Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1910-11-11
ITALIANS AS FARMERS,


1t is the idea of the average people
that Italians are not as class very
much in favor of farming, and that
they cannot make a success of it
There are so many of them who are
day laborers, being chiefly employed
on the railroads, especially in the west,
that the general impression is that
Italians do not take to agricultural
pursuits.
A recent statement by DR.. G. E. di
Palma Castiglione, manager Of the
Labor Information Office for Italians,
in New York city, sets the whole mat
ter in its true light.
He first says that there are 1l2 Ital-
ian agricultural colonies in the United
States, with population of about four
thousand families; and the majority
of them own their lands, while the
rest are employed as farm hands.
The above is taken from the
editorial page of the Argus-L Leader, of
the 7th inst. No idea can be more
erroneous than that the Italians are
not an agricultural people. In their
native land they are engaged in
agriculture almost exclusively. There
they work under difficulties and follow
methods a thousand years old. But
it is not so when they reach this coun-
try. Once established on a piece of
land an Italian family will make it
produce as many of our own farmers
could not make it produce.
The reason we do not see more of
them here in the northwest is that the
average Italian knows nothing of the
agricultural possibilities of this sec
ton, and if he has heard of them he
does not know how to reach this Sec
tion, and would not have the funds
required to set up in farming. But it
is not so in all sections of our coun
try. In the south there are many
Italian farmers, and every year sees a
great addition to the number. That
climate is more like that of his native
land, and there he finds that his
knowledge of agriculture can be ap-
piled, and that with improved methods
which he readily adopts, he can make
a living better than he ever enjoyed
before, and at the same time become
the owner of more land than he ever
dreamed of possessing before he came
to this country.
Practically all of the truck farm
ing around New Orleans is done By
Italians. In other parts of the state
of Louisiana are large Italian colonies.
Seventy-fve per cent or more Of the
early strawberries reaching the north
ern markets in the central portion of
the United States in March and April
come from Hammond and Independ-
ence Louisiana. The great bulk of the
berries is raised by Italians. These
two towns ship from twenty to
twenty-five carloads, of 600 cases each,
per day during the better part of the
season.
Once an Italian gets located on one
of those berry farms in that section,
the only way you can get him to give
up the land is to bury him. Their
one idea is to secure a lone. Not
one in ten has the money to pay for
the few acres il his berry farm, but
not one in hundred fails to pay for
the land if given an opportunity to
make the soil pay it. They spend
very little money and have not yet
adopted the American way of living,
but too much should not be expected
of those who come direct from a
country thousand years behind our
times. The rising generation will inn
prove in that respect. Any people
that that will put forth the effort to
secure home that these people put
forth cannot make other than good
class of citizens when once accustomed
to American ways and the advantages
to be here enjoyed.
A COPPER PLATED YARN
r