DRY LANDS AND FORESTS 135 



daunt them in the forbidding aspect of a New 

 England rock-ribbed hillside, especially when 

 they can possess it for a few dollars. At home 

 the people of southern Europe are familiar 

 with soil being built on bare rocks, carried in 

 baskets on the backs of groaning peasants. 

 Such made land is common even in the rich 

 Rhine country. Gleaning has been the por- 

 tion for centuries of these people, and the 

 frugality and thrift, indeed the very low 

 standard of living we profess to despise in 

 them, combine to adapt them admirably for 

 the opportunities they find on every hand in 

 this country. 



One in every three of the ten million 

 emigrants from southern Europe who entered 

 our gates in the decade ending 1910 returned 

 home with his savings. In order to accom- 

 plish this ambition they lowered even their 

 own low standard of living. They were un- 

 desirable aliens in the ultimate extension of 

 the term, and not to be compared with their 

 sturdy, hard-headed brothers, who are willing 

 to sacrifice all for the possession of an acre 

 of productive land. It is this desire to own 

 land that marks what we like to call the Ameri- 

 can Spirit, and, in the end, must be the factor 



