erica. Most of them
have had farming experience in Europe. But what actually has happened
and is happening year after year is that these immigrants, saturated
with farm life and experience, drift to the cities, to work in mines and
factories and at pick-and-shovel jobs.

This fact was confirmed so clearly by the investigation of the United
States Immigration Commission that its report has been the basis of the
following statement:

From one third to three fifths of these newcomers, the proportion
varying according to race, had been engaged in agricultural
pursuits before coming to the United States, but not one in ten has
settled on farms in this country.[3]

In the year 1900, as is shown in Table I, there were 276,745
foreign-born white persons of both sexes employed as farm laborers in
this country. In 1910 the number of immigrant agricultural laborers was
336,753, an increase of 60,008, or about 22 per cent.

TABLE I

NUMBER (BY SEX) OF FOREIGN-BORN WHITE PERSONS ENGAGED AS FARM LABORERS
IN THE UNITED STATES, 1900 AND 1910[4]
===================================
SEX | 1910 | 1900
-----------+-----------+-----------
Males | 308,360 | 253,895
Females | 28,393 | 22,850
-----------+-----------+-----------
Total | 336,753 | 276,745
===================================

According to the reports of the Commissioner General of Immigration,
1,602,748 immigrant agricultural laborers, male and female, arrived in
the United States between 1901 and 1910, both years inclusive. If all of
these incoming agricultural laborers had found employment on farms in
this country, the increase of immigrant agricultural laborers in 1910 over
the number of 1900 would have been 579 per cent instead of 22 per cent.

The United States Immigration Commission made a detailed study of 17,141
households, the heads of which were miners or wage earners in
manufacturing establishments. Of the persons of these households for
whom complete data were secured, 62 per cent of the males and 24 per
cent of the females were employed as farm laborers or as farmers before
coming to the United States. The Immigration Commission also secured
detailed information from 181,330 male and 12,968 female employees in
mines and manufacturing establishments. Of these, 54 per cent of the
males and 44 per cent of the females were employed in the old country in
farming or as farm laborer