150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Mr. F. A. Bliss (of Kelioboth). I claim that there is no 

 one thing that damages ns more in this labor question than 

 the drink habit. Does the lecturer know of any remedy \ 



Mr. Potter. That is a question that has been asked for 

 a great many years, and nobody has ever been able to solve 

 it. There is no question in my own mind but that the sale 

 of intoxicating liquor is the greatest curse in the country, 

 but it is a hard matter to handle. 



Question. Have you knowledge of agencies which supply 

 Italian labor for farms, and have you had opportunities to 

 observe the record the Italians have made ? 



Mr. Potter. I never have employed Italians on the farm. 

 I have had them for other work and they worked very in- 

 dustriously. We had no trouble with drinking, or anything 

 of that sort. I hear some of them are especially good for 

 garden business. 



Mr. C. W. Mann (of Methuen). I have had a good deal 

 of experience with Italians the last fifteen years. My busi- 

 ness has been farming, but not altogether. I have been some 

 years in outside work, and my acquaintance with Italian 

 laborers began, as one of the commissioners, with putting 

 in town water works. I used the same help on my farm, as 

 far as I could, in clearing and reclaiming land and clearing 

 out Avails, and such work. At times I have had from twenty 

 to fifty Italians for a few days. The ordinary Italian is 

 an honest, faithful laborer, and will do more hard work with 

 the pick and shovel in a month than almost any man you 

 can hire for that work. If you want him to drive a horse, 

 sometimes he can turn round with it, if it is a two-wheeled 

 cart. In the last fifteen years I have employed perhaps a 

 thousand different Italians. I have known them by name 

 and talked with them to some extent in their own language, 

 because you cannot handle them to the best advantage unless 

 you get a little acquainted with them. But among that thou- 

 sand I had one who was a good teamster ; he would drive a 

 team as well as any American I have seen. With this 

 exception, I have never seen one you could trust away from 

 your sight and away from another driver. The only way I 

 could use one was to have two teams, one with an American 



