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CHAPTER XXIV.

GENOA, WIS., NORTH ITALIAN GENERAL FARMERS.

INTRODUCTION.

The old and very interesting little settlement at Genoa, Wis., is located on the east bank of the Mississippi River, about 15 miles south of La Crosse, Wis., and 40 miles north of Prairie du Chien, in the county of Vernon. From La Crosse southward for many miles the rocky hills rise abruptly, often almost perpendicularly from the water's edge to a height of several hundred feet. Indeed all the way from St. Paul southward to Dubuque the river has cut a channel, hundreds of feet deep in places, through solid rock. Every few miles along the stream are little coves a few acres in extent, marking the place where some small tributary creek has cut its way down through the rock to the level of the great river into which it flows. Through these narrow cuts, or coulées, running backward and rapidly upward into the hills, the farmers living in the interior were accustomed to bring their produce down to the river for exchange and shipment. For this reason many little villages grew up at the mouths of these coves, depending for their existence on the traffic between the back country farmers and woodsmen and the river men. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad runs at the foot of the bluffs, close to the river's brink all the way from Minneapolis to Dubuque, and anyone who travels over the road is struck by the great number of dilapidated villages built on steep hillsides and in the "pockets" cut out by the tributary streams.

Genoa is one of these hamlets; Stoddard, a few miles north, is another; Victory, just below, is a third. Genoa is built on one stony street parallel to the river and reports a population of 200. The township had in 1905, 1,019 inhabitants, or 207 families. Of this number 44 families are reported by the parish priest as purely Italian in lineage.

About 44 heads of Italian families are enumerated on the assessment roll and 55 Italians pay taxes on personal property. The principal store in the village is owned by an Italian and there are some railroad bands and "clammers," also of Italian origin, who own very little property of any kind. Practically all are North Italians who settled there many years ago, and immigration to the place has been almost nil for some time. In fact, since land has risen in value and no more uncleared timbered tracts are to be obtained, a number of the young men have been going to Minnesota and farther west in the search for cheaper homes. Possibly from various causes one or two families come in yearly from other parts of the United States, but this is more than offset by the number who go away.

Beginning with nothing, they have cleared the forested areas, sodded the gulleys, laid out fine farms, 80 to 200 acres in extent,

a Wisconsin Census Report, 1905, Part I, pp. 55, 232.

erected large barns and good houses, planted orchards, and built up a fine dairy industry. On the plateaus above the Mississippi one can overlook a fine and prosperous agricultural region. The Italians and Germans have settled together and taken as a whole are very prosperous and progressive.

HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT.

The first Catholic church-a quaint little stone chapel, after the fashion of a Swiss chalet--was built in 1863, by 8 families of Italians, who quarried the stone, shaped them, cut the timber, and constructed the whole edifice with their own hands. These 8 families constituted the entire Italian colony at that time.

The whole body had come directly from Galena, Ill., where they had somehow gathered after various adventures. One or two had come to Galena to work in the lead mines after spending some time in South America. Another came from west of the Rockies. One of their number had been up the river and, struck with the resemblance of the country to his native Piedmont with its mountains, gorges, and narrow valleys, he persuaded other families to come with him to Bad Axe, as Genoa was then named.

All these families were originally from Piedmont and Lombardy and all had been small farmers, dairymen, or vine dressers before coming to America. They arrived in Vernon County in 1860, and finding plenty of government land, rough, hilly, and forest covered, they settled down to the somewhat arduous task of making a living on the steep slopes of the little coulées. They were all Catholics and the church with its associated parochial school was the first public building of importance in the place.

The colony did not grow rapidly, but almost the entire number of the first generation now in Genoa came before 1890. A few families have settled since that time. There was no colonization in the true sense of the word, and no considerable number came at any one time after the original eight families. A very few were added from the Italians on the railroad gangs who settled in the village, and occasionally two or three families arrived in a body from Italy, attracted by glowing accounts of the place originating with relatives who had settled previously; some heard of the settlement and came from other parts of the United States, for the name itself is an advertisement of the character of the population.

The land was originally covered with hard wood and was bought cheap. After the enactment of the homestead law several persons filed on homesteads; others paid from five to ten dollars an acre for their land. They gradually bought the land, away from the river, on the hills above, where the soil is better, and kept on clearing their farms, until they now own several thousand acres of fine farms, well laid out, highly improved, and well stocked. The greater number bought land on arrival while land could be secured on very easy terms. Later some worked for a few years as farm laborers and in the sawmills during the summer or chopped wood during the winter until they had saved enough to make a first payment.

The land once bought, clearing began. The wood was cut off and sold to the steamboats plying on the river or shipped down to the

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raising, and both lary and beef matte are keet. Nearyall and able for entivation tis tewe teared and s ather med or in g The Italians are lapor up mOT. Within a few years a fine brick church has been exeused in the site of the old one and a parochiai school established. The county, as a whole, sin a very progres state agriculturally, and the Italians share in the prosperity.

TOPOGRAPHY, SOIL, AND CLIMATE,

As already noted the contour of this whole region is very hilly and very much broken by ravines and deep gorges A ridge of his hunning north and south about 15 miles east of the Mississippi is the reight of land in the county: from this ridge or plateau the streams flow westward into the river through cuts hundreds of feet deep. The general elevation of the upland is from 1,000 to 1,400 feet above sea level, from 200 to 300 feet above the Mississippi, and anywhere from 50 to 200 feet above the narrow stream valleys which extend in all directions. Standing on the east bank of the Mississippi, one looks up at the towering, almost mountainous, aspect of the precipitous bluffs and wonders where it is possible to find an acre of farm land not inclined at an angle of 45° to 60° or more. To reach the uplands it is necessary to follow the narrow winding roads that ascend the hills through the steep rough stream valleys. By wagon road this upland section lies perhaps 2 miles east of the river, and once on the higher level the aspect is very pleasing. From a superior elevation the country presents the appearance of a plateau cut up by deep ravines 20 to 50 feet deep, running in every direction. The abrupt slopes and sharp sides of these ravines have been rounded by tillage, and the higher, narrow ridges broadened, until the general appearance of considerable tracts is that of a very rolling rather than a hilly country. On these uplands, over large areas, the timber has been entirely cut off, and perhaps 80 per cent or even more of the land is in improved and cultivated fields, pastures, and small orchards.

The soil is a clay loam of a silty texture, somewhat dark in color, with an underlying stratum of yellow, silty clay. On the higher levels and ridges the yellow soil comes to the surface, but after being worked it becomes darker, so that nearly all of the surface soil on the uplands in question presents to the eye a dark brown color. Because of its silty nature it is loose and friable, does not bake or harden

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readily, and makes a fine seed bed for potatoes, tobacco, and the staple cereal crops. There is excellent natural drainage. The steeper hillsides are likely to wash and gully, if care is not taken to prevent it, for geologically the soil is of the same loessial formation which in the Southern States is especially liable to extensive denudation and gullying even on gentle slopes. Better culture, a rotation with grass crops, a more tenacious subsoil, and a much less copious rainfall afford the reason for the limited washing of the soil in this section. On the lower lands, along the stream beds and in the bottoms of the coulées, the soil is formed from the silty deposits which have been washed down from the inclosing slopes. Sometimes this bottom soil is heavy and black, sometimes sandy from the eroded sandstone; the subsoil is nearly always coarse sand and rock. This soil is very rich and, being continually renewed, needs very little manure or fertilizer. Both of these soils are well suited to tobacco and possibly to small fruits. The higher soils are not so deep and are somewhat less valuable than the lower, but all are capable, with the application of barnyard manure, of raising good crops. Average yields actually received by Italian owners are about as follows: Tobacco, 1,000 to 1,200 pounds per acre; wheat, 16 to 25 bushels per acre; potatoes. 75 to 200 bushels per acre; hay, 1 to 2 tons per acre; corn, 25 to 50 bushels per acre; barley, 18 to 30 bushels per acre.

In this part of Wisconsin the winter temperature frequently drops to 38°, and there is often 2 feet of snow, the ground being covered for three months or more. The growing season is about five months. The first fall frosts occur about October 1, and the last late spring frosts between May 1 and 10. The maximum summer temperature reaches 95° at times, and the heat in the little coulées in harvest time is intense. The range of temperature is thus sure to be great; but the monthly means are not very high or very low, since extrenies of weather seldom last many days in succession.

The annual precipitation is 30 inches or a little more, two-thirds or more falling in the five months of the growing season, May to September. The normal monthly and annual temperature and rainfall are given in the following table, transcribed from the records of the Weather Bureau for La Crosse and Viroqua:

Normal monthly and annual temperature and precipitation, Viroqua and La Crosse, Wis. (United States Department of Agriculture. Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils, 1903. [Fifth Report.])

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120 acres or under in size. The cleared area per

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which area is used for the pasturage of young cattle.

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acreage shown below includes lai that has core been destal and broken, and that is now either cultivated tillable area varies from 20 to $5 per cent of the 25 to 85 acres per farm. This does not dive a eurrect iles of the character of the farm lands, however, sin e nearly every farmer has a wood or timber lot some distance from his farmstead which is included in his total acreage.

Accurate statistics of the area cultivated in various farm crops, including tame hay, are gathered each spring by the township assessor. The figures for 1908 for 25 Italian farms are as follows:

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The cultivated fields on the rougher tracts are small and irregular, containing from 3 to 10 acres. On the uplands they may be rectangular areas, 20 or more acres in extent.

CROPS RAISED.

All of the 25 farms as returned by the assessor reported corn, potatoes, and hay. About 90 per cent raised barley and oats; 60 per cent raised some tobacco and some wheat. The production in 1907 and the acreage grown in 1908 is shown in the following table:

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