The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-11
SLAV FARMERS ON THE ABANDONED
 FARM" AREA OF CONNECTICUT

2 estate piracy.
 Exclusive of Jews who have settled in comparatively large numbers near Chesterfield and Colchester, in New London county, perhaps 125 fam1- lies of Poles, Bohemians and other Slavic peoples have purchased farms
 on the upper Connecticut highland,
 chiefly in Holland county. The Bo- hem1ans are perhaps the most nu-
 merous, the most prosperous, and on the whole the most discontented. Nearly all the foreigners migrated from New York city, but the Bohe-
 mians came from skilled occupations
 and brought more money with them than the Poles and SIovaks. The Slovaks are the most recent corners, they are poor, occupy rough, stony
 barren land for the most part, ana their hopeless attempts to clear and
 put in cultivation little patches ot rock -strewn soil are pathetic.
 It is significant that very few or none of the thousands of immigrants employed in the textile mills that th1ckly line the banks of the Willim
 ant1c river have become farmers. The clty-to-country movement of factory workers in the immediate vicinity Is almost negligible Nor has there
 been any organized movement to this bSect1on nor any purpoSeful scheme or colon1zatioR. It is interesting to observe. however that the motives dCtudtlIlS AH0 rural trend or IOr0ISn- CTS are not different from those that lmpel Americans to the countryside. Some confessed that they had gained their notion of the charms of coun- try life when spending their summers
 with some Bohemian families in the country. A few families came pur-
 posing to take summer boarderS and
 are discouraged to find that a for
 ty-acre farm will not provide vege-
 tables. fruit, eggs and milk to feed
 forty boarders. The summer boarder
 industry. rightly managed, is a
 source of profit, but few have suc-
 ceeded in the enterprise. Others
 came lured by the glowing advertise-
 ments of cheap land and easy liv-
 ing, inserted in Slav periodicals by
 cape the factory life of the great city and several came seeking health and a country home. Few have had much
 rural expelence; most of them found
 land andS rents ridlculously 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 res
 poets, worn upon the women and the young. but the unresponsiveness of the soil to their constant and untiring
 exertions has been the greatest cause
 of diScOura cement. Some families live very meanly, and were it not
 for supplementary earnings In the small pearl button factories scattered
 here and there through the county they would surely suffer want. Sew eraI of the earlier settlers have given up in despair the hopeless attempt to win a living from their farms The NgroWn-up mem berS of the families are almost invariably found employed in some supplementary factory occupa- tion.
 Two further considerations tend to retard the progress of the Slavic far mers; the growing of staple crops ex- clusively, raised by primitive meth
 0ds, and the 1nadequate facilities for mark eting their products The prin- cipal district under discussion is about fifteen miles square. with a branch of the Willimantic river running north and south through it's center. Staf- ford Springs, having a population of
 2,460 in 1900, is the principal rail- road town and marketing center; within it's boundaries are fouteen wooden and shoddys mills, employing hundreds of immigrants. Despite
 this body of local consumers, the chief crops raised in Holland coun- Ky are hay and oats, corn, few po- tatoeS. and a little rye, buckwhear, and millet. Most farmers keep few cows of nondescript breed, selling the milk. delivered at the railway tation 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 produc- l ton, the agriculture is primitive, ex- tensive, and self-sufficing. Of twen- ! ty-six farms investigated in some de- tail only threefourti1s showed any l cash returns from products market | ed. None of the Slovaks reported sales of more than $250 yearly, and 1 Al per cent. sold nothing for cash; l one-third of the Bohemians sell less than $50 worth of products per farm | per year. sone-half sell between $50 | and $500 worth, and only three av craze more than $500 worth of cash | sales. A
 Oxen are frequently used instead of1 horses, scytheS are more merous | than mowingmachines, self binders | and threshers are unknown. Annual | applications of commercial fertilizer | rarely exceed $6 in value on Slovak | farms and in almost evey respect ag-.l riculture is very backward. The na- | tive farmers are. on the whole, doing a little better than the newcomers, | full or contended. The Bohemians | are hard and intelligent workers, and | despite the dilapidated condition of | the buildings when purchased most | of them have greatly improved their and have neat and well | kept farmsteads.
 One of the greatest handicaps to agricultural progress is the distance to- markets, or rather the actual dearth of markets for any produce that returns a profit Milk is really produced 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 makets is one of the most frequent complaints of the immi- grant. Were it hot for the income derived from mill employment ana outside labor, existence would be inn possible in some instances. Those fortunate enough to have -unreserved timber tracts from which railroad ties can be cut are able to increase their receipts materially by removing the timber, but farm produce is not de- pendabale source of income.
 Socially the foreigners are hinder ed by poverty and isolation. Never theless, several social enterprises have1 been set on foot by the Bohemians. Tn one place there is a local Bo- hemian band; in another a farmers for crop and stock in- and social purposes An ac-- Of x-<,1I 1> |. |