1098 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



"We're glad to be back awhile to see 

 the old place once more," one of them 

 explained to me, "but wait until times 

 are good in America again and you'll see 

 the biggest rush from Italy that has ever 

 taken place." 



Leaving Calabria and traveling north 

 toward Naples through Basilicata, I 

 found similar conditions. In the larger 

 towns and among the upper classes nei- 

 ther our language nor our ideas are 

 understood, but one need go no farther 

 out of Potenza, the provincial capital, 

 than the vineyards on the side of the hill 

 upon which it is built to find men work- 

 ing in the fields who are ready to talk 

 to you in your own language and wel- 

 come you as a friend when you tell them 

 that you are from the United States. 



Now what impressions does one get of 

 the Italian emigrant after seeing him thus 

 in Sicily and in the southern provinces 

 of the mainland whence the westward 

 stream comes ? 



The point that struck me first was that 

 Italy was not overpopulated. There is 

 an impression in this country, I know, 

 that it is, in which I myself shared until 

 I traveled through it and studied the fig- 

 ures. Italy has about 30,000,000 inhab- 

 itants, but Germany and Great Britain, 

 with about the same area, are supporting 

 populations in each case of twice that size 

 and doing it better into the bargain. 

 Besides that, the greatest density of pop- 

 ulation in Italy is to be found in the 

 north, where prosperity is highest and 

 emigration least. 



The difference is that Italy is still try- 

 ing to support her population by agricul- 

 ture, whereas Germany and Great Britain 

 have long since seen the necessity of 

 working out their destinies through 

 manufacture and trade. 



Moreover, Italy is a backward country 

 agriculturally, which may come as another 

 disillusionment to many who have heard 

 of its wonderful vineyards and olive 

 groves, of the marvelous patience and 

 labor that are put into reclaiming rocky 

 slopes, and fighting inch by inch with 

 nature for every possible bit of soil. But 

 this is true of certain localities only. The 



environs of Naples, the Conca d'Oro of 

 Palermo, the slopes of Mount /Etna are 

 indeed examples of intense and intelligent 

 cultivation, but, on the other hand, there 

 is much land in south Italy wasted and 

 misused, and great stretches, like the 

 splendid valley along the Ionian Sea from 

 Catanzaro to Metaponto, where they are 

 putting in twice as much work and get- 

 ting half as large a return as if that same 

 land were in France or Switzerland. 



The wooden plow is still in use in 

 many places in Italy, and modern farm 

 machinery is practically unknown in the 

 south. Everything is done by hand at a 

 tremendous expenditure of human labor, 

 which might be more productively em- 

 ployed, while the use of fertilizers or the 

 rotation of crops is not understood. 



The root of the trouble is the land 

 system. The whole of south Italy is an 

 agricultural country, and yet one may al- 

 most say that there is not a farmer in 

 it, as we understand the word here. 

 There are land-owners on one hand and 

 agricultural laborers on the other — that's 

 all. The landlord idles away his time in 

 the cities. Such a thing as living on the 

 land, getting out in his shirt sleeves to 

 work it, and hiring others to help him 

 when necessary is unheard of. Fre- 

 quently he never even visits his estate, 

 but leaves everything to a chain of 

 middlemen, each of whom wrings an un- 

 earned living out of the peasant below. 



And the agricultural laborer? He 

 works twelve hours each week day and 

 frequently half of the Sabbath at an im- 

 possible wage — about forty cents a day 

 for a man and half that for a woman — 

 or for a miserly share of the produce, 

 without proper tools or adequate instruc- 

 tion. He does not live on the land any 

 more than its owner, but, through a habit 

 acquired in the old days, when it was 

 necessary to keep together for protection 

 against outside attack and for fear of the 

 malaria in the lowlands, he huddles with 

 others in dirty, unsanitary towns on the 

 hilltops, where houses are built as close 

 together and he is as cramped for room 

 as in the city of Naples. 



The principal difference between that, 



