Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1916 — MAY RECLAIM WASTE SPOT [ARTICLE]

MAY RECLAIM WASTE SPOT

Efforts Are to Be Made to Restore »• Fertility the Famous Roman Campagna. No book on. Italy is complete without some reference to the Campagna di Roma, a district upon which a curse seems to have fallen. It is a grassy plain, something like an American prairie, about forty by seventy miles in area, Rome being near its center. This district was once the province of Latium, and was then the richest and most populous country in the world, but it is now nearly destitute of inhabitants. For a part of the year shepherds and herdsmen make it their home, but even they do not linger longer than absolutely necessary. in fact, the Campagna is the ‘home of malaria, so deadly that strangers dare not to pass a single night exposed to its influence. The trouble with the Campagna arises from its being underlaid by a bed of stone impervious to water. The spring rains fill the soil, a vast quantity of vegetable matter is accumulated, and the summer sun evaporates this foul water, filling the air with malaria of the most deadly sort. The ancient Romans knew the danger, and averted it with extensive drains; but tife modems suffered the drains to become choked, and the finest portion of Italy became a wilderness. The soil ie very rich, and it is pleasant to hear that aft effort is being made to reclaim the Champagne for the uses of man.