Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-07-25
their floods simultaneously into the


TIONS
and frightful consequences result
therefrom. Sometimes the loss of
life is great, and the destruction of
property is almost incalculable.-
Last spring-l87S-the almost unpre-
cedented overflow of the Pc and It's
tributaries inflicted a loss on the ag-
ricultural interests of this valley
estimated at S2O,OOO,OO0, the evil
consequences of which have been
felt all over Italy. The wheat crol,
was cut short, leaving none to ex-
port, and compelling some to be i'm
ported. The "balance of trade" was
deranged, and the premium on gold
advanced 6 per cent. that is, the Ital-
ian paper money, which had been
worth before the freshet 90 per
cent of coin, was deprecated, in
consequence of the damage done,
to SO per cent. The promise of a
good harvest this season mas reduced
the discount from IA per cent. to
IL within a few weeks past. The
Government has also been a heavy
losero revenue by reason of the
bad crops of last season, and times
have been hard in Italy, though
there has been no panic.
As before stated, the Valley of
the Pc extends from east to west
across the Italian Peninsula, from
the Apennines to the Adriatic- a
distance from an air line, of nearly
300 miles. The width of the valley
between the mountain walls which
bound the plain average about S5
miles; and it contains something
like &c, 1000 square miles of land as
as level, and rich as the prairie of
Illinois. The mountain slopes and
valleys, which are cultivated and
densely populated, will add about
1000 square miles to the Po Valley
making IN all 10000 square miles
of arabic land, on an area something
larger than the State of Indiana.
On this plain, and within those
mountains n-confnes, there live and
are subsisted
TWELVE MILLIONS OF SOULS!
This area is scarcely as large as
Ireland, but it supports twice the
population of that thickly inhabited
island. 1t contains as many people
as the ten Western States, including
Ohio and Wisconsin, while its terri
tory is but the size of the smallest of
them. The ten Western States, if
populated as densely as the Valley
of the Pc, would contain 22O,OOO,-
900 of inhabitants-that is to say,
400 to the square mile. This valley
bears the same relation to the rest of
Italy, agricultural speaking, that the
Western States do to the whole
Union.
The best husbandry in Italy is
seen in the Po Valley. The soil is
titled with all the care bestowed on
garden, throughout its entire ex-
tent. Labor is superabundant, and
cheap beyond the American concep-
ton of compensation. The chief i'm
plements of tillage are the spade and
the hoe. Plows are more or less en-
ployed; but, where one plow is seen
turning a furrow, hundred spades
are at work digging and subsoiling
the fields; Manure is gathered and
applied to the crops with the utmost
care; but the experience of many
centuries proves that
IRRIGATION ACTS UNFAILINGLY AS A
MANURE,
and restores the strength of the soil
as fast as the crops exhaust it. Thus
there are thousands of meadows
which yield four or five cuttings of
hay each season, and have continued
to do so for generations, in response
to careful and systematic irrigation.
The famous Parmesan cheese is man.
ufactured in the heart of this valley,
extending from Parma up to Milan,
from milk of cows fed on grass
grown by irrigation. They are not
allowed to pasture on the meadows,
but the grass is cut and carried to
the stalls, and the resulting manure
is most carefully preserved and ap-
piled to the grain and root crops.
The reason that artificial irriga-
ton is so beneficial to the land in re
storing its productive strength, is,
that the water from the hills and
mountains holds in solution various
salts, lime, ammonia, and alluvial
sediment, which when spread in thin
sheets over the fields, soak into the
soil. Evaporation only withdraws
the water leaving behind all the 9TH
er fertilizing properties and sub
stances carried along by the water.
Thus every time the field is wetted
by irrigation it is, in fact, also ma
nured. Hence the fertility of those
lands seems to be utterably mex
haustible, as they yield as luxurient
harvests now as they ever have done
these ten or twenty centeries.-
American farmers understand very
little about the extraordinary value
of systematic irrigation of land. If
they were to visit Italy or France,
they would open their eyes wide
and carry back with them some use-
ful ideas and knowledge of the art of
good farming.
Almost any acre of the Pc Valley,
is susceptible of artificial irrigation,
and is moistened in that manner. A
brief description of
THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTRY
viii show the reader how this is pos
sible. In the first place, the valley
to the eye of the traveller, is a per
feet level plain-eEen less undula-
ting than the prairies of Illinois; new
theless it declines from the base of
the mountain walls towards the Gen.
tire like a dish. For the first few
miles from the mountain the decline
may be 15 or 20 feet to the mile,
which becomes gradually less as the
plain approaches the Po on either
side, which runs at mean distance
of 40 to so miles from, and parallel
to, the Alps on the one side and the
Apennines on the other, throughout
its whole course to the sea. The nu-