esale business. He makes the
total material value of the property of the Italian colony in New York
to be over $60,000,000, and says this value is relatively below that of
the Italian possessions in Saint Louis, Boston, and Chicago. The Italian
Chamber of Commerce has over two hundred members, and has done much to
promote the interests of the immigrants. There is one distinctively
Italian Savings Bank, with an aggregate of deposits approximating
$1,100,000, and about 7,000 open accounts. Sixteen daily and weekly
Italian newspapers in New York alone indicate that the people are
reading, and that not all are illiterates by any means. The Italian
Hospital, the Italian Benevolent Institute, and over 150 Italian
societies for mutual aid and social improvement--all this in New
York--indicate a degree of enterprise and progress. In the smaller
cities the condition of the Italians is in many respects much better
than in the great centers, since the tenement evils are escaped. The
reports from such cities as Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Schenectady,
New York, are most favorable as to the general character of the Italians
as faithful workers and peaceful residents.

[Sidenote: Increasing Land Values]

In the cities and on the small farms of the South and West the
prosperity of the Italians is marked. They take unproductive land and
make it fertile soil for truck-gardening, and have increased the value
of surrounding lands in Louisiana and other states by showing what can
be done. If they can be distributed properly, and gotten out of the
congested city wards, there is unquestionably a future of prosperity for
them. A Texas colony described by Signor Rossi, who recently
investigated conditions with view to securing a better distribution by
informing intending emigrants as to the openings for them in
agricultural sections, illustrates the success of the Italians as
gardeners and farmers.

[Sidenote: Successful Truck Farmers]

In the neighborhood of San Francisco Italians have cultivated about 250
truck farms. They "obtain the manure from the city stables gratis, and
transform into fertile farms the original sand dunes." Nearly all our
cities where Italians have settled are receiving vegetables and fruit as
the product of Italian labor, and the Italian is first in the market.
They are found on Long Island and Staten Island, in New Jersey and
Delaware, in Virginia, and in all the New England states. Near Memphis,
Tennessee, ther