Today Parrina is the only survivor among the large private farms that began the process of innovation,at the beginning of the century. At the beginning of the century, until the Twenties, the Maremma Grosseto experienced a process of agrarian trasformation that for some areas and relatively to the problem of productivity, filled the gap which saparated from other areas of Tuscany. This transformation was made in large property and neighbouring territories not touched one another, such as Grosseto, the hills of FioraAlbegna and isolated case in his area, the keeping of Parrina, in the town of Orbetello. The estate belongs to take Giuntini, a noble Florence family, which is descending the current owner, the Marchesa Franca Spinola.
A key feature of agrarian transformation of these great properties, where there was generally the extensive culture, the "great culture" to "fields and grass", with wild pasture, were reclaiming hydraulic and agricultural, appoderament and cultural innovation and technology. The transformation of Parrina began in 1905. In 1912 the Parrina were derived eighteen farms to sharecropping in keeping the property of others in Giuntini and innovations were higher At Parrina seemed continue in personal wealth the tradition of Lorraine, the work of reclamation of the government and transformation of the land. In addition to the reformist tradition and initiatives politic-economic for the remediation and communications, which was followed by the disengagement of the state unit, had remained in Maremma, age Grand Duchy, the agrarian culture, sought by ancient and widespread institutions such as the Agriculture and Agrarian company , inspired by the Georgofili's Academy .
They did not participate, for example, to Company (1907) for the production of chemical fertilizers, with establishment to Orbetello and which did part Ricasoli, Corsini, Montezemolo, Barabesi, Ciacci of Pitigliano and Ricci Busatti Sorano and Consorzio Agrario and Agricultural Society of Grosseto, animator of various initiatives and in the heart of local agrarian culture.
The innovation for which Giuntini were among the first owners willing to strong investment, without the provision state that were available then, was a novelty even for the choices of tenure. Nearly half a century, it was destined to have a follow-lasting sign also of the times changed, and represented a choice of address, final in Maremma, after their "pioneering effort" (1855) of the brothers and Vincenzo Bettino Ricasoli, conduction direct with machines Sealing grossetane of Barbanella and Gorarella as "great culture" even mechanized, showed IM practicable and Ricasoli had to fold on the "appoderament" and sharecropping.
Less pressing than it had for the other major owners maremmani had to be Giuntini, perhaps even for the remoteness of villages held by the social implications of this land. The most serious made in the Maremma the contemporary situations in several negative aspects, such as the presence of large latifondium, missed reclamations, malaria, the survival of institutions like the medieval terratico and low prevalence of sharecropping, which is also its tradition Tuscany. And in Maremma the land question had been processed, for decades, social question, with strikes and invasions of land.
The company processing of agricultural Parrina can be better understood in the spirit of initiative that age of Giolitti transformed many owners farmers.
Several elements in favour competed in that period, at the improvement that received the agricultural economy: the budget of the Ministry passed, between 1900 and 1907, from thirteen to twenty-seven million, spread the use of machinery and the chemical fertilizer and products antifilosserici (used for the first time in Maremma in 1893), improved sanitary conditions, including the spread of quinine, which added geva, for the Maremma, the decrease of malarial mortality already recorded at the end of the century. It was soon an increase in cereal production, with the increase in the price of wheat which, by twenty-six lire a quintal of 1901 passed the thirty-two of 1912; Grosseto in 1919 was twenty-nine lire. The story of the transformation of the production of Parrina, and the consequent economic and social changes, is described by Cavalier John Benucci, the technician who created it and who directed the estate since 1905. When ownership decided the modernisation of the estate was in place, recently, an experiment of sharecropping, restricted in the surface (60 Ha) and modest real capacity for innovative cereal cultivation there was with methods other than "great culture" conduct directly with casual staff, and really in unsuitable buildings, for these already, the few families lived: the first, the family Sartucci, that of a seasonal workers, came from San Quirico Sorano. The rest of cultivable land of the estate (throughout 1740 has, of which three hundred on top of a hill) was conducted with wheat and oats, with the traditional rotation of rest with natural meadows and grazing livestock wild. For the lands given to sow to the "comparaioli", the system of terratico was Replaced by the terziarian one.
Starting the work of transformation of the company, the family Giuntini is availed for direct, a technician, John Benucci, precisely, of florentin area, a choice they did after other estates; moreover, is only in 1938 which was established in Grosseto an Agrarian Institute. The programme foresaw the rehabilitation of agricultural seven hundred hectares of fallow, and especially on the fallow it focussed in those years, in Maremma, the requests for land of various social partners and recorded the most differentiated between the same owners and the remediation that hydraulic , In 1925, for the entire estate, arrived to set up a network of 153 kilometres of ditches and collectors, along with 151 kilometres of internal roads. Finally, the stage of colonization foresaw a farm organization of the first fifteen mezzadrie, with many farmhouses, whose construction was preceded by that of factories employers, administration and "neighborhoods" for the workers. These and farmhouses replaced the old huts: the one and the other is preserved today an interesting photographic documentation. For rural homes of the early twentieth much wrote, at the time, on the principles that had characterised: A lot can be summarized succinctly in exposure to the sun of the main courtyard, "dry " but little exposed to winds, on the position of the two main ports and other buildings that should be arranged in "parallel ranks" them "stretch" (Sacks). At Parrina meet these modern criteria, and more, as he wrote the Benucci, the search for the manufacture of an elevated place.
Later were studied constructed for two families, as happened after a few years for the Ciacci company in pitiglianese, for typical "Tuscan farmhouses. These two-storey dwellings, large and accompanied by stables, together with the main body of the factory by a wall, we seem to have an architecture all their own and still different from those grossetane and hills. The new families came from Orbetello, Porto Ercole, Capalbio and also from Porto Santo Stefano; other will be added later from Orbetello in the years around the First World War . The financial commitment was aimed to empowerment of farms With modern stables which permitted the gradual decline of wild cattle, until its total transformation in "stallino" with the creation of wells with pumps aeromotori, with vineyards and olive groves detached (then returned to the rows of vines with olive), with general guidelines for crops with "rational rotation" of pulses and fodder. It is found in these choices the main criteria of Agriculture, according to numerous studies of time. The farm units exceeded the average by extension those of Grosseto and,we recalled sometimes, the farmer to employ casual staff. The extension of farms it allowed the autonomy from the mainstream practice for the number of beasts from work that could take, to the availability of substantial amounts of stocks and by the same families farms for introitazione of other income from "industrial crops" such as artichokes and tomatoes, then processed by local factories.
The administration of the estate had focused its effort on economic farms, leaving herself a few areas are a direct transforming them into modern initiatives as a vaccheria ", Which sent the milk to Orbetello, with the prospect (1926) soon to produce butter and cheese. Land is not yet transformed into colonies (1905) were intended to wheat crops with modern criteria. It was also edited the improvement breeds of pork and dairy cows. Even before the Great War were built other farms then the economic data show a decline in production, which was still contained within acceptable limits due to the availability of labour sixty prisoners of war for three years. The "trend" in favour lasted in the first post-war period and in 1926 the estate reached a population of four hundred and sixty people, of which only one hundred and forty adventitious. These brief comments are limited to the early processing of agricultural Parrina, the most innovative and difficult, in which the estate could not dispose of state benefits, extended to the Maremma only in 1911 or, subsequently, the support of associations like the "Consortium Clearance of Grosseto. " At the root of his fortune, which they made, after ninety years, the only survivor among the largest held that launched the great movement of agrarian transformation due to private initiative in Maremma in early twentieth century, there is probably precisely the choice to create units consisting of farm holdings as autonomous and which was chosen safety for the general administration of the estate. Since a complete bibliographic citation, remember publications: G. Bagnoli, Tenuta La Parrina. " Clearance and Colonization, Giuntina Florence from 1926. More news on keeping us came from Bruno Bagnoli, a factor for forty years of "La Parrina."