Between Vaasa and Kristinestad, in the Swedish-speaking areas of the South Ostrobothnia coast of Finland, the commune of Narpes is the center of the largest and most important area of greenhouse horticulture in Finland [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. The most significant in terms of volume and value of production, it supplies primarily tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce (Atlas 1982, 5.311). The development of this agricultural specialization illustrates a process of local and regional economic adjustment that is theorized for depressed rural areas. To understand the relationship of the case study to the theory it is necessary to examine the evolution of this horticultural activity in some detail. BEGINNINGS Poverty in Finland was widespread during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the country was part of the Russian Empire. Especially in South Ostrobothnia, evidence of the low economic status included large-scale emigration during the first quarter of the twentieth century to the United States, Canada, and Sweden (Atlas 1993, 3.9). More than half of all Finnish emigrants originated in South Ostrobothnia. Many people who remained existed at a barely subsistence level. Farmsteads were small, even by the Finnish standards of the time, and continued subdivision of land by inheritance made agriculture increasingly less economical (Atlas 1993, 3.5). Thus conditions were opportune for a new and promising agricultural venture, however radical in approach. During the nineteenth century a few commercial greenhouses had been established around Helsinki and Turku to serve their sophisticated and affluent urban markets, but greenhouse agriculture was unknown elsewhere in Finland. Greenhouse horticulture was initiated in Narpes by an emigrant, Valdemar Mattfolk, who returned from the United States to Finland in 1916. Accustomed abroad to eating vegetables at almost every meal, he recognized the potential in Finland for greenhouse produce; at that time, because of poorly developed agriculture and a generally low standard of living, vegetables were rarely eaten. In the village of Finby Mattfolk built a greenhouse for the cultivation of tomatoes and cucumbers (Hindstrom 1978, 23-25). His innovation was not immediately successful, and ten years passed before other local farmers adopted the idea. In 1926 two brothers, Uno and Georg Lassfolk, from the neighboring village of Pjelax, erected a 150-square-meter greenhouse. The older brother, Uno, had received training as a gardener at the imperial household in St. Petersburg, Russia, and may have been familiar with greenhouse horticulture as practiced there (Hindstrom 1978, 28). The adoption of greenhouse horticulture continued to be very slow, and by 1943 only five or six greenhouses had been constructed (Walls 1968, 39, 94). The greenhouse enterprises of Narpes were greatly aided by the unforeseen market that large numbers of German troops, billeted in the nearby Vaasa area, created during World War II. Growth of the domestic market, on the other hand, was slow, yet steady, as Finns generally accepted a basic change in their dietary habits. By the end of the 1950s greenhouse horticulture had spread to 17 villages in Narpes from the original centers in Finby and Pjelax (Hindstrom 1978, 35). Greenhouses on 617 farms provided a total of 306,963 square meters of growing space [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 2 AND 3 OMITTED]. The pattern of diffusion depended not only on the distance separating the villages but also on the amount of agricultural land in the various villages where much of the total area is either too rocky or too boggy for farming. Increased amounts of agricultural land meant that more farmers would consider adopting the new cultivation practices. GREENHOUSE HORTICULTURE Greenhouse horticulture, which had achieved considerable acceptance by the 1960s, has brought a measure of prosperity to the Narpes area. …