Their colonies
and settlements are to be found in considerable numbers in every part
of the Union except the far South. They are on the cut-over timber
lands of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, usually engaged in
dairying or raising vegetables for canning. On the great prairies in
Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas, the Bohemians and the Poles
have learned to raise wheat and corn, and in Texas, Oklahoma, and
Arkansas, they have shown themselves skillful in cotton raising.
Wherever fruit is grown on the Pacific slope, there are Bohemians,
Slavonians, and Dalmatians. In New England, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana,
and Maryland, the Poles have become pioneers in the neglected corners
of the land. For instance in Orange County, New York, a thriving
settlement from old Poland now flourishes where a quarter of a century
ago there was only a mosquito breeding swamp. The drained area
produces the most surprising crops of onions, lettuce, and celery.
Many of these immigrants own their little farms. Others work on shares
in anticipation of ownership, and still others labor merely for the
season, transients who spend the winter either in American factories
or flit back to their native land.
In Pennsylvania it is the mining towns which furnished recruits for
this landward movement.
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