Abstract
IN this work Prof. Giglioli has attempted a detailed survey of the agricultural state of Italy in comparison with other nations. He considers one by one the various branches of the industry, the production of wheat, maize, rice and other cereals, wine, fruit, olives and silk, eggs, butter, cheese and the many minor branches of rural activity which are possible in the climate of Italy. In each case a comparison is drawn between the conditions of the past and those which prevail to-day both in Italy and the chief competing countries. Both as an ardent patriot and a man of science, Prof. Giglioli is troubled by the increasing poverty of the rural districts as compared with the towns, especially when one travels out of the favoured northern provinces of Lombardy and Tuscany into middle and southern Italy. He indicates how the actual production of the land is declining, so that Italy with all its traditional farming skill and with the vast possibilities of its climate is coming to be more and more dependent upon other nations for food which could be grown within its own borders if only more intensive methods of cultivation were resorted to. Aggravated as the case is in parts of Italy by the poverty of the people and their entire dependence upon agriculture, the problem is one which all the west European States are being called upon to face; how can agriculture, which is a primitive industry, live in a highly civilised State against the competition of the great areas of virgin soil like Argentina or the North-West? To English economists who want an enlightened and temperate review of the situation in a nation not unlike our own we commend Prof. Giglioli's book.
Malessere Agrario ed Alimentare in Italia.
By Italo Giglioli, Direttore della R. Stazione Agraria di Roma, &c. Pp. lxxxii + 797. (Portici, 1903.)
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Malessere Agrario ed Alimentare in Italia . Nature 69, 222 (1904). https://doi.org/10.1038/069222b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/069222b0