Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

PART III: REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY
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controlled from above and do not help sufficiently in remedying the lack of
working capital; that poderi o f 15 ha (still less quote o f 3) can no longer be considered
viable units and that to create more peasant family farms is to imderpm
an inefficient system incapable o f surviving the economic climate of the Common
Market; that the schemes were aimed too much at providing work and too little at
encouraging efficient production; that in the context o f a rapidly expanding
industrial country such peasant settlement schemes were irrelevant. No doubt
there is much substance in these strictures, in particular as regards the size of
holdings, but the shortcomings o f the reform must be seen against the strong
political and social pressures o f the late 1940s. As far as the Maremma was concerned
the maintenance o f the status quo was indefensible. In fact, thanks very
largely to the skill and experience o f the Tuscan peasant, the Ente Maremma can
claim a substantial measure o f success.
Tuscany, like Sardinia, possesses a rich variety o f minerals but for the most
part the deposits are small and scattered. The mining o f lignite, some o f which is
used in thermal electric plants, is significant in view o f the poverty o f the area in
other forms o f energy. The better-quality lignites are found in the Miocene
sediments o f Grosseto province but the vast majority o f the production (roughly
half o f Italy’s 1,000,000 tons) is now o f inferior fuel extracted from the Pliocene
and Pleistocene lacustrine deposits o f the upper Arno and Siena districts. The
iron ore o f eastern Elba (haematite, magnetite and limonite), mined since
Etruscan times, is smelted with imported coal at Piombino; the furnaces of
Portoferraio, damaged during the war, have not been rebuilt. Salt, borax and
gypsum in the Cecina valley and pyrites from Gavorrano and Rovi provide the
raw materials for a number o f small chemical plants. In the M . Amiata area
antimony and mercury are mined; the latter have become relatively more important
since the loss o f the Idria mines to Yugoslavia in 1946. Other minerals
represented are ferro-manganese in M. Argentario and silver-lead and copper at
Massa Marittima. The architecture o f Tuscany is enriched by a variety of
building stones, among them the marbles o f Montagnola and the Apuan Alps.
The economy of Tuscany is still heavily inclined towards agriculture, and its
industries, based for the most part on the processing o f agricultural products and
minerals, are mainly organized in small units; the steel works of Piombino, the
shipyards o f Leghorn and the motor-cycle plant at Pontedera are exceptional.
Yet despite this agricultural bias and the poor showing o f industry, traits common
to most o f the Centre and South, Tuscany’s demographic evolution seems
to be more in step with that o f the North. With some local exceptions the pressure
o f population on the agricultural resources has been less severe than in most of
peninsular Italy, and although emigration never reached proportions experienced
in many other areas (Veneto, Calabria) the population rose only 23% to its
present 3,291,000 between 1911 and 1961 - much less than the national average.
In fact, only Liguria, Piedmont and Friuli-Venezia Giulia have lower birth rates
than Tuscany ( i 3 '4 %o). The population density varies widely from over 240 per
170