CHAPTER IX. JOHNSTON TOWNSHIP, R. I., SOUTH ITALIAN SMALL FARMERS. INTRODUCTION. Johnston, Providence County, R. I., which had a population of 4,550 in 1905, joins Providence on the west. Its nearness to the city and its superior transportation facilities make it a desirable location for manufacturers and also for market gardening, milk farming, and the poultry and egg business. The Springfield branch of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad passes through the town as does the Providence and Danielson electric railway. Several branches of the Rhode Island (electric) Company also reach Johnston from Providence. This gives Johnston excellent transportation facilities, and several important textile establishments have taken advantage of the favorable conditions to locate in the town." The territory occupied by the Italian landowners lies in the central southern portion of the town of Johnston. In addition to the truck farmers, a considerable percentage of the population are employed in the woolen and other industries of the locality. Separated a distance of a few miles are the villages of Hughesdale, Thornton, and Danielson, with several grocery stores and a small population of millworkers, some of whom combine agriculture with their other occupations. The population is unusually dense for a rural community except in certain areas too rough and broken to admit of agricultural development. In the valleys and on the level areas is found some of the most fertile land in the State. ITALIAN POPULATION. Classified by birthplace of father, the census of 1900 reports 297 males of Italian descent engaged in agricultural pursuits in Rhode Island. Of this number, 221 are classed as agricultural laborers, 69 as farmers, planters, and overseers, and 7 as gardeners, florists, nurserymen, etc. The Rhode Island State census of 1905 reports 41 persons in Johnston township engaged in farming, and 128 farm assistants and laborers giving Italy as the birthplace of father. Cranston township, immediately south of Johnston, reported 7 farmers and 193 farm assistants and laborers of Italian descent. In the State as a whole in 1905 there were 104 farmers and 529 farm laborers and assistants of Italian lineage. The preceding figures indicate a material increase in the number of persons of Italian parentage engaged in agricultural pursuits from 1900 to 1905, though no data are available to show the increase for Johnston township alone. •Twentieth Report of Industrial Statistics, Rhode Island, 1906, part 3, p. 62. On the assessment rolls of the town for 1909 are found the names of 45 Italians who pay taxes on real estate. Practically the entire number are South Italians, who emigrated to the United States fifteen to thirty years ago, and after a period of employment in various kinds of unskilled labor purchased a few acres of land and commenced truck farming on a small scale. Many of the Italians were first attracted to the locality by the opportunities offered for employment in the numerous textile mills in this section of the State, and there are few who did not work as day laborers at least five, and in many instances fifteen to twenty years before taking up farming. On account of its large semiurban population and its proximity to the city of Providence, the locality offers exceptional opportunities for truck farming, and the truckers have the advantage of a market easily reached by private conveyance, thus eliminating the expense of freight as well as commissions, since the greater part of the produce is sold directly to the consumer. METHOD OF SETTLEMENT. Unlike many of the immigrant agricultural colonies, the Johnston settlement was not promoted by real estate agents, nor is it the result of an organized movement by the immigrants, but was built up gradually as the Italians, at intervals, invested their savings in real estate, which, since it could be purchased in the same locality, involved only a slight expense for the transfer of their families and household effects to the farms. One of the earlier settlers arrived here penniless from Naples, Italy, in 1875, and worked as a farm laborer for two years, earning $7 per week. At the end of this period he purchased 10 acres for $500, paying cash. Five acres of the land was in cultivation, and it yielded a living the first year. He now owns 57 acres, on which he has built two dwelling houses and made other improvements, and values the property at $12,000. The 37 acres in cultivation produced $1,300 worth of produce in 1909. One farmer was interviewed who made his first purchase in 1874, and it is probable that Italians were engaged in agriculture prior to that date. Such land as is suitable for agricultural development in this section has for the most part been in cultivation for a long period, and the first purchases made by the Italians were usually of small tracts of 1 to 10 acres of improved land, the price in some instances being as high as $300 an acre. But little real estate was bought for less than $100 an acre. Frequently the first purchase consisted of less than an acre of land, but even this small tract was considered sufficiently large for truck farming on a small scale. Purchases were usually made for a small cash payment with the balance secured by mortgages at 6 per cent, the cash payment varying from 20 to 50 per cent of the entire purchase price. The larger number of the immigrants were farmers or farm laborers before emigrating to the United States. Probably three-fourths of the settlers came from the vicinity of Naples. À small number came from Rome, Basilicata, and other parts of southern Italy. Few, if any, settled on farms immediately after coming to the United States without an intervening period of employment. Personal interviews with 15 typical families show that 6 heads of families were employed as farm laborers, 4 worked in woolen mills, 4 were general unskilled laborers, and 1 worked on his father's farm prior to the first purchase of land, the period of employment varying from three to eighteen years. The high price of real estate has been one of the principal obstacles to the progress of the colony. A mortgage on the first purchase has been required almost invariably to secure deferred payments, however small the tract, and the income from the farm the first few years is frequently insufficient to meet the interest and living expenses. There are but few families in the colony at present who subsist entirely on the income received from the farm. In almost every home either the head or one or more of the children are engaged in outside employment, usually in the woolen mills, the income thus secured being used to supplement the returns from the sales of farm produce. SOIL AND CLIMATE. Generally speaking, the eastern portion of Rhode Island, embracing the basin of Narragansett, is highly fertile and much better adapted to tillage than the rough and stony hill lands in the western portion of the State. The Italian settlement is located in one of the most highly favored regions, agriculturally, in the State. In this area are found two general varieties of soil-Miami stony loam and Warwick sandy loam. Each consists of a mellow brown loam, the latter variety containing sand and gravel. The Miami stony loam is one of the strongest varieties of soil found in the State, but its stony character is a drawback to cultivation. Much of the area is of a rough and irregular formation, the soil thin and for these reasons unsuited to tillage. The Warwick sandy loam is a mellow brown sandy loam, usually containing some fine gravel, and it is warm and easily tilled. The elevation is usually low and the surface less rough and broken than that of the Miami stony loam. The Warwick loam is one of the best soils of the State for the production of market garden crops, and yields about 1 tons of hay and 40 bushels of corn to the acre. The Miami stony loam is better suited to general farming than to truck raising, but the Italians have confined themselves largely to the production of market garden crops, intensive farming being almost a necessity on account of the high price of land and the consequently small acreage of the farms. The mean annual temperature of Rhode Island is 49 degrees. Spring is a short season, while the summers are longer and well defined. The highest maximum temperature on record for the State is 104 degrees, at Providence. Winter weather prevails through a period of five months or longer, and the minimum temperature falls to 32 degrees or below on an average of one hundred and six days yearly. The average annual precipitation is 49 inches, which is very evenly distributed through the different seasons. A large percentage of the annual precipitation is in the form of snow, the State having an average annual snowfall of 38.2 inches. The average date of the first killing frost in autumn is November 16 and the average date of the last killing frost in spring is April 26. |