BEET SUGAR 925 



sweaters make a profit from their sub-contract with the field 

 hands ; the system being open to the possibiHties of overreaching, 

 which are too familiar under such arrangements. 



All this is part of the transformation which has been wrought 

 in so many parts of our social and economic structure during 

 the last quarter of a century by the great inflow of immigrants. 

 Agriculture as well as manufacturing industry is feeling the 

 influence of the new conditions. Laborers from the congested 

 foreign districts of the cities Italians, Bohemians, "Huns," 

 " Polacks," Russians make their way to the market gardens 

 surrounding the cities, to vegetable districts such as that of the 

 Chesapeake peninsula, to the cranberry fields of New Jersey ; 

 these do the hard work for the shrewd Yankee farmers. Some 

 of them may be on the way to the acquisition of land through 

 their savings. But certainly for the time being the conditions 

 are socially and industrially unwelcome. They are not dissimi- 

 lar to those of the Sachsengangerei, of ill repute in eastern 

 Germany. They are very different from the conditions which 

 we think of as typical of agriculture in the United States. As 

 in these analogous cases, so in the beet fields, there is an 

 agricultural proletariat. 



As yet, however, the main agricultural region of the United 

 States the great central region in which are the wheat and 

 corn belts has been little affected. Here we still find exten- 

 sive cultivation, agricultural machinery, the one-family farm. It 

 is true that during the harvest season there is a heavy demand 

 for agricultural laborers, and that this is satisfied by laborers who 

 may be said also to constitute an agricultural proletariat. It is 

 true, further, that the stage of pioneer farming has been passed 

 or is rapidly being passed, that rotation is becoming more sys- 

 tematic and skilful, the land more valuable, cultivation more in- 

 tensive. Nevertheless, this remains the region of the one-family 

 farm. The farmers "ride on their stirring plows and cultivators" 

 and in this way are able to do most of the work on their lands 

 for themselves. 



Throughout the corn belt, more particularly, there is no sugar- 

 beet industry of any moment. It pays better to raise corn ; there 



