MIGRATIONS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE 217 



in 1881. That from Southern Italy has always been five 

 or six times as great as from Northern Italy. Immigrants 

 from the former country are darker and doubtless have 

 derived part of their blood from Greece and Northern 

 Africa. It is these South Italians that we generally have 

 in mind when we speak of Italians. Eighty per cent of those 

 who come are males and a quarter of them return each year 

 to their homes. In America they become, prevailingly, 

 general laborers, relatively few specifically farm laborers; 

 yet they are going into agriculture to a considerable extent 

 and buying land as they save the money. Of the agricul- 

 tural Italians many are truck farmers near large cities, and 

 a few isolated settlements have been made like that at 

 Hammonton or at Vineland, New Jersey. Others are found 

 in central New York State, and a few colonies have been 

 estabhshed in the South where they compete with negro 

 labor. Apparently North Italians are to a certain extent 

 influenced in locating in this country by topography like 

 that of their homes. ''While sentiment often has much 

 to do with the choice of a location," says Cance (1911, p. 

 23) "it can not be said that the success of the settlement 

 at Genoa, Wis., 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, 

 N. C, would not have made more progress every way had 

 they settled nearer markets and on level land where there 

 was more fertility and less Swiss scenery." The traits of 

 the Southern Italians are thus expressed: "The Italian has 

 not the self-reliance, initiative resourcefulness nor self- 

 sufiicing individualism that necessarily marks the pioneer 

 farmer." "On the whole the Italian farmer compares 

 well with other foreign farmers in his neighborhood in in- 

 dustry, thrift, careful attention to details, crop yields and 

 surplus returns from his farm. His strength lies in his 



