Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

THE N O R T H E R N L O W L A N D S
long since seized the opportunity to drain the area by gravity channels. These are
the terre vecchie so called because their reclamation and settlement may go back
as far as the sixteenth century. Elsewhere the stagnant waters defied reclamation
imtil efficient pumps made poldering possible; even then the lowering o f the
surface by shrinkage often threatened to tmdo the work. The struggle in these
lower areas (valli) has been on for over a century; work on the Grandi Valli
Veronesi dates from the 1850s and the Isola d’Ariano was not tackled until 1912.
The delta itself offered an even more daunting challenge and although most o f it
has now been won for cultivation, some 100,000 hectares remain untamed. In the
past reclamation was in the hands o f private consorzi but now it is mainly the
responsibility o f the Ente per la Colonizazzione del Delta Padano. Although with
time the contrast fades, the terre vecchie are distinguished from the newer bonifiche
by the greater variety o f their field crops (cereals, beet, fodder, hemp, etc.)
and by the more extensive cultivation o f tree crops whether planted in lines or in
compact orchards. The newer lands present a dismal empty landscape, gridded
with ditches, its horizon bounded by massive dykes hiding all but the church
towers o f distant villages. Except on land recently won by the Ente Delta, the
expense o f drainage favoiured large capitalistic properties many o f which have inevitably
received the attention o f the land reform authorities,^ but unless
mechanization and other technical improvements are to be permanently impeded
redundancy among the labour force must be drastically reduced. In newly reclaimed
areas rice is usually the pioneer crop but as the land matures it gives way
to cereals, fodder, industrial crops, especially beet and hemp, and fruit.
The cities o f Veneto, with few exceptions, stand firm on their Roman foimdations;
Aquileia, once the gateway to Pannonia, never recovered from its sack by
the Huns, and Venice (Venezia) must be considered a newcomer, but Padua
(Padova) and Vicenza still knot together the routes pioneered by the Romans,
and Bassano and Verona still control Claudius’s roads up into the Alps. The
railway between Verona and Trieste could not do better than follow the route
first traced by the Via Postumia. Despite their recent growth the cities o f Veneto
retain something o f the dignified air they acquired when ‘La Dominante’ held
sway, and most o f them are still essentially centres o f communications and commerce
serving a rich coimtryside. Apart from agricultural processing which is
widely shared, textiles are the most important industrial activity. Silk spinning,
based on local materials, has survived at Treviso from the Middle Ages, but the
woollen manufactures (including knitwear and knitting wool) o f Schio, Thiene,
Arzignano, Pieve Rocchete (Rossi), and Valdagno (Marzotto) in northern
Vicenza province are much more important. This industry in which Padua and
Venice share has also a long tradition. The cottons o f Thiene, Montebellimo,
Lonigo, Cornegliano and Gorizia, the jute o f S. Dona and the rayon o f Torviscosa
are o f much more recent date. Apart from small quantities o f lignite and
'E y 1959 some 6800 hectares in Polesine had been converted into 1100 poderi with
varying success.
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