Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

PART i n : REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY
over risiculture, and the specialized cultivation of rotation fodder and o f irrigated
water meadows, which reaches perfection in Lombardy, is widely practised here.
The exploitation o f the lower plain made possible by the Cavour Canal demanded
capital and large-scale organization; in consequence the farm units, whether
rented or owner-worked, are compact and rarely less than 50 hectares. It is still
true that the very special physical and economic conditions o f the lower plain do
not favom the small producer and the replacement o f the existing sizeable units
by a mtiltitude o f smaller ones would certainly result in a loss of productivity. In
fact the land reform authorities have not interfered in this area.
In the extreme south o f the Piedmontese plain, the incision o f the rivers has
produced a succession o f elongated fluvio-glacial platforms separated by floodplains
whose floors are laced by braided channels. Except where the Valle di
Susa moraine intrudes, the rest o f the plain between the Maira and the Orea
exhibits more obviously the transition from the alta to the bassa pianura. On the
former the baragge o f Vercelli have their counterpart in the vaude o f Turin
province. In the plain o f Poirino the permeability o f the upper terraces condemned
the area until recently to an economy based on extensive cereals; between
the wars an ex-servicemen’s colonization scheme did something to
diversify the area. In general the upper plain is dominated by small mixed farms
on which the field crops, especially wheat, maize, potatoes, beans and fodder, are
lined with tree crops, among them mulberries, apples, pears, plums, cherries and
vines; this two-tiered type o f cultivation, known as coltura promiscua, recommends
itself to the small farmer. The mulberry, once planted extensively in
support o f the silk industry, has no longer any economic importance and it is
being eliminated in the interests o f mechanization. Towards the lower plain,
where irrigation is extensively practised, hay and rotated fodder crops become as
important as cereals. Many o f the farms exceed 50 hectares and their substantial
buildings include byres, machinery sheds, grain silos and bams. On the bluffs of
the fluvio-glacial terraces woodland has a stabilizing rôle and the floodplains are
commonly devoted to plantations o f poplars.
The hill country o f Monferrato and Le Langhe is stmcturally part of the
Apennines; from the Ligurian border the Miocene beds dip down to the Tanaro
syncline and rise again to present a steep edge overlooking the Po. The centre of
the syncline is floored with Pliocene (Astian) marls underlying softish sands.
The latter have been eroded into cuestas whose permeable surface is best suited
to vines and dry coltura promiscua. In the valleys the marls promote a more
intensive cultivation o f cereals and forage, locally emriched by irrigation. Further
north where the Miocene rocks emerge from below the Pliocenes, rolling hills
developed on marls and soft sands climb up to the wooded conglomerate capping
o f the Colline Torinesi whose slopes are being invaded by the residential
suburbs o f Turin. A patchwork o f cereals, lucerne, lupins, beans, fruit trees and
vines, relieved by woodland on the steeper sandy outcrops and dotted with little
farmsteads and hill-top villages, gives the landscape a civilized air o f modest
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