It was certainly in her power to try almost any experiment which suggested itself, and on a scale which might ultimately prove something to herself and others.
It was not that she meant to study political economy, or socialism, nor to give the name of an experiment to anything she did.

She had been struck by the practical necessity for doing something, when Don Teodoro had first written to her about the condition of the people in Muro, and her own observations made on her farms in the Falernian district--one of the richest corners of vine land in all Italy--had convinced her that some sort of action was urgently necessary.

And if, in the midst of such riches, the Falernian peasants were half starved, what must be the state of the people on her lands in the Basilicata?
Don Teodoro had drawn her an accurate picture, full of those plain details which carry more than the weight of their mere words.

Something should be done at once.

She had given him power and money to help the very poorest, before she came; but her common sense told her that the evil lay too deep in the soil to be reached by a light shower of silver--or even by a storm of gold rain.
Inventors, great or small, are rarely theorists; the invention must be suited to the necessity, before all things, and the theory may come afterwards if anybody cares for it.