FARM LABOR IX MASSACHUSETTS, 1921. 7 
rates. The slump in industrial employment in 1921 released many 
laborers for other work and that summer farmers usually were 
easily able to hire help. Many men finding no work in the cities 
and no openings through employment agencies took to the country 
roads looking for work. In some districts farmers turned away men. 
This abundance of labor forced down day wages even at harvest 
time. In spite of this, shortage of capable, steady, dependable men 
was frequently complained of among general farmers, and especially 
among dairy farmers. 
NATIONALITY, RESIDENCE, AGES, AND DEPENDENTS OF FARM 
EMPLOYEES. 
Discussion of the nationality of farm laborers in Massachusetts is 
complicated by the fact that many of American birth but of foreign- 
born parentage call themselves and are considered to be of the nation- 
ality of their parents. Consequently many farmers, who reported 
hiring foreigners may have been hiring some American-born. 
American employees alone were reported hired by a quarter of the 
farmers reporting and foreigners alone by two-fifths. 
The farm hands vary widely both in nationality and in distribu- 
tion of certain of the races. Immigrants tend to settle near others 
of their race, and thus in the Connecticut River Valley in Massa- 
chusetts there are many Poles, in southeastern Massachusetts many 
Bravas and Portuguese, in central Worcester County many Lithuan- 
ians, and in the market-gardening districts around Boston many 
Irish and Italians. The Colerain district was the most thoroughly 
American of the localities visited in character of farm operators and 
employees. 
Cranbeny-bog laborers and the Falmouth strawberry pickers are 
mostly Bravas. Finns used to be depended upon for bog work, 
but the Bravas have largely displaced them for unskilled labor. In 
the Connecticut River Valley Poles make up the larger part of farm 
labor and are usually preferred to Americans. They are strong, 
steady workers and are thrifty and ambitious to settle and own land. 
They have taken up and developed many of the less valuable tracts 
in the valley and now are also acquiring much of the best onion and 
tobacco land; many of them are counted among the valley's best 
farmers. 
The Bravas have come into southeastern Massachusetts and nearby 
Rhode Island largely in the past 20 years; few of the second (or 
first American-born) generation have yet reached maturity. They 
make a distinct, slowly assimilating element in the population by 
reason of race, nationality, arrd education. At the time of immigration 
at least half seem to be illiterate, not many having had more than ele- 
mentary school education; in one town a few attend a night school. 
The Bravas brought to this country a somewhat undeveloped set 
of moral standards, but are improving in that respect. They are 
usually hard-working and thrifty. Most of them used to come bo 
this country to earn and save money upon which to return home 
and live in comfort, but an increasing proportion is settling here, 
buying cheap lots, erecting cottages which frequently would have 
been considered very good for Americans of a generation ago, and 
living more according to American standards. One town clerk 
