The P0 valley and the valleys of Emilia and the Romagna are best adapted for rice, but the area is diminishing on account of the competition of foreign rice and of the impoverishment of the soil by too intense cultivation.
In Lombardy, Emilia, Romagna, Tuscany, the Marches, Umbria and the southern provinces, they are trained to trees which are either left in their natural state or subjected to pruning and pollarding.
A certain amount of linseed-oil is made in Lombardy, Sicily, Apulia and Calabria; colza in Piedmont, Lombardy, Venetia and Emilia; and castor-oil in Venetia and Sicily.
Parmesan is not confined to the province from which it derives its name; it is manufactured in all that part of Emilia in the neighborhood of the P0, and in the provinces of Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia, Novara and Alessandria.
In Emilia both mezzadria and lease tenure are widely diffused in the provinces of Ferrara, Reggio and Parma; but other special forms of contract exist, known as the famiglio da spesa, boaria, braccianti obbligati and braccianti disobbligati.
