The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-27
COOPERATIVE FARMING
In TtaIy-How Work on a 1000 Acre Estate is Condncted.

Milan, Italy. June 27.-Members of the American Commission on AgricuE tural Cooperation visited one of the model farms of northern Italy today.
 The estate comprises about 1000 acres, which is an unusually large holding for Italy, although a member of the commission was able to inform the Count idf Poni that he owned a farm of 4,OOO acres in Texas, without considering himself a curiosity. The farm is divided into two parts, an ir- rigated portion which the proprietor reserves for his own use for dairy farming, and a dry portion rented on the share basis, known in Italy as the "mezzadri' system.
 The visit of the Americans was made 8 holiday for the laborers and farm hands, although enough men were kept at work bo demonstrate the cooperative enterprises on the farm. Automobiles of the American party brick house, the porches of which gave a vivid scene of drying clothes, bandanas; wr1nkled old peasant wo- men, smiling men and 8 swarm of cu- rtous children. Fourteen families are hired by the proprietor to farm his part of the estate. Nothing of inter est from the cooperative standpoint was learned on this part of the farm. The commission was therefore taken to the s'dry'' part where live the ten ants.
 The score Of families which are en- gagged in farming this portion Of the estate live in a little village and here the members of the commission were given their first view of the many possible phases of agrucultura co-op- eration. Men. women and children were lined up along the little street.; h1@ @1 h0Y1danaS waved III welcome, and the little children mur- mured sfGraci'' when coppers were slipped into their hands. This part of the estate is divided into holdings of about 30 acres each.
 The principal money products or the little farms are cheese and silk SworTns- Each farmer raises enough of general farm crops to support his family, but most of his attention is given to dai- rying and to raising silk worms The cheese is made in a plant co-opera- lively owned by the farmers and built with their own money. Three men were at work making Swiss cheese at the tirne The farmers bring theT milk to the dairy where 1t is weighed and marked to their credit. Accord the dairy the farmers receive a per centage of the profits derived from the sale of the cheese The waste from the milk used in the cheese mak- ing Is fed to hogs co-operat1vely own ed. which when fattened, are killed in an abbatoir likewise comparatively owned, for nothing is lost on an Ital- ian farm There is also sausage factory Everything these farmers buy comes from a comparatively own ed store. The warehouse held familiar types of American agricultural ma- chinery. The silk worms are turned over to the proprietor who takes a certain portion of the cocoons as his share. All of the farming is done on share basis, the proprietor putting up the buildings. the farmers contrib ating the labor and the farm products being divided between them It was plainly evident that the Count di Pom ii was very popular with his tenants. Some years ago when his tenants were required to strike because of a gen. era1 strike of all tenant farmers in that vicinity. he was elected by his tenants president of the strike com mittee, so that to him fell the odd task of settling a strike against him. self.
 Undoubtedly the paternaIism which