This infiltration of foreigners possessing themselves
of rejected and abandoned land, which has only recently begun, shows
that the peasant's instinct for the soil will reassert itself when the
means are available and the way opens. It is surprising, indeed, how
many are the ways that are opening for this movement. Transportation
companies are responsible for a number of colonies planted bodily in
cut-over timber regions of the South. The journals and the real estate
agents of the different races are always alert to spy out
opportunities. Dealing in second-hand farms has become a considerable
industry. The advertising columns of Chicago papers announce hundreds
of farms for sale in northern Michigan and Wisconsin. In all the older
States there are for sale thousands of acres of tillable land which
have been left by the restless shiftings of the American population.
In New England the abandoned farm has long been an institution.
Throughout the East there are depleted and dying villages, their
solidly built cottages hidden in the matting of trees and shrubs which
neglect has woven about them. One can see paralysis creeping over them
as the vines creep over their deserted thresholds and they surrender
one by one the little industries that gave them life. These are the
opportunities of the immigrant peasant.
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