HON. WM. S. BENNET, Member of Congress from New York City, 

 said: 



"Immigration, so far as this meeting is concerned, I presume is 

 very largely confined to the question of how many immigrants are 

 going on the farms. Twenty-one per cent, of the immigrants who 

 come to us from foreign lands go to the farms ; but twenty-six of 

 their children go on the farms. In other words, there is an increase 

 of from one-fifth of the immigrants on the farms to one-fourth of 

 the immigrants' children. 



"I was struck by one of the statements a gentleman made here 

 that we could not restore the fertility of the land in New York 

 State. Possibly, he did not mean it in such a broad way, because 

 in Europe they are reaping to-day crops which support a much larger 

 population per acre, per mile, from the lands which fed Caesar's 

 Legions. I have no doubt all of you have read the Bible most of 

 you have and will recall the fields of Jezreel which were mentioned 

 as field, of production, and you will be pleased to know that these 

 fields are waving wheat fields to-day, after these thousands of years. 



"There is no reason at all why the lands of New York State 

 should not be made productive. We are just at the beginning, so 

 far as agriculture is concerned. Over in Asia Minor they are utilizing 

 again land which has been laying fallow over two thousand years, 

 and utilizing it it will be interesting to know because with Ameri- 

 can machinery and modern methods they can utilize it with greater 

 profit than years ago. There is another thing: Many people say 

 what is the use of trying to do anything alongside of the irrigated 

 land of the West. Only four per cent, of the land of this country 

 is subject to irrigation; forty per cent, is agricultural land. There- 

 fore thirty-six per cent, must be cultivated by some kind of dry farm- 

 ing, as distinct from irrigation, these being the two somewhat tech- 

 nical terms. So, we have just as good a right to succeed on the 

 farms of New York State as have the farmers on thirty-six of the 

 forty per cent, of the area of this country that can be utilized for 

 agricultural purposes. Now, it is possibly rather strange for a man 

 whose business is confined entirely to Manhattan Island to be talking 

 of agricultural subjects. It is much more important to those of us 

 who live in the city than to those who live on the farm. The man 

 who lives on the farm gets a bare living at least, and is sure of it. 

 His conditions are not as hard as the city man's. What does it mean 

 to us, the decadence of the farms? It means as this is a commercial 



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