The Sunday Herald, Boston, April 14, 1912 – Special News Section; transcribed by Pamela Hodgkins 2025.
What the Massachusetts Agricultural College Is Doing to Teach the Foreigner to Farm Scientifically and to Live Happily.
In marked contrast to the thousands of immigrant aliens whose struggle against an unfamiliar wage system has been brought into prominence by the labor troubles in Lawrence and Lowell and the threatened disturbances in other New England mills centres is a growing group of Poles who have invaded the fertile Connecticut valley and are gradually acquiring much of the best tobacco and onion land in this state.
While their less foresighted brethren from beyond the sea have been content to eke out a meagre existence from the machine, many of those plodding newcomers have left the cities behind them and are wresting not a bare living but actual prosperity, from the soil.
Their success seems to prove a proposition often cited, that if the immigrant can be drawn from the crowded city slums out into the country, he may be doubly useful to the community and to himself. The Pole has become an active farmer and has made farming pay.
He arrives in this country with no more money than the average steerage passenger, he is no better educated, he has no superior equipment, but he has an abundance of thrift and a determination to work any number of hours and to keep his whole family working to get results.
The Pole has come to be an important factor in the agricultural life of the commonwealth. Already he has gained a firm footing in South Deerfield, Belchertown, Hatfield, Bondsville and Three Rivers, and he and his fellows are constantly adding to their holdings in the surrounding neighborhood. In Sunderland the Poles are as numerous as the older inhabitants, while some of the beautiful colonial mansions in historic Hadley have passed into the hand of Polish owners.
A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH.
That the newcomers are a force to be reckoned with is recognized by the authorities of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. That institution through its instructors is extending its influence more and more each uear to help these new arrivals. The Poles have already won even by their crude and self-taught methods, but to insure them as even greater measure of success the college is doing all it can to teach them the rudiments of scientific farming. In addition to its work among them, it has established in its yearly program a Polish-American Farmers’ Day for their particular instruction
At a time not long removed the Anglo-Saxon stock predominated in the central part of the state. The native farmers, whose families had held the land for generations, alone cultivated the tobacco and onion farms. Today the whole section is in a state of change. The “Polanders” as they are called whether they come from Russian Poland, from eastern Germany, from Austria, from Finland or from Lithuania, are encroaching more and more.
The Pole comes from the steerage of the transatlantic liner with little in his pocket, but with a great thankfulness in his heart at being free of the Slavic despotism and with unlimited muscle and good sense at his command. His greatest aspiration is to become an American and finally an American citizen. He cherishes no tender memories of the land from which he came and in the majority of cases has no desire to return to it. Frequently he is illiterate, but with the fervent desire to learn. Twenty-five of every hundred who immigrate cannot read or write their native language. Since, in all probability, he was a farmer in the land over the sea, he secures a place on one of the tobacco or onion farms. His pay is $20 a month. He hoards industriously with the expectation of being able to purchase a farm of his own.
Having gathered together three or four hundred dollars the Polish farmer takes a step forward. In all likelihood he marries. His wife may be a sweetheart that had been waiting for years back at home, She is more likely, however, to have immigrated with him and to have been working in an American household for three or four dollars a week, and laying aside a small sum of money by dint of most careful saving.
Combining their savings, husband and wife purchase an onion or tobacco farm. Frequently they pay not more than three hundred dollars in cash and give a mortgage that may amount to five or six thousand. Then follow years of the most heart-breaking toil to secure the complete ownership. There is no turning aside because of the most extreme hardship. The dominating note in the Polish character is the desire to own. The tremendous longing for personal ownership and a sturdy physique finally bring the desire end.
In as many years the Polish couple is surrounded by children to the number of 10 or 12. The parents know that the children must be the legacy of their old age. As soon as the little ones are strong enough they go to work with the parents in the onion or tobacco fields. It is not an uncommon sight to see a Polish mother pushing a rude carriage with the youngest in it between the rows of onions and weeding as fast as her fingers can fly. Often the children are sadly bent or enfeebled by the stooping labor this is necessary. It is said that two of the little Polish tots, scarcely more than babes, to each one of the children of the other races in the valley, give their lives as the penalty for those too vigorous labors.
The farm never declines in value under the Polish ownership. Fences are built and repairs; the land is improved by tillage and both houses and barns are kept in good condition. Most of the agricultural work is done by rule-of-thumb for the Polish farmer is uneducated. Yet his farming knowledge and experience must be of no inferior order where intensive methods of farming are practiced in the production of onions and tobacco.
The once penniless Pole is willing to accumulate for years in order to be in a position to buy and does not object to paying as much as $200 an acre for some of his onion land. No more remarkable instance of the inordinate desire of the Pole to possess land of his own could be cited than that in connections with the Cephas Graves farm located near Sunderland. The farm is famous as having grown the prize tobacco for the World’s Fair. On the death of the owner the son sold the property, rather than give himself to the long and arduous task of paying the mortgage with which the estate was encumbered. The subsequent purchase of the place was Russian Pole, who paid only $300 down and gave a mortgage of $7500. For this purpose he borrowed from a fellow-countryman who not only had the money to invest but was willing to do so on good landed security.
The advancement of the Polish immigrant is a matter readily to be explained. He advances because of industry and ability. Moreover, he is honest and he is versatile. He readily adopts American ways. His ambition is not to antagonize, but to harmonize. He likes the manners of the American, their language and laws. Above all he is honest. There is no shopkeeper in the valley that would not trust a reputable Polish farmer to the amount of five cents of $500.
The skill which he displays in his farming is not due to scientific knowledge of farming methods or even to a keen mentality, but to an inherent sense of the proper methods to employ and the resolution to make the most of his perhaps rather limited mental capacities. To the end that the Polish population may become quickly Americanized a movement was inaugurated among the students of the Massachusetts Agricultural College to teach the Poles English and the principles of government. The work was first organized by Charles H. White of the Extension Service of the College two years ago. It has been carried on with success and is a present under the direction of Prof. E. D. Waid. Polish classes for both men and women have been organized in Three Rivers, North Hadley, Sunderland and Bondsville. The largest and most successful have caried on at Three Rivers and Bondsville. The total enrolment at Three Rivers is about 145 men and women between 18 and 43 years of age. The number attending the school at Bondsville is even larger. Of those at Three Rivers 100 are enrolled in five divisions for the study of the most elementary English. Another division composed of 29 members is doing advanced work in reading and spelling and several members have already taken out their second naturalization papers. To this latter number talks are given on civil government, American history and ideals and upon food and sanitation. Numerous communities other than those mentioned have been helped to a lesser degree. The service rendered has always been gratuitous on the part of the student and in many cases he has walked three to five miles over muddy or snow-covered road in order to meet his class.
Only the student worker and teacher or one who has come into immediate contact with them can appreciate the limitations in the social and intellectual life of this people. The Polish conception of a well-organized and sanitary home is founded on no ideals higher that those developed in the poor and squalid living quarters beyond the sea. In the town of Three Rivers investigation showed that as many as 17 men, women and children were living in one small apartment of but five rooms. In this case the inmates consisted of a husband and wife, several children and seven or eight male roomers. In another apartment of seven rooms 27 were found herded together. Four or five slept in a single room. Those who were fortunate had a bed, and when there were no beds a mattress laid out on the floor served the purpose. The price paid for such lodging is usually $2.50 per month.
Each roomer cooks his own meals, somewhere in the apartment, and is provided with coffee three times a day by the woman who runs the establishment, at no extra charge.
It is the Polish children of the second and third generation that are expected to show the influence of American customs and teachings. With them the ready adaptability of their race should count. Those of the first generation speak the English language with no suggestion of foreign accent and hardly to be recognized by differences in appearances and behavior from the American children with whom they play and go to school.
The political condition of the adult is exceedingly encouraging. Of those who were 21 or over at the time of immigrations and have been in the country five years,63 our of every hundred are fully naturalized and 15 out of every hundred have their first papers. Ninety per cent of those under 14 can speak the language and 70 per cent within 10 years. The Pole is, however, slower in acquiring the language than most of the other immigrant races.
The first Polish-American Farmers’ Day was held at the Massachusetts Agricultural College a year ago, when that institution became notable as the first college in the land to make an effort to cooperate with the foreign rural population.
At the gathering this year, in the neighborhood of 200 Polish farmers were present, some of them with their wives. They came from the agricultural communities within 20 miles of Amherst and Sunderland, Hatfield and Hadley were well represented. The exercises covered the entire day. At 9:30 President Kenyon L. Butterfield, president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, delivered the address of welcome in the Grinnell Arena. President Butterfield was followed shortly by Prof. W. P. Brooks, director of the state agricultural experiment station, who talked on the culture of onions. Prof. Brook’s audience was an attractive one, for the raising of onions is, with that of tobacco, the largest industry of the Polish in the Connecticut valley. During the morning two informal discussions were held by the aid of interpreters. Lectures on “Agriculture Co-operation,” by Dr. A. E. Cance; the “Selection of Seeds,” by Prof. C. Chapman, and “Animal Breeding,” by Prof. J. A. McLean concluded the program the first part of the day.
In the afternoon there was a talk by Arthur Rudman of Greenfield on “Better Living,” and, in addition to numerous minor features, Dr. G. W. Tupper, president of the immigration department of the Boston Y. M. C. A. lectured on the “History of Poland.”
Photos and Captions: JOHN ROMASZKIEWIC, President of Polish-American Alliance.
DR. W. G. TUPPER, A Worker in the Farm Movement
Two other photos of groups assembled; “Making the Foreigner a Farmer and Two of the Leaders in the Movement.
