Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

PART I I I : REGION A L GEOGRAPHY
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railways and the decline in wool prices in the face o f overseas competition, the
masserie began to take an increasing interest in wheat production, an activity
which dovetailed well with sheep rearing. At the same time an influx o f labourers
transformed the villages into towns without greatly changing their function.
Although at harvest time the Tavoliere attracted temporary labour from all over
the continental South, the permanent giomalieri suffered from serious underemployment
and their livelihood was increasingly menaced by mechanization.
Between the wars consorzi di bonifica made some modest progress in improving
the area which now assumed an important rôle in the ‘Battle for Grain’. The
conversion o f Lake Salpi into salt pans was completed. Lake Salso was reclaimed
by colmate, and a number o f settlements, based on poderi, were fotmded under
the aegis o f ex-servicemen’s organizations (e.g. Mezzanone). The environs o f the
towns were increasingly taken over by small cultivators, and tree crops, notably
olives round Cerignola and vines near S. Severe, continued to modify the traditional
land-use, but in 1946 the Tavoliere was still essentially a vast cultural
steppe, studded with masserie and overcrowded townships. Since 1950, under the
land reform, the hydrological problems have been tackled with vigour. Malaria
has been practically ehminated; over 57,000 hectares in Foggia province have
been appropriated and settled; and some 125,000 hectares are being provided
with irrigation along the lower Fortore, on the right bank o f the middle Ofanto,
and most extensively between the Candelaro and the Foggia-S. Severn road.
Although about 38% o f Foggia province is still in properties o f over 50 hectares,
a very high figure for Italy, the trend towards a more intensive and varied landuse
and a wider distribution o f ownership is firmly established. Even so the
problem o f rural overpopulation is far from solved; towns like Foggia (118,000),
which has managed to attract food processing, agricultural machinery and textile
industries on a modest scale, must be further industrialized and it is unlikely that
emigration can be avoided for a long time yet.
The M m ge and the Salentine peninsula constitute a structural unit but they
are best considered separately. Lying between the Ofanto and a line joining
Brindisi and Taranto, and rising to 686m in Torre Disperata, the Murge tableland
is composed o f Cretaceous limestone gently folded on a N W -SE axis. On
its southern flank, where the limestones are down-faulted, the plateau falls
abruptly and irregularly to the Bradano trench and the amphitheatre of Taranto.
Northwards it descends to the sea across three escarpments; the first and highest
o f these, which corresponds roughly with the 300m contour, marks the edge of
the high plateau top - the Alte Murge. The other two much lower escarpments,
running roughly parallel to the coast, convert the lower Murge into three shallow
steps. The relative importance o f faulting and o f marine or sub-aerial peneplanation
in the formation o f these steps is variously assessed. Although the plateau is
lapped by Pliocene-Quaternary sediments on its southern and western flanks,
and similar deposits have survived on its upper surface (notably along the coast
between Barletta and Bisceghe, near Bari, south o f Monopoli and at Gioia) it is
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