HUMAN EFFORT AS A FACTOR IN PRODUCTION 231 



Italian is ready to buy a farm. It may be asserted that the primary 

 reason for the Italian's choice of truck and vegetable gardening in 

 preference to diversified farming is a social one : he can have both land 

 and neighbors. Some have said that the Italian is a gardener here 

 because he was a gardener in Italy. Doubtless his early farm prac- 

 tice exerts some influence on his later choice, but investigation has 

 plainly shown that a compact group of Italians can carry on success- 

 fully almost any system of farming and that the isolation of a few 

 families is likely to mean failure even in the midst of favorable natural 

 conditions. The South Italians, especially, run m groups and follow 

 a leader. 



Climate and physiography play a much smaller part in the ulti- 

 mate success of Italian colonies than is generally supposed. South 

 Italian colonies are found all the way from the pine lands of. northern 

 Wisconsin to the cane fields of Louisiana. While sentiment often 

 has much to do with the choice of a location, it cannot be said that the 

 success of the settlement at Genoa, Wisconsin, is due to the Alpine 

 aspect of the topography rather than to the excellence of the soil and 

 the favorable markets; nor that the fine North Italian settlers of 

 Valdese, North Carolina, would not have made more progress in every 

 way had they settled nearer markets and on level land where there 

 was more fertility and less Swiss scenery. 



The Italians have introduced into agriculture little that is new, 

 but in the North, in every instance, their communities have enriched 

 and improved the land and increased the agricultural wealth of the 

 surrounding neighborhood. They seem to love the land, and few 

 farms in the localities studied have retrograded under Italian manage- 

 ment. Ownership is the almost universal form of tenure in northern 

 settlements of North Italians, and but few South Italians rent the 

 farms they operate. Having once purchased a piece of land on time, 

 the Italian works early and late to pay for it and make it productive. 

 In numerous instances he has, by an incredible expenditure of labor, 

 made productive land which native farmers considered worthless. 

 When the native farmers in the older colonies have suffered from low 

 prices and a general agricultural depression, Italians have been ready 

 to purchase abandoned or semi-abandoned farms, often subdividing 

 them and restoring their productiveness. This movement has not 

 assumed significant proportions, so far as Italians are concerned, but 

 in New Jersey the further extension of the settlements seems likely to 

 proceed by this means. 



