236 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



acres; Idaho, 7,072; Utah, 6,000; Washington, 7,000; Oregon, 3,500; 

 more than 90 per cent of it being under cash or share lease. 



Though in many localities the Japanese were at first received with 

 great favor, widespread dissatisfaction with them is now found and 

 they are almost always disparagingly compared with the Chinese, who, 

 because they are careful workmen, faithful to the employer, uncom- 

 plaining, easily satisfied with regard to living quarters, and not 

 ambitious to learn new processes and to establish themselves as in- 

 dependent farmers, are used in the older agricultural districts as the 

 standard by which others are measured. Though many ranchers think 

 that for social reasons it would be a mistaken policy to readmit the 

 Chinese, they generally regard Asiatic laborers as indispensable to 

 the prosperity and expansion of the agricultural industries which have 

 become predominant, and their almost unanimous preference is for 

 Chinese rather than any other Asiatic race. 



The immigration of East Indian laborers may be said to date from 

 1905, and the number of such laborers in the United States July i, 

 1910, may be estimated at 5,000 or perhaps a little more. About 85 

 per cent of these are Hindus wearing the turban; the others are 

 Mohammedans or Afghans. Of 473 East Indians from whom personal 

 schedules were obtained, 85 per cent had been farmers or farm 

 laborers in India. While many of them have been employed for a 

 time on rough work in lumber yards, railroad construction, or as 

 section hands, most of them have drifted into agricultural work in 

 California, where there has been the greatest dearth of cheap labor 

 because of the extension of specialized farming and fruit growing and 

 the diminishing number of Chinese and Japanese available as wage 

 laborers for seasonal work. In 1908 they made their appearance in 

 orchards, vineyards, and sugar-beet fields, and on the large farms 

 devoted to the production of various kinds of vegetables in northern 

 and central California. In 1909 three small groups made their 

 appearance in southern California. Their work has been of the most 

 unskilled type, and limited to hoeing and weeding in field and orchard, 

 and to harvesting of grapes, fruit, and vegetables. In only one or two 

 instances were they found to have been employed with single-horse 

 plows. In the Newcastle fruit district and along the Sacramento and 

 San Joaquin rivers, where a large part of the land is leased by Asiatics, 

 they have found employment without much difficulty because of 

 widespread desire to break the monopoly control of the labor supply 

 by the Japanese or because of the much higher wages than formerly 



