NOTICES RlCr,AT[NG TO AGRICUI.TURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL III 



aims at promoting in Italy a complete and vast organization for helping 

 the orphans of peasants killed in the war and giving them an agricultural 

 training. The basis of this organization is the foundation — already accom- 

 plished — in the respective Italian provinces of special protecting 

 agencies (i) which propose in general to assist the orphans in two ways : to 

 increase a widow's pension when that paid by the State is insufficient, as 

 when the number of children is excessive ; and to see that the orphans 

 have suitable instruction in agriculture and the necessary education, receiving 

 them, when they cannot be maintained in their families or by their mothers, 

 in special institutions — agricultural colonies — in which an agricultural 

 training is given so essentially practical that they return to the soil 

 capable of improving it and increasing its production (2). 



Recently, by a prefectoral decree of 27 January 1917, there was con- 

 stituted the Patronato provincialc per gli orfani dei contadini morti in 

 guerra which has its headquarters at Florence. It proposes to assist the 

 orphans of peasants who have died on the field or in consequence of the 

 state of war ; and small labourer proprietors and leaseholders, as well as 

 labourers habituall}^ employed on fieldwork, are assimilated to peasants. 

 The assistance takes the form of a) guardianship of rights and interests ; 

 h) responsibility for the upbringing, education and instruction adapted to 

 the childrens' condition and the kind of agriculture they will practise. Mor- 

 al assistance will be given to all the orphans, material assistance to the most 

 needy of them. To reach its ends this protective agency will secure that the 

 orphans are as a rule left in their own families, and are entrusted, when these 

 are non-existent or offer insufficient moral guarantees, to parents belonging 

 to the colony or other colonists' families. The agency will promote the 

 formation of special local committees. For its working expenses it disposes 

 of: a) the eventual returns on its capital ; b) the annual contributions of 

 its members ; c) subsidies ; d) eventual donations, legacies, temporary allo- 

 cations and extraordinary income. The agency has the following catego- 

 ries of members: a) ordinary members who engage for three years to pay at 



(i) Certain of the 69 protective agencies for the oq^hans of peasants killed in the war, al- 

 ready formed in all the provinces of Italy, own a capital of more than 500,000 liras, accumulated 

 bj^ means of contributions from the provinces, the communes, individuals and various corpora- 

 tions ; and others have already ensured an annual budget of more than 50,000 liras. We sig- 

 nalize the instance of Parma. Among the provinces Verona has already voted a budget for 

 the orphans of 100,000 liras, Mantua one of 100,000 liras, Vicenza oneof 20,000 liras, etc. For 

 the organization of the agencies for protecting the orphans of peasants killed in the war see an 

 article by Alfredo F.^race in the Niiova Antologia, Rome, No. 1085, i April 191 7. 



(2) We would cite in particular the Colonia Agricola Provincialc del Foresta. This arose 

 by the initiative of the provincial administration of Mantua which placed at the colony's 

 disposal a holding of 37 hectares (i hectare = 2.47 acres), and a fund of 100,000 liras, 

 which the communes and the local bodies were called upon to form. See in this connection 

 Gli orfani contadini, the monthly bulletin of the Opera nazionale, Rome, no. 1,15 January 1917. 

 Recently the Colonia Agticola \'icentina has also been formed with a capital of 514,000 liras 

 arising partly out of unsolicited private contributions. See in this connection L'.4i,'/7'co^/Mra 

 Vicentina, No. 2, 31 January 191 7. 



