344 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



immigration is the comparatively small number who engage in farm- 

 ing, despite the fact that 85 per cent, of this immigration is made up 

 of the peasant class. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact 

 that the immigrant is both poor and ignorant. His poverty forces 

 him to accept whatever work is offered. His ignorance and inability 

 to speak our language prevent him from learning the possibilities of 

 American agriculture. He looks with distrust on an agricultural occu- 

 pation, as likely to be unremunerative and enslaving, as he found it at 

 home. Then the rural life at home was very different from rural life 

 here. In Italy the peasants for the most part live in big villages or 

 towns, and go to their work early in the morning, returning to their 

 home in the evening, so that when the day's work is done they can 

 rejoin their family among thousands of their own kind. 



The crowding of Italians into our large cities can be understood 

 if one studies the padrone system and padrone banks. The poor, 

 ignorant laborer is at the mercy of the padrone and banker, and if he 

 could leave, does not know where to go. He has no friends to show 

 him the way, to inform him of the homestead law or of the wages paid 

 farm laborers. But he finds friends (?) speaking his own language 

 in the great city who will get him a 'job,' and so he stays in the city. 

 He is sent out on contract labor and probably in the fall, when the 

 work is done, arrives in the city again with very little money to face 

 the winter. Often he finds it cheaper to pay the steerage rate and go 

 back to sunny Italy than to stay in cold New York, where fuel is a 

 necessity and provisions dear. 



The Italian as an agricultural immigrant is a success, and the 

 regrettable feature of Italian immigration is the small percentage who 

 go to rural communities. Italian agricultural colonies in and around 

 Vineland, N. J., are prosperous and growing. The Italians in Texas 

 have been uniformly successful in rice and cotton culture, truck farm- 

 ing and vine growing. They have been very valuable in Louisiana, 

 Mississippi and other southern states, as a substitute for the unreliable, 

 shiftless negro. Their success in California, where they found the 

 climate particularly suited to them and their favorite occupation, vine 

 and fruit growing, has been one of the features of the development of 

 California. The report of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, San 

 Francisco, 1897, gave 47,625 Italians living in the 56 counties of Cali- 

 fornia, almost all engaged in agriculture, owning 2,726 farms. Eight 

 hundred and thirty-seven business concerns had a capital of $17,908,- 

 300, the total capital for Italian business men, ranchers and farmers 

 aggregating, according to this report, $114,325,000. 



Italians have been established near many of our largest cities upon 

 truck farms, and in almost every instance are successful. The Italian 

 colonies in Alabama are thriving and prosperous communities, with 

 schools and churches. 



