Charities/Volume 13/Number 14/The Agricultural Distribution of Immigrants

by Herbert Myrick

To the Editor of Charities:

The Agricultural Distribution of Immigrants.

I read your magazine with much interest, yet every time I open its pages, or reflect upon the problems of immigration, the unemployed in cities, orphans, etc., I feel the necessity of impressing this fact upon all the individuals and organizations engaged in ameliorative work.

Good homes and steady employment at fair wages await every diligent and worthy man, woman, or child. These homes and this employment are offered by the farmers of America. They are crying aloud as never before for help—for experienced help if it can be had, or for inexperienced help if the better grade is not available. Probably a million homes could be found for girls or young women who are willing to do housework and be one of the family among the farm homesteads of the United States. Many thousands of farm homes would welcome a girl or boy to be brought up in habits of thrift, industry, and, in most cases, would give the child or youth the same care and much of the affection that they would lavish upon a son or daughter. As for grown men among immigrants or for those who are turned out to work in their vocations, the farm demand for such help is practically unlimited, provided only that the man is willing and eager to learn.

There is no better place for the above class of people to improve their condition, to get a start in life and to become good citizens, than to get jobs on American farms or country homes. Of course the sick, the shiftless and the lazy are not wanted, but outside of these undesirables, I want to emphasize again the unlimited market that exists among American farms for help. It is easy also to reach this market. Simply spend a few cents in advertising in the agricultural papers in the section where employment is desired, a connection will be established with many desirable families or farmers in want of help. Each penny thus invested will often accomplish more direct and lasting benefit for those it is desired to have employed than each dollar expended in some other forms of charitable work or uplifting endeavor.

It is not my desire to criticise the methods of charitable work or the cost of those methods, but simply to point out the great void that is waiting to be filled with men, women, and children who are willing to work, and to show how simply and economically this market for labor can be reached. No argument is needed to sustain the statement that the farms and homes of rural America furnish by far the best environment for employment.

Herbert Myrick.

Editor American Agriculturist Weeklies.

(Orange Judd Farmer—American Agriculturist—
New England Homestead.)
Springfield, Mass.