Norwich bulletin., 1911-10-26
SLAV FARMERS IN CONNECTICUT
Examinations Show They Are Working Aga nst Great Odds and in Many Cases Are Not Succeeding in This End of State.
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 with sume Bohemian family in the country. A few families came pur- posing to take summer boarderS and are discouraged to find that a forty- acre farm will not provide vegetables. fruit. eggs, and milk to feed forty boarCers. The summer boarder indus try, rightly managed, is a source of profit, but few have succeeded in the enterprise. Others came lured by the glowing advertisements of cheap land and easy living, inserted in Slav peril odicals by land agents Some came to escape the factory life of the great city and several came seeking health and country home. Few have had much rural experience; most of them found land and rents ridiculously cheap compared with New York city prices, and practically all have felt severely the loss of the regular weekly cash income from factory labor.
 The isolation has. in some respects, worn upon the women and the young, but the unresponsiveness of the soil to their constant and untiring eXer- tions has been the greatest cause of very meanly. and were it not for the supplementary earnings in the small peari- button factories scattered nere and there through the county they would surely suffer want. Several of the earliest settlers have given up in
 
 living from their farms. The grown up members of the family are almost invariably found employed in some supplementary factory occupation.
 Two Further Considerations.
 Two further considerations tend to retard the progress of the Slavic farm CTS; the growing of staple crops eX- clusively, raised by primitive methods, and the inadequate facilities for mar keting their products. The principal district under discussion is about if teen miles square, with q branch of the Wil1imantic river running north and south through it's center. Staff ford Springs. having a population of 2,450 in 1900, is the principal railroad town and marketing center; within it's boundaries are fourteen wooden and shoddy mills, employing hundreds of immigrants Despite this body of To- cal consumers, the chief crops raised in Toflasd county are hay and oats, corn, a few potatoes, and a little rye, buckWheat and millet. Nest farmers keep d few COWS of nondescript breed selling the milk, delivered at the rail fay station every morning to Boston or Providence milk contractors. Most of the farms are six to ten miles dis tant from town. over rough, steep dirt roads, and few crops are produced for market. Excepting milk production, the agriculture is primitive, extensive and self-S Sufficing. Of twenty-six farms investigated in some detail, only three fourtbs showed any cash returns from products marketed. None of the Slo- walks reported sales of more than S250 yearly, and fl per cent. sold nothing for cash; one-third of the Bohemians sell less than $50 worth of products per farm per year; one half sell between $50 and $500 worth, and only three aver age more than $500 worth of cash sales.
 Oxen are frequently used instead of horses, scythes are more numerous than moving machines, self-binders applications of commercial fertilizer rarely exceed $6 in value of Slovall farms and in almost every respect agriculture is very backward The native farmers are, on the whole, do ing q little better than the newcom- CTS, very few of whom are at all hope full and contented. The Bohemians are hard and Intelligent workers, and despite the dila pidated condition of the Buildings when purchased most of them have greatly improved their surroundings and have neat and we'll kept farmsteads.
 Distance a Handicap.
 One of the greatest handicaps to agricultural progress is the distance 10 nldrkelS, or faLuer tile acludl Qedfl Il of markets for any produce that re- turns a profit. Milk is really pro- duced at a loss, fresh vegetables for the local trade are not being pro duced in any systematic way, and shipments of perishables to the large cities are not remunerative. In fact, lack of markets is one of the most ire quent complains of the immigrant. Were it not for the income derived from mill employment and outside la bor, existence would be impossible in some instances. Those fortunate enough to have InreserVed timber tracts from which railroad ties can be cut are able to increase their receipts materially by removing the tinlber, but farm produce is not dependable source of income.
 Social Life.
 Socially, the foreigners are hindered by poverty and isolation. Nevertheless several social enterprises have been set on foot Ey the Bohemians. IF one place there is a local Bohemian band i; in another q farmers organization for crop ana s1ock insurance and social purposes. An active local of we'll known Bohemian mutual aid society has purchased a country sehoolhouse Cover which float bo.n the United States and the Bohemian flags) in which to hold regular meetings; a wo- mans auxiliary aids in developing the social life of the immigrants.
 No Common Church Affiliaton.
 The foreigners have no common church affilia tion-a fact of signifi- canoe. permitting the rapid dissolution Of national and racial ties and the ready Americanization of the Bohem- i9ns. The children attend the Prot estant Sabbath schools with American. young people, but few ef the older people have any regular church con nectiCns The BohemianS have high ideals of education. All their children of school age attend the district school