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their purchases reflectmg a beUef in the power of land to provide the needs of the
family. With labour from a growing family, the Morgantis were confident of survival.
The Morgantis drew upon their peasant resourcefiilness to help feed and supply
the needs of their large family, estabUshing a farm and self-sufficient life-style at
Eastem KU. Where others might have failed to successfully farm the infertile soils of
the region, the Morgantis were equipped to draw maximum benefit from it. The
geographically isolated and mountainous nature of the Ticinese valleys had demanded
much from its people: almost totally hemmed in by mountains, the available farming
lands were on extremely small plots usually far removed from the villages. Isolation
had resulted in exclusion from the agricultural revolution taking place in most other
parts of Europe in the 1850s leaving the people ignorant, apart from altemating
potatoes and com, to the benefits of crop rotation. Irrigation usually depended on the
capriciousness of the rainfaU (with disastrous results in the 1850s).^^ To compensate
for their lack of productive farming lands, the people (like the peasant families of most
parts of Italy) had developed intensive farming techniques which involved planting
crops into every available patch of fertile space ~ even on almost inaccessible and
dangerous mountain slopes ~ using everything fiiigally, taking the manure from the
grazing stock to fertUise the crops and using fruit scraps to feed their animals in the
winter months. All resources, such as bits of metal or animal hides, were used a
second and third time and everything was made by hand. Each family member was
encouraged to understand the workings of the farm: to be able to deliver young
animals, tend crops and do repairs. The peasant home resembled a small factory
providing all the family's needs and a self-sufficient life-style.^' The crops grown in the
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