The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-11
lAlexander F.. Canoe. Expert in charge of the Report of the Immi- grafton Commission on Recent Inn migrants in Agriculture.

grafton Commission on Recent Im-
 migrants in Agriculture.
 Recent agricultural immigrants to Southern New England, though not
 numerous, represent three rather dis tlnct economic types. First are the laborers. Portuguese, Finnish, Italian, and Polish, chiefly employed in gangs on the cranberry bogs of Cape Cod or on market gardens near Providence and Boston. Here, capilalistic, high | ly specialized, large-seale agriculture demands large numbers of low-prie- ed 1aborers on the one hand, ana highly efficient foremen or managers
 on the other-dear land and cheap labor. These immigrants are agrl- cultural laborers pure and simple ana are separated from land ownership or land proprietorship by an. almost impossible gulf.
 The second class are the rural communities of land-owning. foreign CTS who occupy fertile soils, such as those in the Connecticut valley, and who are engaged in the production of special crops-onions, tobacco, fruit, or market garden produce. These colonies for the most are pros pering wonderfully and have become permanent additions to the rural communities of their adoption. Their present problems are connected with what may be called their higher life
 social, educational, moral, and po- liticaP Materially they are on a pros porous and hopeful footing.
 The, Slavic and Jewish immigrants on the Connecticut highlands, with whom this article deals, must be re- garded in an economic light as diff ferent from those just mentioned
 There are few sections of Connecticut general farming than the upland towns lying between the eastern wall of the Connecticut- valley and the Willimantic river. from New London and Saybrook northward to the Mas sachuSetts line.
 For many years this section has been agriculturally decadent, and the rural population has declined stead fly. Communities that fourished a hundred years ago would now be well-nigh depopulated were it not for the recent ingress of foreigners; thou sands of acres of land formerly in tillage have been allowed to grow up to chestnut sprouts, and extensive areas of pasture land are now produc- ing little but brush and briers
 The restoration of these lands is grave problem Conservationists have recommended white pine, agrl- cultural experts have advised the in- troduction of sheep husbandry, while with the same purpose in view-that of re7populating the worn-out ridges and restoring their fertility-philan thropists. humanitarians, and real es- tate agents have urged immigrant oceupa tion. The execution of this program of vicarious restoration has, strange to tell, proved more bene- ficial to the land agent than to the incoming, immigrant The immi- grant pioneer settling the western prairies goes to his uncleared, vir- gin land as to bank, upon which he may draw indefinitely for sustenance. The roughly scratched soil, sown to gain. without further effort gives abundant returns On the thin, worn, long exhausted acres of upland New England, however, this procedure pro duces nothing. To draw from the bank. the immigrant must first make rather large deposits of labor and fertilize. The soil must be constant -ly and consistently coaxed and stim- ulated. Consequently, the foreign occupant. who frequently comes from New York factory where he has been earning $15 to $25 a week, and who has invested nearly all his spare cash in land, with little capital and small Knowledge of farming, is likely to meet fdiscouragement or disaster in his first encounter with the exhaust ed farm, which the owner probably sold because he could not earn a living upon it. rN
 One typical case may be mention
  est ridges in Holland County a Slave family, in 1905. bought an old farm of sixty acres. About half of the iand had once been in stillage and S1 200 did not seem an exorbitanr price to pay for land and buildings The family consists of man ana wife, about fifty-nine years of age two daughters employed in New York and two sons about twenty-two ant nineteen years of age, respectively Despite the fact that the younger son works very steadily in a neigh boring pearl button factory, the fam fly have not been able to support themselves and have been obliged 10 call on the daughters for aid more than once. They are neat, careful, hard-working farmers, but the rock strewn, infertile fields give. meagre returns. A careful accounting show ed that scarcely SEQ worth of pro- duce had been sold from the farm in 1909
 Adequate capital and expert knowl edge of fruit-raisins wduld probably make the farm profitable after a few wears. But the father invested all his savings in the land and few head of stock. He is not an expert farmer and his hardest labor and most cartfui aNention to details do not suffice to hillsides. This instance is rather a type than an exception In the particular neighborhood.
 But the obstacles are not all or the same nature. Even with 1n- fertile soil the foreigner accuStom- l ed to the rent-ridden fields of Europe might be able to coax lean return from the so-called abandoned" hills of New England, were he able to purchase his land at fair valuation But this is reckoning without the land shark" The movement of Slavs to Holland county dates back but a few years--to 1902 or 1903. The l greater number have arrived since 1905. The first corners ,who dealt with original owners, fared very we'll, l buying land at its real value-about l $4 to $S per acre. Later the avail | able tracts were grabbed up by real | estate speculators, who gathered in | the bargains, sold the timber to lum- | bermen for the purchase of the land. | and, stocking the farm with a few old cows and some secondhand tools, | of the 6denuded acres to the | credulous and unsophisticated new | conner for more than the original sale | price. Some of the agents are Amer | jeans, some are foreigners who adver tise extensively in Bohemian and Po- fish newspapers,
 The testimony in regard to sharp | practices is specific and ample.
 Tt is a shame" said an intelli- | gent officer, that such barefaced | rascality should go on. I have known | farms that were bought for S1,000 | to be sold by the buying speculator within a month for $5,00O timber rights reserved. The price asked |