ways. In Europe country life is for
the most part village life. The typical
settlement is cluster of houses with a
ehuich and an open place where perhaps
the boys and girls dance on Sunday after
Moons, and all about it fields stretching
out on every side The isolation of the
American farmhouse is a drawback to
life either as farm hand or as an In
dependent farmer.
The immigrant sometimes really fears
the hostility or the over-reaching greed
of American neighbors. Bohemian
guide book advises settlers that in cer-
tain localities they will find no fellow
countrymen $50 that the immigrant must
settle among perfect strangers, In great
part cunning and capable of anything,
and might easily, in consequence Of his
ignorance of the language. be deprived of
the land he has taken up" Among a
group of settlers, neighbors at home and
now strangers together in strange land,
there is especial degree of mutual
helpfulness and comfort. This has great
economic value. For instance, in a Ne
braska county which lost nearly 1000 of
its scanty population in the three bad
years that followed the panic of 1873.
the Bohemian and German homesteaders
held out as the Americans could not,
against the grasshopper plague, the
drought and the hard times. And the
reason for this was that the Bohemians
were more ready to help one another than
were the Americans.
In spite of all the difficulties, we do
find considerable numbers of our Slavic
population on farms. There are about
100000, the majority being Independent
farmers They are fairly widely scattered
for twenty-six states each have at least
200 of them Wisconsin has the largest
number with over 1900, and South Da-
kota the largest proportion with about
II per cent of its whole farming popula-
ton belonging to the Slavic group b.
hemains and Poles doubtless make the
great majority of the Slavic farmers in
the United States.
When the Poles and more especially
the Bohemians began to come In the
ffties and later they went to the states
where they could then get land free as
homesteaders at cheap rates. Consequent
ly they settled first in Wisconsin, Mich
igan and Minnesota. where 1t was neces-
sary to cut timber to clear the land and
somewhat later In the prairie states far
Their west in Iowa Nebraska and the
Dakotas The first years we're hard ones.
1t is said that in parts Of Wisconsin
ten years ago every other Bohemian
farm was mortgaged while today not
one in seven is so encountered. The roomy
farm houses of wood or yellow brick,