LOMBARDY.

This interesting part of Italy was in remote periods thinly inhabited, till in the sixth century it formed a kingdom. As the history of Lombardy is in this work included in the general history of Italy, we must refer to that article in its alphabetical order, where may be traced the manner and period by which it became the territory of the house of Austria.

In its present state it is distinguished by the name of the kingdom of Venetian Lombardy, which was conferred on it by the treaties of Vienna in 1815. It is a compact territory, bounded on the north by Switzerland and the Tyrol, on the east by Illyria and the Adriatic Sea, on the south by the States of the Church and the duchies of Modena and Parma, and a part of the kingdom of Sardinia, and on the west by Sardinia. It extends over 18,744 square miles, and contains 4,217,650 inhabitants, all of them adhering to the Roman Catholic church.

The far greater part of this kingdom is a level plain, bounded on the north by the Rhaetian Alps, and on the south by the river Po, into which most of the numerous rivers and rivulets empty themselves. The whole valley declines towards the south, but so gently, that the fall of water in that river, from its source to its mouth, is not more than 190 feet; and the smaller streams are equally languid. The soil is generally light, but fertile, on a basis of calcareous subsoil, except that at the foot of the mountains there are some portions of sandy heaths, and on the coast, where the great rivers discharge their waters, the land is marshy, and formed into extensive lagunes. In the mountainous northern border the land is frequently stony, but even there the soil which covers the valleys is a vegetable mould of a greater or less degree of fertility.

The mountains which form the southern boundary, and which are within the kingdom, are a portion of the Alps, beginning on the north side of the lake of Como, and extending between it and Switzerland to the Tyrol. The valley of the Valteline is enclosed by them; and the loftiest points are, the Splugen, 8130; the Legnone, on the lake of Como, 8130; the Godena, 7459; the Tremezzo, 5106; and the Corno de Canza, 4260 feet in height. Some of the mountains on the frontier towards the Tyrol are still higher, but have this difference, that they are not at all seasons bound in frost. Towards the east these ranges of mountains are joined with those of Carinthia. Amongst all these extensive elevations are to be found valleys of greater or less extent, but of high fertility, and presenting the most exciting prospects.

The Po, the greatest of the Lombardy rivers, has a course of near 200 miles; and, though languid in its current, is so filled, generally in the spring, as to cause extensive inundations on both its banks. In its progress it receives the waters of the Ticino, which rises near Mount St Gothard, and joins the Po near Pavia. The other streams which contribute to this great river are, the Olona, the Lambro, the Adda, the Oglio, and the Mincio. The next great river is the Adige or Etsch, which rises in the Tyrol, passes through two lakes near to Botzen, where it receives the Eisach, when it becomes navigable and enters Lombardy, and then, passing by Rivoli, empties itself into the Adriatic Sea at Brendola. In its progress it is “augmented by the waters of the Brenta, the Bachiglione, the Piave, the Livinza, the Lemone, and the Tagliamento, all of which are navigable.

In Lombardy there are two descriptions of lakes, those of fresh water amongst the mountains, and those of salt water in the level country on the borders of the Adriatic.

Of the former, the most remarkable for extent, and for the picturesque scenery on the banks, are the following: 1sZ, Lago Maggiore. It begins in the Swiss canton of Ticino, and extends into the boundaries of Lombardy and of Sardinia to Sesto. It is formed by the river Ticino and twenty-six smaller streams, is about forty-eight miles in length, from four and a half to seven in breadth, varying considerably, and generally from twenty-four to thirty feet deep. It is connected by the river Tresa with the lake of Lugano, and is 750 feet above the level of the sea. 2<7, Lago Lugano. This is also on the frontiers of Switzerland, is 870 feet above the level of the sea, and is fed by forty-three brooks and rivers, entering it from the Austrian dominions. 3d , Lago di Como. This is formed by the river Maixa, near Cordona, and is divided on the southern part into two arms orbranches. Its elevation above the sea is about 700 feet; the greatest length is thirty-seven miles, and its breadth varies from one and a quarter to four miles. It is plentifully stocked with fish; the banks are studded with farms and villages, whilst the lofty mountains form a most picturesque background to the scenery. The river Adda receives from it several of its tributary streams. 4√∕z, Lago d’Iseo. This Jake, near the foot of the mountains, is about twenty miles in length, and in breadth varying from four and a half to seven miles. 5th, Lago d’Idro, which is only about seven miles in length. 6th, Lago di Garda, or, as it is still sometimes called by the ancient name, Lake of Benaco. It is one of the most beautiful of the lakes of Lombardy, is about thirty-five miles in length, varying in breadth from four to fourteen miles, and in depth from ten to 300 feet. It is chiefly fed by the river Sarca, and a discharge of its water near Peschiera forms the river Mincio. It was the subject of the panegyrics of Virgil and Catullus; and has been rendered celebrated by the victories of Bonaparte over Wurmser in the year 1796.

The lagunes are formed by the rivers which descend from the Alps, and spread along the shores of the Adriatic; they are defended from the sea by steep artificial walls, not unlike the dykes in Holland, which in some degree prevent the influence of the rise and fall of the tides; but in some cases, where the force of the sea has broken through, harbours have been formed. Of such havens, there are four large ones, viz. Malamoco, Santa Nicoo, Chioggio, and Tre-Porti; and two inconsiderable, viz. Lido Maggiore and St Erasmo.

There are mineral springs of various degrees of efficacy and reputation for medicinal purposes. The most remarkable of them are at Worms and Massimo in the Valteline, at Albano in the delegation of Padua, at Caldiero near Verona, at Recoaro in the province of Vicenza, at Tres-coria and St Pelegrino in the delegation of Bergamo, and Cenedo and Piano in that of Treviso. The climate is very mild, except on the border mountains. On the plains the snow scarcely ever remains on the ground, and it is rare that ice is found in the still lagunes near Venice. What falls from the heavens in winter is much more common in the form of rain than of hail or snow. The winter scarcely lasts more than two months; and in February the fields are covered with new grass. In May the hot weather begins, and the harvest is secured in June and July. In September and October the annual labours of the vintage are performed.

The climate, on the whole, may be described as healthy; but from that description must be excluded those parts where rice is extensively cultivated, as well as the vicinity [7:13:470]of Mantua, and the marshy districts extending from Venice to Rovigia, and beyond it. In the latter, sickness is marked in the complexions of the inhabitants; and numbers of the people from the Apennines, or of Illyrian peasants, a hardy race, who descend from their lofty homes to gather the harvest, fall victims to the marsh fevers.

As Lombardy is the most densely peopled, so it is the best cultivated, district in Europe. In no other part is the benefit of irrigation more clearly understood, or more accurately appreciated; and the practical application of it becomes in some measure a substitute for that animal manure which is more abundantly supplied in the other most productive portions of the earth. Although, from the nature of the climate and the habits of the people, a larger quantity of leguminous vegetables are used for aliment than of bread and flesh, yet abundance of corn is annually raised. Wheat, barley, and oats are grown, but not extensively; and rye is to be found very rarely, excepting in the delegation of Friouli; but, on the other hand, rice is grown to a great extent, insomuch that the government has attempted to check its further extension. As the wealth and prosperity of Lombardy, and in fact of the whole of Italy, is derived chiefly from the productions of the soil, an extended view of its agriculture must be of much importance; and we enter upon the subject here, because, in the description of the agriculture of the other parts of Italy, it will only be necessary, in the progress of this work, to refer generally to the practices of Lombardy, and to point out the few differences that may exist.

The importance of irrigation is more felt, and the practice of it more extended, in Lombardy, than in any other part of Europe. This depends much on the physical circumstances of the country, but has also in a great measure arisen from the skill of the people, who, by long practice in the art of conducting water, have acquired the habit of leading it to the parts where it may be applied with the greatest success.

Two of the reservoirs that supply water for the purpose of irrigation, viz. Lago Maggiore and Lago di Lugano, are only in part within the Austrian territory; but the waters they discharge enter that part of Italy, and become available within it for both the purposes of internal navigation and of irrigation. The lakes of Como and of Garda, and several of smaller extent, are wholly within the boundaries of Lombardy. All of them are vast deposits of water, chiefly formed by the rapid streams issuing from the frozen ice and snow of the Alps, and in part by springs, which abound near the foot of those lofty elevations. They are scarcely ever frozen, and never to so intense a degree as wholly to suspend the course of the streams which issue from them, and so powerfully tend to fertilize the land through which they pass in their progress towards the Po.

The lake of Como and Lago Maggiore are about 700 feet above the level of the sea; and that of Garda, whose termination is nearer the Po, is 150 feet above it. As the Po is a river of many sinuosities, by which its course to the sea is much elongated, the river Ticino, from Lago Maggiore, which joins the Po a little below Pavia, is calculated at that point to be about 300 feet above the level of the Adriatic, and, through the stream of the Po, with many curves, is at length lost in the sea.

The plains of Lombardy, then, may be considered as a gentle slope, looking to the south, and bounded in that quarter by the Po. If the average distance from the foot of the mountains, where the lakes have been formed, to the Po, be computed at sixty miles, and the points where the rivers fall into it at 300 feet lower, we may assume that the slope of the plain is at the rate of about five feet in the mile. Such a rate of declination cannot be accurate, but it is a sufficient approximation to accuracy to give an idea of the facility with which irrigation may be per formed. Though this representation of the gradual sloping of the face of the country may be generally applicable to it, yet many exceptions must be allowed for. Between the courses of the various streams are numerous elevations, though none of them lofty, which are too high to be susceptible of being irrigated by the great rivers; but in many instances such spots are benefited by being near to springs or brooks, which the long acquaintance of the natives with the practices of irrigation leads them to apply in a greater or less degree to that purpose. Near to the principal streams which convey these collected waters to the sea, there are portions of land so low as to be liable to such abundant overflowings, that they can only be for a time left with a surface sufficiently dry to admit of cultivation for rice; and the vicinity of such lands is injurious to human life, whilst those fields which can, at the will of the occupier, be left either dry, or watered with streams in motion, are not known tû be less salubrious than those on the hills near them.

The facilities for irrigation in the best districts have been much increased by the construction of canals, which, whilst they serve the purpose of inland navigation, are made use of to convey streams of water over the fields, which pass from the property of one proprietor to that of another, till they enter again the canals at a lower level. Some of these canals are the work of remote ages. The most ancient, as well as the most considerable, of these, is the Naviglio Grande, which was opened in the year 1270. The water is conveyed to the Ticino, near Tornavento, and proceeds to Abbiategrasso, a distance of eighteen miles, where it divides into two branches. One of these is conducted to Beneguardo, eleven miles, and the other to Milan, fourteen miles, thus making a line of forty-three English miles. This great undertaking was commenced after the death of Charlemagne, just as the cities of Lombardy began to be constituted independent states, about the year 1177, and in a few years was executed to Abbiategrasso. It was extended to Milan by 1257, but was then only adapted to the purpose of irrigation. It was next widened, and thus rendered navigable, at the expense of the city of Milan, which, within that period, had become the capital of a rich dukedom; and, by the water communication it thus obtained, flourished in a great degree from its commerce, as well as from the rich fields which the waters had rendered highly productive.

It would be needless to record the progress of the other canals which have since been constructed, or to enumerate them. It may not, however, be improper to notice the last of these great and beneficial works. It is known as Nuovο Navigliο di Pavia, and passes from Milan to Pavia, through Benasco, and there falls into the Adda, a little above the junction of that river with the Po. This undertaking was begun in 1814, and completed in 1819. The quantity of goods conveyed by it, and the quantity of water supplied by it to the neighbouring fields, have secured a large profit to the operators, and conferred a great additional value on the lands in its vicinity.

An ancient law of Lombardy has contributed, from the most remote period, to the extension of the distribution of water. The whole of that substance was the property of the sovereign. An individual, or a corporate body, might purchase the water, and thereby acquire the right to conduct it by canals in any direction, and there to sell it to the cultivators. But they could not carry it through gardens or pleasure-grounds, and were bound to pay the owners of the land the value of that portion which was made use of for the passage of the water. In process of time the right of the sovereign over the water was ceded to those who became the purchasers thereof, and was at length extended to those who had springs on their ground, or should afterwards discover any. One instance [7:13:471] recently occurred.of the exercise of this right. An individual found a spring on a small piece∙of ground, seventeen miles from the main bulk of his property, and conducted the water from one to the other over the lands of a vast number of proprietors. Though, as all judicious people foresaw, he ruined himself by the operation, instead of making money by selling his water near the spring, as he might have done, yet the law proceedings which arose confirmed the right.

The value of water in Lombardy is best seen by a comparison of the rent paid for land of the same quality, according to the power of obtaining irrigation. Dry meadows will let at from 24s. to 40s. per English acre, and that so situated as to be accessible to water is eagerly rented at from 48s. to 160s. per acre, according to its greater or less capability of obtaining water.

The purchase and sale of water is a traffic of much importance in Lombardy. There are individuals whose sole but respectable incomes are derived from such operations. They are possessors of a given volume of water which they have purchased out of the great canals, or they have several small springs or brooks which they have bought or inherited, united in one small canal, and conducted to such distances as the fall will allow, where it is sold to the cultivators. The greater part of the proprietors are also the owners, or have shares in the canals, from which they procure their water; but many amongst them, and especially those who extend their irrigations, are insufficiently supplied from their own canals, and must consequently buy it from others.

The distribution of water is settled for a term, with strict covenants between the parties. Fixed days and hours are appointed for opening and shutting the sluices, and watchful guards are appointed; but, in spite of all precautions, the courts of law are supplied with most abundant processes from the several parties. The volume of water is reckoned by means of a local measure called the oneia, being about two English inches. An opening is made through the sluice, which is three of these oneias in breadth and four of them in depth, and the water is raised two oneias above the top of the orifice through which the passage is made, in order to give due force to the current. This opening is calculated to discharge about seven cubic feet of water in a minute. With this, in twenty-four hours, seven acres of sandy meadow, or six acres of ploughed land, is deemed to be sufficiently irrigated. For the winter meadows, which will be hereafter noticed, a large portion of water is requisite, and the measure here described is applied to not more than one and a third acre. A mechanical contrivance, invented by Ferrari, an officer of engineers, has of late years been chiefly applied to the measuring of water, which has been found to be accurate in its operation; but it is difficult to describe without the drawing, which is given by the inventor in his work, Descriziοηi del modo con cui sono formate le bocche che I estraggono ïacque delli navigl; di Milano.

The value of water depends upon a variety of circumstances, and the purchaser can afford to pay more for that i .vhich is applied to gardens and to meadows than for what s wanted on arable land. The water of the canals is of nore value than that which comes immediately from iprings or from small brooks. That water which has I ιassed over the land is worth more than that immediate-y from the canals, as it is supposed to bring with it more ιutritive particles. In the vicinity of Milan the water of he Vettabbia is more valued than any other, because it ontains particles of matter collected from the filth of the i ity. In that neighbourhood, the common water obtained rom the other canals is generally, where a constant stream i i bought, paid for at the rate of from L.40 to L.50 the l ocia. If it be bought for the winter only, the payment is not more than the same number of shillings. Some instances are stated by a writer of accuracy and veracity, where an oneia of water has been sold for more than L.600. (Breislak, Descrizione Geologica della Provincia di Milano.)

Whatever may have been the original component parts of the soil of Lombardy, yet, from the great facilities for irrigation, those lands which are susceptible of that operation have become the most productive of any in the kingdom, or perhaps of any in Europe. There are, however, some exceptions; they are indeed but few, and chiefly confined to the vicinity of Mantua, where, even with great power of watering, the land, which is mere sand, does not produce copiously.

These watered lands may be divided into three classes: The first of them, “convertible meadows,” or, in Italian, Prati a Vicenda, are the most abundant, and are constantly increasing. They are prepared to be laid down in grass by previous corn or green crops, and those are prepared which require good manuring, and also best tend to clean the land from weeds. The course adopted, therefore, is to grow maize and then wheat, or to sow hemp, succeeded by millet, and that followed by wheat; or, in the first year to sow hemp and then millet, in the second year maize, and in the third wheat. In each of these rotations a half fallow is introduced, and the ground three or four times ploughed, and such fallowing is either in the spring or the autumn, as may best suit the variations in the rotation. Red clover is generally sown in the wheat, which yields a good crop the first year after the wheat harvest, which usually takes place in June, and in the following spring; but after that it disappears, and gives place to most abundant crops of white clover, which seems to be the most natural, and almost the spontaneous, product of the soil, and the seed of which must be scattered on the land h by the wind from the fields around it. It continues in grass for three, or in some cases four years, during which time it is mowed three, four, and even five times in the course of the summer. During the process of fallowing, great pains are taken to remove any such inequalities of the surface as would impede the equal distribution of the water over the whole of the field. The soil is removed, by a machine contrived for that purpose, from any part above the level of the field, and thrown into the hollows. The field is divided into narrow beds, between each of which is a water-furrow. In the process of watering, these become first filled, and then from them the water is let in till it rises sufficiently high to cover the whole surface of the land. The same furrows, in excessive rainy weather, serve to drain the land of its surplus moisture. The mode of ploughing naturally raises the middle of the bed somewhat higher than the sides of it, but the difference seldom exceeds four or five inches. The application of fields of this description may be generally stated to be as follows: Three sixths grass, one sixth wheat, one sixth maize, and the remainder flax, beet, rape, or other green crops. There are, as must be obvious to any one acquainted with agriculture, many variations; but, assuming the crops to be grown in that proportion, we cannot be far from accuracy. The portion of the grass-land on these meadows is very great; in many instances where there have been but three mowings and subsequent feedings, they have yielded six London loads of hay to the acre on the average of years, and in some of the best farms near Lodi a load more. There may be mentioned amongst the convertible meadows, those which are chiefly cultivated with rice, which are on the lowest level, and where the watering is the rule, and the letting them dry the exception. The water on them is stagnant during the greater part of the growth of the crops; but, to change the rotation, it is in some years cultivated along [7:13:472]with other plants. Such lands may be generally stated to yield, one half of them rice, and the other half an equal portion of clover, wheat, and maize. The culture of rice will be further investigated.

The second of the classes of watered lands are those denominated “permanent summer meadows.” These are day by day diminishing in extent, as the cultivators become convinced that it is more profitable to change the plants for a few years, than to leave them constantly in grass. The difference in produce between these and convertible meadows arises chiefly from the gradual disappearance of the clovers, and their place being occupied by a variety of the common grasses. They are fitted more for having their plants converted into hay than those of the convertible meadows, and less adapted for the growth of those kinds of grass which are, in conformity with the general practice ∙of the country, most beneficial for stallfeeding. After the last mowing, they are depastured by the oxen. Most of these meadows have on their banks willows, which are from time to time cut a few inches from the ground, and sold to the basket-makers with great benefit.

The most important portion of the land in Lombardy is that part designated as “permanent winter meadows.” In laying them down, great attention is paid to levelling the surface, so that no inequalities may prevent the regular distribution of the water in passing over them, and that in no part there may be hollow places in which it can become stagnant. They can only be created in situations where a flowing stream can in all seasons at pleasure be turned over them. They are usually laid down by sowing them with lolium perenne or rye-grass, with about one part of red clover; and the sweepings of the hay loft are abundantly scattered. As these meadows grow older, other grasses appear; and in the later mowing of each year, a large portion of white clover is always found. These meadows are well dunged every year, and the omission of it, even once, is considered by good cultivators as an unpardonable fault. Thus, if the other descriptions of land are not manured, it is because all of them are sacrificed to the winter meadows. Everywhere are to be seen on them heaps of manure, which are to be prepared during the summer, in order to be carried out and equally spread over the surface in the autumn. Those who intend to mow their meadows in the middle of December, carry the manure on them in the latter end of September, and then begin watering them; but those who design to mow them in January, carry on the manure at the end of October, or till the middle of November. If sufficient manure be not obtained from the farm, either ground rape-cake or ashes are used abundantly for the purpose, and thickly scattered over the soil.

The manure is separated as much as possible before the watering commences. At first the water is turned over the meadows in very small quantity, that it may produce the solution of the manure, and thus sink it down to the roots of the plants before the force of the stream can carry it away. Afterwards the water is let on in greater quantities, and especially when the temperature of the air is below the freezing point. At such times the greatest attention is given to create such a current of water as shall prevent it from freezing. If the cold is sufficiently strong to form a thin coat of ice, which rarely happens, the water is instantly withheld, and thus the soil remains free from frost, whilst a thin sheet of ice covers it; and if the cold, as usual, is but for a few days, an additional stream of warmer water melts the ice or carries it away, and the grass remains uninjured, and continues to grow. If, however, the frost should be so strong as to freeze the ground, the first mowing of the meadow would be lost; but such occurrences are so very rare, that they are looked at without any apprehension, nor are any precautions adopted by the cultivators.

As the chief profit as well as the receipt of ready money to the cultivator depends upon the cheese he makes, it becomes of great importance to him to have an abundant supply of green food to produce the milk; and this, which the farmer is afforded in the north of Europe by the use of turnips, mangel wurzel, or meal in tepid water, is supplied in Lombardy, during ten or eleven months, by his winter meadows. It is hence not a subject of surprise that every other portion of his land is sacrificed by the Lombard farmer to the necessity of raising the product of his winter permanent meadows to the highest possible state of pro-ductivenesss.

As the lands here spoken of are continually in a state of producing crops, they would in time become exhausted in spite of the irrigation, if they were suffered to remain without the application of abundant manure. Although some considerable quantity of extraneous manure is to be procured from the large cities, by those cultivators who carry on their operations near to them, or to the canals connected with them, yet the larger portion is provided for by the live stock which is maintained on the land. The chief labour of ploughing, except in a pail of Pavia, is performed by oxen, and horses are used for the carts and waggons only. The cows are kept in the best possible condition, in order to enable them to yield milk in the greatest quantity, and of the richest quality. The number of black cattle is • considerable, as will appear from the following official account of what existed in 1823, since which they have much increased.
[table]

As the number of young cattle is scarcely in due proportion to the cows and oxen, it may not be amiss to mention in this place, that the Italians used at one period to prefer the young cattle from Switzerland, and drew from thence a considerable number annually; but of late years their own race has been greatly improved, chiefly by the exertions of [7:13:473]one enlightened gentleman, Signor DominicoBerra, a follower of the system of our countryman Bakewell, and the annual import of cattle has been diminishing for the last twenty years. The numbers thus brought in of all kinds from 1815 to 1819, were more than 50,000 on the average of the five years. In the next five years, from 1819 to 1824, the average number was 38,800. No official accounts of the subsequent years could be obtained, but there is reason to believe that the diminution had been progressive, and that at this time the number scarcely amounts to 20,000 yearly. In the whole period, however, the stock on the land has gone on gradually increasing.

The whole of these animals are constantly fed in their stalls, or, if sent out to graze, it is but for a very short period. The use of roots, such as turnips, ruta baga, and mangel wurzel, is almost unnecessary, as the cattle can be supplied with sufficient green food from the meadows the whole of the year. The farms where the convertible husbandry is followed have abundance of litter from the straw of the wheat, but especially from the leaves of the Indian com, which, though good food whilst they are green, are, when they become dry, used in the cattle-stalls for their bedding. Whilst this practice of stall-feeding has been found by long experience the most favourable to the health of the cattle, it is decidedly preferable on account of the vastly greater quantity of manure which it produces. On all the meadow farms a great number of pigs are fattened on whey mixed with the flour of Indian corn. These are put into the styes when they have attained the weight of 100 or 110 pounds, and are kept there during five or six months, till they attain the weight of 350 or 360 pounds. It is found that twenty such pigs yield ample manure for four or four and a half acres of the meadow-land. This kind of manure is highly esteemed for that purpose, but more especially so when proper reservoirs are constructed, out of the influence of the sun or the rain, for the preservation of the urine of the animals. In Lombardy are many small occupiers of land, who have not a number of cows sufficient to yield as much milk as will make a cheese daily. These sell their milk to the cheese-makers near them. In their agreement for the milk for the year, the purchaser contracts to keep in the seller’s styes a number of fattening pigs, determined upon by a calculation of the quantity of milk which the cows will yield. It is commonly believed that the number of swine annually fattened by the meadow occupiers amounts to more than 140,000; and, from the great application of the flesh to hams, bacon, and especially to sausages, it does not appear to be an exaggerated estimate.

In a country where the land is chiefly ploughed with oxen, and where, as in Lombardy, much work is performed with the spade and the hoe, the number of other beasts for draft will be proportionally inconsiderable. This is the case here, as the following official account shows, as far as relates to the government of Milan.

Account of the member of Draft Cattle in 1823.
[table]

So scanty a stock of this description of animals can yield but little manure, how carefully soever it may be preserved; nor, with the addition made to it by the 226,479 sheep that are kept, will it bear any comparison with that arising from the half million of black cattle.

It deserves notice with reference to this subject, that the rural parts of Lombardy exhibit but few houses except those of the mere peasantry. The proprietors of even the smaller properties, though they may in some measure be viewed in the light of cultivators, yet, placing their estates in other hands, on the system of the meta, seldom find it necessary to reside on or near them, and are satisfied with visiting them at the seasons when the produce is to be divided. When the estates are of small or of moderate extent, or when they are large and comprehend several farms, the superintendence is intrusted to their agents. Such agents, also, in some cases, have the disposal of the share of produce, and account for the proceeds to the proprietors of the soil.

The great body of the population who are in circumstances of even moderate ease are thus collected in the cities and large towns; and in them is thus also collected that mass of corrupted vegetable and animal substances which is most adapted to the purposes of manure, and which is carefully preserved for that application. The cities and towns thus contain a larger proportion of the whole inhabitants than most of the other parts of Europe. If the numerical portion is not greater, the portion who by their mode of living produce the greatest quantities of exuviae, which are convertible into manure, is much larger. Such of these substances as are of the liquid kind, or are the most easily reduced to that form by putrefaction, are carried into the canals and rivers on which the cities and towns are built; and, when their water is distributed over the first fields with a gentle motion, to enrich them by the deposition of the matter they contain in suspension, no other manure is required to be applied. Whilst the lower grounds near the cities are refreshed by these means, the higher grounds are supplied, with little expense of labour in the conveyance, from the substances which retain a solid or less soluble form.

The management of manure when collected is not so universally attended to as it ought to be; but the best cultivators have adopted a plan that is found highly beneficial, and is likely to be extended. Large sheds are built, sufficient to cover the dung-hills. A bedding of mould is formed about one foot in thickness, on which the dung is heaped to the height of five or six feet. The roof protects the heap from the great quantity of rain which falls in the winter months, and in an equal degree from the excessive drying influence of the sun during the burning months of summer. The fermentation process is regulated from time to time, as occasions require, by the application of the liquid matter from the cattle, which is collected in the cess-pools near the stables and cattle-stalls. Berra asserts that the most profitable money expended on a farm, is that which is applied to building sheds for the reception of dung heaps. Whenever there is an opportunity of doing so, the ashes collected from the bleachers of linen, and those from the soapboilers, are abundantly used as manure, and are found peculiarly beneficial for the grass land. It is necessary however to use them in very dry weather, when they can be most equably scattered upon the' surface. When the air is damp they run together into lumps, which it is difficult afterwards to break.

With the best farmers it is the custom every year to clean out the small canals of irrigation that are formed in every part of the meadow-lands. These ditches contain a compost of various earths, with a large quantity of vegetable and animal matter produced by the decomposition of many organic substances. It is obvious that each of these canals becomes a reservoir, in which is deposited the fat [7:13:474]which the water has brought, and which being mixed with the earth in them, must have a great degree of activity in promoting vegetation by the portion of gas it generates, which forms the food of the several kinds of plants.

In some lands of an inferior quality, the practice of growing green crops, and ploughing them in to form manure, has been introduced. A kind of bean called fisole, a species of lupin, grows almost spontaneously on some of even the poor soils. When they are cultivated they produce a large quantity of succulent vegetable matter, which, when covered with earth, and mingled with it, forms an excellent pabulum for other plants. By two operations of this kind in succession, some of the poorest soils on the hills of moderate height have been sufficiently enriched to bear profitable crops of wheat. There is a part of Lombardy, not inconsiderable, where very little or no manure is applied to the land, and yet it is cultivated with corn, though the crops grown are very scanty. It is a portion of the delegation of Mantua, and not far from that city. It is easily susceptible of irrigation, but the soil is one of the poorest descriptions of sand. It is chiefly cultivated by small occupiers. These tenants have no cattle of any kind, and the whole labour is performed by the sole use of the spade and the hoe. Their dwellings and their clothing are of the most wretched description; their food of the coarsest kind, and of that they have at times a bare sufficiency. Their usual course of cropping is alternately with Indian corn and wheat. The farms are from four to eight acres in extent, and are divided into two equal parts, growing the two kinds of corn. One half of the produce is delivered to the proprietor, out of which he pays the taxes, and the other is for the subsistence of the occupier. In some cases the owner takes that half which consists of wheat, and the tenant is supported on the Indian corn. The value of these is nearly equal, as the price of wheat is commonly about one third higher than that of maize, whilst the quantity of the latter exceeds that of the former in about the same proportion. The maize is the sole food of the farmer, and is more convenient to him, as it can be converted into aliment without any other operation previous to its culinary application. It is by those who use it deemed the most healthy food for the working classes. Although the soil is poor, and little or no manure is applied, yet crops are raised, one half of which maintains the labourers who are occupied on the soil, though in the most wretched manner. As the maize is nearly three months in the earth, and the wheat scarcely more than six months, there is an interval between the crops, during which the soil, by being frequently turned over by the spade, imbibes a certain portion of oxygen, which, with the addition of water by the irrigation, furnishes food for the plants.

A district adjoining to this, with a soil somewhat less sterile, but capable of constant irrigation, is chiefly cultivated with rice, growing almost continually, or with very short intervals, in the water. The inhabitants are scarcely maintained on better or more abundant provisions; and, on account of the maladies produced by the stagnant water, arc remarkable for their sickly appearance, and for the short duration of their lives.

Lombardy comprehends a large portion of the Alps within its limits. The elevated pasture-lands on these mountains are stocked with cattle only during the summer months. At that time the peasants take up their temporary residence in the chalets, and there convert the milk of the cattle into butter and cheese, as is practised in the adjoining Swiss cantons. The dung of the cattle serves to refresh the pastures during the summer, but no extraneous manure is ever applied to them.

Some mineral manures are used, the most important of which is gypsum, which is ground in mills, and then scattered on the clovers and the grass. Lime is used as a manure in some of the provinces. It is laid on the ground in heaps in October, and covered with the soil; and after the sowing of wheat, the compost with the lime, completely slaked, is spread over the field. The quantity of lime is very small.

In taking a view of the amount of the produce of land in Lombardy, it may be best to begin with the estimate of the marciti, or winter-watered meadows. These are commonly mowed four, five, and even six times in the year; but it is not very easy to determine the quantity of hay they yield, because the chief portion of their produce is consumed by the cattle in the stalls, in the form of grass. One of the most accurate of the practical cultivators (Berra, already mentioned) has constructed a weighing bridge at his farm, over which every load of grass brought from his meadows, as well as the manure carried on them, is weighed and registered. According to him, the average produce, for a series of years, has been as follows. They are kept by him in the weights and measures of the country, but are here reduced into English hundredweights, and English statute acres.
[table]

That is, 560f cwts., or 30 loads.

The whole of the grass which is cut in January and in September is eaten in the green state, and the hay is made almost exclusively from what is cut in May and July. In what is converted into hay, it is found that there is a loss of weight by drying equal to three fourths. It is supposed that, from its containing so much more water, the grass cut in January and September would lose five sixths of its weight, and that cut in March four fifths. This view would give six loads of the finest hay as the annual produce of an English acre. There is good reason to believe that this may be near an accurate estimate, because the best meadows frequently, in the two mowings of May and July, yield more than at the rate of five loads per acre; but these are in the vicinity of the city of Milan, where the water that irrigates them is more fully impregnated with the rich drains from the city than that at a greater distance from it. From the last mowing in the beginning of September, till the end of November, the cows are fed on the meadows. Thus to the estimated crops of hay must be added the value of this pasture for the cattle during about two months. The usual price for the best hay in the cities is about 40s. sterling the load. The cost of making it, where the weather is so settled as it usually is in Lombardy, must be trifling, and that with the mowing and carrying cannot exceed the value of the after-feeding, so that each acre will give a profit of L.12 sterling annually. It is not then surprising that such land can be sold as high as 1000 lire the portica, or L.200 sterling the English acre, an occurrence by no means unusual.

The profit of these meadows does not arise from the sale of hay, which, in a country where few horses are kept for pleasure, must necessarily be very insignificant, but from the fattening of cattle in a small degree, and the operations of the dairy as the most important pursuit. The dairies are extensive, and carried on with the greatest care, and most scrupulous attention to cleanliness. The dairy-farms in the three provinces of Milan, Lodi, and Pavia, are mostly occupied by persons of competent capital; many by the proprietors, and the rest by tenants who are not metayers, [7:13:475]but have leases for a term never exceeding nine years, at a fixed money rent. They, unlike the farmers in other parts, are the owners of the live stock, and of the implements of husbandry, and have comfortable dwellings, moderately furnished, and are well informed and active, and with diligence unite much economy.

The dairies of the three delegations of Milan, Lodi, and . Pavia occupy the second place in the lists of articles as regards the amount, that become the exportable productions of the Milan division of Lombardy. The cheese distinguished by the name of Parmesan is to be found in most parts of Europe, and has long enjoyed a great reputation. It may perhaps have been originally, or at some early period, made in the duchy from which it derives its name. It is not now known in Italy by that name,’ but bears that of the delegation where the most of it is produced. It is commonly called Fromaggio Lodisana. At the present day little or none of it is made in Parma. The annual export of this cheese to foreign countries amounted to 1,800,000 pounds in the year 1824, and in each succeeding year has gone on increasing, besides what is consumed in the Italian and German provinces of the Austrian empire.

The operative part of making the cheese is confined to experienced practical men, who acquire a tact that enables them to time the several steps of the process with great accuracy, and, without the aid of a thermometer, to ascertain the requisite heat of the materials in each of these steps. From the nature of the climate, the milk will not keep long, but a cheese must be made every day. The cheeses are most valuable when they are large; and as the greater number of farmers have not milk sufficient to make such a cheese daily, the milk is sent by them to other farmers, so as to make up the requisite quantity. Thus, on one farm near Lodi (Tavazzano), where only twenty-seven cows are kept, the milk is sent very early to a neighbouring farm, where sixty-three cows are kept. Sometimes four, or five, or more, small farms contribute their day’s milk to one who has more stock, to make the cheese; and there are instances where the cazarro or cheese-maker buys the whole of the milk from which his cheese is made.

The cows arc milked evenings and mornings, in the first case about five or six o’clock, in the second at daybreak, or just before. The milk of the evening is skimmed of what cream has risen on it before eight o’clock, and the milk of the morning, of that small quantity which is thrown up between day-break and that hour, and from that cream butter is made. Though the Parmesan cheese is thus made from skimmed milk, yet a very large portion of the cream is still left in it to enrich the cheese. The milk is then placed in a kettle, and warmed to the heat of 22° Fahrenheit, when the rennet is applied, the effect of which is increased by a small addition of vinegar, and sometimes of grated cheese, and a very small quantity of pepper. The. other parts of the process so much resemble the practices in the best dairy-farms in England, as not to require any special notice.

It is salted after it is made, by sprinkling the surface with that substance daily during six weeks, and turning the cheese to imbibe the particles. These cheeses vary in weight when fit for sale, from fifty-two to 122 pounds avoirdupois. They are kept some time before they arc sold, a few at eight months, some at one or two years old, a less number at three, and a few at four years old. It requires much care to preserve the cheese against the heat of the climate. At Codogno and Corsica, where the wholesale trade is carried on, there are large magazines on the groundfloor, twenty feet in height, with shelves around, on which each cheese is placed singly. They have large windows, which are carefully shut to exclude the sun the whole day, but are opened during the night. It is difficult to estimate correctly the average quantity of butter and cheese produced from a given number of cows. In one farm (Meleg-nanello) in the province of Lodi, there were on the farm ninety-one cows, from which were made 173 cheeses, varying in weight from fifty to 120 pounds, but the weight of which the man who made them averaged at 100 pounds each. These had been made in the preceding six months and a half. Supposing the remainder of the year to be equally productive, the whole herd would have yielded on an average at the rate of 370 pounds in the year. There was, however, no certain accounts of the quantity of butter made on the farm during the period; and the quantity of cheese alone, though correct, does not give any certain data upon which to frame an estimate of the productiveness of the animals. The proportion which the cheese bears to the butter varies in the different irrigated provinces. Thus, according to the estimate of the accurate Signor Berra,
[table]

A writer in a periodical work, Annali di Agricotu r a, gives the medium product of each cow to be 416 pounds of cheese and 178 pounds of butter yearly. Another person, a practical and accurate man, who had passed much time in examining every portion of the agriculture of the Austrian Italian dominions, gave, as the result of his investigation, a calculation framed from data collected from a considerable number of farms of various extent. According to him, the annual produce from each cow is from 102 to 120 pounds of butter, and from 340 to 392 pounds of cheese. As the informant was perfectly master of the local weights and measures, which vary in each of the provinces of Austrian Italy, some credit may be given to the estimate; and the more so, because it makes the produce of the dairies the lowest, though it far exceeds any returns of the produce of those of Holland, England, or Germany.

The farms in these provinces are generally small. One of 250 English acres would be denominated large; and though there are a few that exceed that extent,’ yet the greater portion of the irrigable land is occupied by farms much below,one half of that extent. Amongst the occupations that are confined exclusively to the marciti or winter-watered meadows, many, perhaps the greater part, do not exceed forty acres. As the farms are small, so there are very few proprietors. The family of Luoghi Pii have the greatest tract of the best land in the province of Milan, divided into many farms, and said to amount to 3000 acres. No other exceeds one third of that extent.

The value and the rent of land depend less upon the natural fertility than upon the local situation, on the power of irrigation it can command, and on the capital expended on making roads to it, fences around it, and in erecting houses and agricultural buildings. In the vicinity of the city of Milan, those winter-watered meadows have the greatest value which are to the south, and are watered from the canal of Vettabbia, whose water is furnished by the Riviere Seveso and canal of Martìsana, which flow through the city, and bring with them the precious manure of that populous place. The present price of such land is about L.130 sterling the English acre; and, if it has good roads and buildings, may be let to good tenants at from L.6 to L.7 per acre. The land which has not sufficient irrigating power to form winter meadows, but enough for the purposes of convertible husbandry, is worth from L.50 to L.60 per English acre, and may be let at from 60s. to 70s. per acre. In these cases the taxes and repairs are paid by the proprietor, as well as the contributions collected for keeping [7:13:476] in proper repair the canal by which water is conveyed. Some parts of the irrigable provinces have lands of inferior natural quality, but being on the banks of the Po, are well calculated to grow rice, by their capability of being constantly flooded. An estate of that description in the province of Pavia, with four acres of winter meadow-land, five acres of land in convertible husbandry, with sufficient for the purpose of occasional irrigation, fifty acres of rice land, and a house, garden, and homestead of two acres, was lately sold at L.2000 sterling, or nearly L.33 per acre. It was doubtful if the purchaser would occupy it or let it, but it was thought a rent might be obtained of somewhat more than L.100 per annum, the owner, as in other cases, paying the government territorial tax.

The value of land is much affected by the rate of the territorial taxation. This is founded on a very old valuation, and the parts that were then in a very high state of cultivation and irrigation must contribute in proportion to that state, whilst the properties that have since been reclaimed, either by irrigation, manuring, or by planting mulberry-trees, or vines, or other valuable trees, pay a less rate, and are consequently of greater value. In the provinces of Milan, Lodi, and Pavia, where the great steps in irrigation were made before the valuation which is now acted upon was framed, the territorial and commune imposts amount to nearly twelve shillings per annum for an English acre, on an average of the whole land, and consequently they are much higher on that of the greatest value. This circumstance alone makes it difficult for a stranger to generalize with any accuracy the value of land, or the rent of it in due proportion to the amount of the sum invested on it. An opinion generally prevails, that the capital laid out in land might be assumed to pay an annual rate of interest of about four per cent., but that as most of the rent, with the exception of the irrigated provinces, was paid in produce, those who employed factors to manage their property, or who managed it themselves, without great judgment and perpetual watchfulness could scarcely calculate on obtaining more than, if so much as, three per cent.

It may serve to give some idea of the difficulty of ascertaining the amount of the rent of land, if a slight view be taken of the description of the classes of persons occupied in cultivation. The first of these somewhat resembles the middle-man now generally to be found in Ireland. They rent large portions of land at a money price, and either let it out again to sub-tenants, who work it, if in small lots, by means of their own family, with an additional servant or two, or, if large, by day-labourers and their families, who are established on the property.

The next class is called Affiÿuoli, or farmers. These are the most advantageous to the proprietors, and they are tolerably numerous, as well in the Venetian as in the Lombard provinces. In this class is comprehended the farmers in the watered provinces, whose chief object is the making of cheese, in some cases combined with the culture of rice. These lay out large sums at first, and have a good stock of cattle and utensils, and a sufficiency of capital. The advantage of this class to the proprietor is obvious. They take from him the labour of superintendence, and all risks from failing years and from loss of cattle; and, having leases renewed every nine years, they can have no inducement to destroy the fertility of the soil. Though many of them have more extent of land, the greater proportion may be described as occupying from seven to twenty-five acres.

The third, and by far the largest class of all, are the Coloni, colonists, sometimes called Pigíonanti Chiusuranti, who occupy from three quarters of an acre to an acre and a half of land, with a cottage, or more correctly a hovel. These premises they take either of the proprietors, of the middle-man, or of the farmers, and pay a rent by a share of the produce. They are in fact day-labourers, and, besides what they pay in produce, must work for their superior at a lower than the customary rate of wages. Some of these, however, have a little larger extent of land, but rarely so much as two acres. Such a one pays to his superior a fixed quantity of corn yearly, or commutes that for money, and an agreed proportion of the other products, such as wine, or in many cases the whole of it is divided. When these shares are not too small, and the ground is fruitful, the most common custom is to pay a distinct measure of corn, and the half of the wine. The meadow-land is paid for in money, in silk-worms’ eggs, or in cocoons. The cattle, perhaps a cow and a donkey, are furnished to the colonist on credit, and if his terms are favourable, and he gets forward, he becomes the proprietor of them, as well as of the utensils; but if the land is unproductive, or the shares of the proprietor too great, he must give up the cattle and the utensils, and may then be permitted to continue on the land, giving to the proprietor at least one half the produce, or, if the crops prove heavy, a still larger share.

The farmers of the great estates in the watered provinces are in prosperous circumstances, and generally well educated persons; and their chief occupation consists in overlooking the workmen, and making the due bargains for the disposal of their produce. They are also necessarily furnished with some capital, as a proof of which, one near Lodi, occupying a farm of 250 English acres, upon which were fifty-eight cows, a bull, and eight horses, and who had on hand the cheese made in the six preceding months, asserted that the value of his stock exceeded eight hundred pounds sterling. On that farm there are twenty-two families of day-labourers. Six or seven men, the heads of those families, are in the constant employment of the occupier, either as herdsmen, ostlers, or stable-servants. All the rest and the females and children are only employed when there is work to be done, for which they are paid daily wages, viz. to the men about fourpence halfpenny a day, to the women threepence, and to the children from twopence to threepence, according to the age or strength. They have also one meal a day, consisting of rice and beans, but no wine, and only milk one day in the year. Some of them are occupied, on fixed terms, in rearing articles that require a great portion of labour to prepare them, and receive a proportion of the product. Thus, of flax they receive one half, of maize one third or one fourth, and of rice one seventh. Their condition is generally very wretched, though when not wanted they may get occasional wages on neighbouring farms. They are, however, frequently in want of the common necessaries of life, are miserably clothed and housed, in case of sickness can obtain no medical relief, and are utterly destitute of instruction. In spite of the checks, the population is as rapidly increasing as in those parts of Europe where the labourers are placed in more favourable circumstances. The only alleviation to their accustomed wretchedness is but a temporary one during the time the silk-worms areat work, or have finished their spinning, and the silk is to be wound from the cocoons. In most of their habitations they hatch a few eggs if they can find money or credit to buy mulberry leaves; and if not, they have some occupation in winding the silk for those who are a little better situated.

In those provinces of Lombardy which are not to any extent capable of irrigation, there are few large farms, and no substantial or intelligent farmers. The greater portion of the land is divided into small allotments of a few acres, either directly by the proprietors, or through the management of middle-men. The real cultivators, called also colonists (coloni), with their wives and children, perform all the labour, and contract to deliver half of the raw produce [7:13:477]I to the proprietor. Their condition must be worse than that of day-labourers in other countries. It is obvious to any person who haâ attended to the subject of husbandry in any part of Europe, that the cost of labour in cultivating corn must amount to more than half the value of the produce where the labour is in part performed by horses or oxen; but in this case all is done by human hands, and it must be of more real cost, and consequently the landlord draws more from the land than his due proportion, and that is at the cost of the sweat of the brow of his tenant. On land in England of such a quality as to bear three quarters of wheat per acre, and which could be sold at 56s. per quarter, no farmer would contract to pay one half or one quarter of that quantity as rent, even if the landlord paid the taxes; and the corn-land in Lombardy requires quite as much labour as it does in England. The rapid increase of population, and the difficulty of day-labourers finding employment, are such, that no proprietor finds himself at a loss to get occupiers on the metayer principle. It may perhaps arise from the nature of these contracts, that the owners )f land are rarely the cultivators. The fewwho have attempted to cultivate have soon discovered, that though by hiring Jjay-labourers, and farming in a better style, they obtain more raw produce, they draw from their estates much less net proceeds than they can now extract from them by means of the slovenly cultivation of their ignorant and suffering colonists. This description of tenants are as much bound :o continue in their state of poverty and dependence as he slaves on the estates in Russia, or those who were till ∙ecendy feudatories under the nobles of Germany. If the rifling property they possess is merely equal to the debt hey owe their landlord, it is impossible for them to rénové; and if they could remove in a state of destitution, t would be difficult to procure land elsewhere. The mo- , al degradation produced by this system is not one of the east evils it generates. A constant struggle is going on ό defraud the proprietor of that part of the share which is conditioned to be delivered to him, and the tenant feels no remorse at the fraud, but justifies it to himself by the hard :erms upon which the land is let to him. All friendly intercourse is destroyed, the proprietor looks on the colonist as ι thief, and the latter views the former as an oppressor. The depravity thus begotten tends to fill the country with ιuιnerous offenders against the laws, chiefly amongst the ’ uined colonists, who have nothing left when expelled rom their narrow pieces of land but to take refuge in open cr secret robbery.

The picture here exhibited, though a representation of he far greater portion of the peasantry of Lombardy, has orne, but not numerous exceptions. Instead of one or wo acres of land, a few tenants have from fifteen to twen- .y acres, and are enabled to keep two or three cows, vhich are stall-fed, and perhaps a horse or a mule. The cattle and utensils are their own property. They pay a noderate money-rent for the corn-land, and divide with the andlord in equal portions the wine, and the cocoons of the silk-worms. Such persons, if they perform the work by he members of their own families, subsist chiefly on maize, ιse none of the wine, and otherwise practise the most rigid economy, though they do not become rich, may live in ι respectable and comfortable manner when compared vith that in which the great body of the same class exist.

On the whole, the condition of the great mass of the 1 colonists is very far inferior to that of the lowest class of ιgricultural labourers in England, France, or Germany, ιnd nearly resembles that of the most wretched of the cotiers of Ireland.

The ‘chief product which is furnished by Lombardy to external commerce is silk, which interests more or less I every family in the country, and receives the greatest share )f general attention. As the quantity and the quality of the silk depend on the worms that spin it, the subsistence of those worms becomes an object which engrosses much consideration. The leaves of the mulberry-tree are exclusively the food of the worms, and the greater weight of these leaves that can be gathered, the greater is the silk that is produced. In many parts are numerous nurseries, where those leaves are raised, with most careftd cultivation, from seed. The beds in which the seed is sown are well and deeply ploughed or dug the year before, and manured with the most powerful substances. It is at last dug once more, made as fine and as level as possible, and the seed is then sown in rows about eight or ten inches from each other. It is slightly covered with earth, and also with hay and straw, the latter to protect it equally from the slight frosts which occasionally appear in winter, or from the excessive droughts which frequently occur in summer. In very dry weather they are watered as becomes necessary. As the plants grow, they are carefully weeded with the hoe, and are also thinned out. They grow but little in the first year, but considerably in the second, at the end of which, or at the beginning of the third year, they are transplanted from the seed-bed to the nurserygarden, and cut close to the eye. In the next year they are again cut close, and the stump grafted. In the fourth year, when the new shoots have formed what is to be the crown of the tree, they are cut into a hollow so as to resemble a basin, which is found the best shape, both for the fruit and the leaves. In the fifth year they are generally sold; or, when the nursery is kept by one who means to plant them on his own property, they are transplanted to the hedgerows or other spots where they are intended permanently to remain. The growth of the plant up to this period depends mainly on the manure which is applied to the nursery, but generally they have attained a diameter of from four to five inches.

The wild mulberry, or Morus Alba, yields the best leaves for the nourishment of the worms, and the silk they spin whilst feeding upon them is of the finest quality; but the quantity of leaves they yield is so small, that it requires a great outlay and a great number of trees to give sustenance to an extensive silk establishment; on which account they are grafted with other kinds of mulberry-trees, which have larger and dark-green leaves, and in such abundance that they yield at least double the weight of leaves. Attempts are now making, and experiments in progress, for obtaining a new genus of the mulberry-trees, which may unite abundance of leaves with greater fineness in the silk. According to Moretti, professor of botany at Milan, the finest silk is obtained from the wild ungrafted mulberry-tree, the next finest from one of a new genus produced by his experiments, the third from the grafted white mulberry, and the coarsest from the black mulberry. The fruit of none of these trees is in any estimation. In order to procure more .leaves, the cultivators of the trees, every fourth year after the leaves have been stripped, cut off all the smaller branches quite close to the principal ones. In the succeeding year the leaves are not taken from the new shoots, but they are in the next and following years; and in the fourth year, when the shoots have attained a diameter of four inches, they are as bushy and thick as if they had not been tapped.

It is difficult to form an average of the produce of mulberry leaves from each tree, as much depends on the soil, but more upon the age of the tree. As soon as they have attained six inches in diameter, they yield from 19 to 27 lbs., and continually increase their produce till they attain a diameter of two feet, when they yield from 220 to 260 lbs. Having then attained their full growth, they continue to increase in produce till they yield in some cases, but extreme ones, as much as 500 lbs. The market prices of the leaves undergo a great fluctuation, varying [7:13:478]sometimes one hundred per cent in a fortnight. In J one of the year 1833 they were sold at 3s. the hundredweight, and two weeks before at 7s.

Some persons who have none, and others who have but few mulberry-trees, yet breed silk-worms. They are careful to make contracts for what they expect to want, in March or April, when they are cheapest. It not unfrequently happens that by a storm of hail, which is not an unusual occurrence, the price is so raised that the breeder, instead of drawing a profit from his operations, finds he has paid more for the leaves than he can obtain for the cocoons. There are persons so skilful in estimating in the spring the weight of leaves which each tree will produce, that their assistance is commonly resorted to by those who make bargains for the leaves. When the first signs of life begin in the worms they eat very little, but when they begin to spin they require a considerable quantity of food. The price of leaves naturally rises very high; and if at that time a hail-storm should occur, the advance becomes most ruinous to those who are compelled to purchase. In general the mulberry-trees are, by the terms of the leases, let to-the farmers or colonists, who divide the cocoons equally with the proprietors of the land. The tenant provides half the eggs, and superintends the insects, feeding them, and keeping them clean whilst they are working; the other half of the eggs, as well as the leaves, are the contributions of the landlord to this equally joint-stock concern. The tenant estimates what worms can be nourished by the quantity of leaves the trees upon his farm will feed, and the two parties procure the estimated weight of eggs. If the tenant miscalculates, or if a hail-storm destroys his calculation, he is bound to purchase such a portion of leaves as will subsist the insects through their working period.

The planting of mulberry-trees, and the consequent produce of silk, have been favoured by circumstances which have naturally led to a rapid extension of every branch of that trade. It is an object of attraction to every grade of society, from the greatest landholder to the lowest of the colonists and day-labourers; and these have all been stimulated by the constantly advancing price of the raw silk in each year from the return of tranquillity in the year 1814 to the present time; but the most striking advances of price were those which took place from 1820 to 1822. From the vast number of trees, only an approximation to the rate of increase can be made. It has, however, been ascertained of late, that three fourths of all the mulberry-trees of Lombardy are of less than thirty years growth, and that one half of that three fourths, consequently thirty-seven per cent, of the whole, are under fifteen years of age.

The greater portion of the mulberry-trees in Lombardy are to be found in the dry provinces, though some few are planted in the irrigated districts. From the city of Milan to Varese, from that city to Como, between Lecco and Bergamo, quite to the river Adda, the cultivation of vines has almost everywhere given place to that of mulberry-trees. One of the finest views in Italy is from the high ground about Bergamo, which comprehends the hills of Brescia and Bergamo, and the extended plain of Lombardy. Around the city the appearance is that of an extensive orchard or fruit-garden; but the trees are planted chiefly for the leaves, and are found, with less annual expense, more profitable than any trees cultivated for their fruit. The lowest calculation of the average profit of the trees makes it, including all ages, from five to fifty years old, nearly six shillings sterling from each tree annuJly.

In the lower parts of Lombardy, in the irrigated provinces of Milan, Pavia, and Lodi, the cultivation of mulberry-trees, and the consequent breeding of silk-worms, are by no means extensive; yet, even in each of these of late an increase has taken place, and preparations are made, by which it is calculated that in three years the number of the trees will become double what they are at present. The greater number of mulberry-trees are at this time to be seen on the sterile and strong soil in the province of Verona, especially between that capital and Desenzano, and from Castelnuovo, through Vallego, quite to Rover-bello. The surface of these districts consists of masses of pebbles, rounded by having been washed down at some remote period from the neighbouring Alps, and in which the culture of corn will scarcely repay the cost of the labour devoted to it. As much land is mingled with these stones, which is favourable to the mulberry-trees, vast numbers have been everywhere planted. A prejudice is said to prevail in these districts against the practice of engrafting, and that owing to it the quantity of leaves does not bear the same proportion to the number of the trees, as in the other parts of Lombardy.

The eggs of the silk-worms are not preserved by all those who manage their working, but are made an object of trade by a few persons whose establishments are upon so large a scale as to make it worthy their attention, and who, when preserving for themselves, collect greater quantities for sale. They are sold by weight, generally at about two shillings the English ounce; and some individuals have collected in one year as much as 2500 ounces, though one tenth of that weight is nearer the average of the whole of the several producers. The eggs are divided into three classes. The worm from the first of them casts its skin four times, and is of a large size, and an ounce contains 24,024 eggs. Supposing each egg to produce a caterpillar, and each caterpillar a cocoon, as 110 cocoons weigh a pound, the whole ounce of eggs will yield 218 pounds of cocoons. The second also casts its skin, but the animal is of a smaller size, as are the cocoons; an ounce of them contains 25,185 eggs, and the cocoons produced from them weigh less, 216 being a pound, and consequently the whole weight of the cocoons is only ninety-six pounds. The third class casts its skin but three times, an ounce contains 31,004 eggs, 440 cocoons weigh about a pound, and the whole weight of the cocoons is only about seventy pounds.

In every house, room is made for laying out the worms as soon as any symptoms of life appear, and in even the poorest cottages of the colonists, who have but a single apartment, it is so contrived that some space is allotted to them, and the inhabitants shift as well as they can during three weeks or a month. Tables of reed are formed, about two feet and a half in breadth, and from fifteen to eighteen feet in length. These are suspended from the roof, the upper shelf two feet below it, and others at a foot distance, with the lowest of them two feet from the floor. The window’s are made of paper, to prevent currents of cold air, and too great heat; the shutters are of straw, and the door consists of a piece of old linen cloth. Within, the place is kept in darkness, except when the worms are to be fed or the place cleaned out, when lamps are used. In many of these places, thermometers, made for the express purpose, are kept to ascertain the temperature. They are made of spirits of wine, and show no other change of heat than that between the 16th and 20th degrees of Reaumur, to which limits it is deemed necessary to confine their range of temperature. In the houses where there are none of these simple instruments, habit has given a tact, by which the people ascertain the degree of heat with tolerable accuracy.

Some of the colonists within a season produce as much as 140 pounds of cocoons. Taking their half of them at seventy pounds, and estimating them at the average price (for there is great variation in the price), viz. two shillings and threepence per pound, it will yield for a month’s labour [7:13:479]near eight pounds, which is an enormous sum for persons in that condition of life in that country. From it, however, must often be deducted the cost of leaves, when the landlord’s trees do not yield as much sustenance for the insects as the tenant has calculated when purchasing the eggs.

The rapid growth of these insects is one of those singularities in natural history which seemed to be worth 'collecting and recording, as is also the increased space they occupy, and the increased portion of food they devour, in the several periods of their short existence. From their escape from the shell to their death is commonly thirty-two days, which is usually divided into five periods, according to the change observable in them, thus:
[table]

The space required for an ounce of the eggs is, in the first period, 2 τ 2 b ¾∙ square feet; in the second, 4-^A, ; in the third, 10^θ; in the fourth, 25-^j·; and in the fifth, 57 square feet. According to a course of experiments made by Count Dandolo, it appears that the weight of 100 silkworms at the different periods is as follows, viz.
[table]

Thus, in the thirty-two days they have increased nearly 1500 fold. The same course of experiments shows the veight of mulberry leaves which is given to the worms >roduced from one ounce of eggs to be as follows :—
[table]

As the leaves are kept at least one day, and sometimes nore, after they are gathered, they have lost by drying sixty-one pounds, and by cleaning from dirt and small sticks eighty-three pounds, so that to supply this food 939 pounds of leaves must have been procured. It is found in cleaning the insects, that the remains of the leaves which are not consumed, consisting of thick stalks in the middle of each leaf, and some of the relics, weigh 329 pounds. Thus the actual food is 465 pounds. According to those experiments, as seventy pounds of cocoons were procured from the ounce of eggs, each pound must have required 11⅛o^ pounds of leaves as they come from the trees, or fi⅛⅛ of real vegetable nourishment. The obtaining the cocoons is a step of great importance in the whole operation of procuring the silk. With the small producers, and it is they who, after all, furnish the far greater quantity, their labours are for the most part at an end, as they generally sell them to other persons, who make the winding the silk, and the subsequent operations to fit it for the manufacturer, a distinct trade. There are, however, some few large establishments, in which the silk-worms are nursed, and in which the cocoons are wound off, and all the steps taken to prepare the silk for market. It would lead to some very long description and discussion, to show satisfactorily and accurately the relation which exists between the quantity of leaves and the weight and number of cocoons, and also the relation between the number and weight of cocoons, and the actual weight of silk prepared for the manufacturer. It has been minutely discussed by Dandolo, with whose results this part of the subject may now be closed. One hundred pounds weight of cocoons yield about eight pounds and one third of silk. The thread drawn from each cocoon must be about 800 feet long to weigh a grain. Each of such cocoons yields nearly one grain and a half of silk. One pound of them will produce in length 17,600 feet. It requires about one hundred and fifty pounds of mulberry leaves to produce one pound of silk.

It is difficult to ascertain the quantity or the value of the silk annually produced at present from the soil of that part of Lombardy contained in what is now within the boundaries of the government of Milan. Much of it is consumed within that government. A much larger portion is sent, without any official notice, to be manufactured in Austria Proper, in Bohemia, and in Hungary. The greater part of what goes to the Prussian factories on the Lower Rhine, as well as that for France and for the English market, passes by land-carriage; and the accounts, not being kept for purposes of revenue, arc not collected with exactness, nor brought into a focus. The only account whose authenticity can be relied on, is an official paper transmitted to Vienna for the year 1824, since which period the growth of silk has been constantly and extensively increasing.
[table]

This account is made out in Austrian lire, of which flirty are about equal to a pound sterling, and thus give ιe excess of the value of silk exported above that im- 1 orted as L.2,085,774 sterling. Considering the increase of mulberry-trees within the last ten years, and the advanced price of silk, it will not be too much to assume the balance of exports in 1833 at L.3,000,000. After reviewing the productions of most value, the cheese and the silk, [7:13:480]a slight notice may be taken of the results of those other operations of agriculture, which are almost exclusively confined to domestic consumption.

Amongst corn, that most extensively grown is maize. It is the chief nourishment of the working classes, and is deemed by them the most healthy and most strengthening of all grain. It has, too, the advantage of being most easily converted into wholesome food, requiring, unlike wheat, no assistance from the baker. It requires only a kettle and a little fuel to make it into polenta, a kind of thick pudding or gruel, which, without any addition, forms the common food of the peasantry. It is also a valuable product on other accounts. The grains in a green state are a substitute for green peas; the leaves, when fresh, are a fodder, on which cattle eagerly feed, and, when dry, they are used to make excellent beds, or rather mattresses; the stalks are used for fuel in that country, where fuel is scarce; and, finally, the feathery tops are converted into brushes for sweeping the houses.

This article is also cheaper than wheat, being commonly sold at about two thirds the price of that grain; but, from its being the food of the far greater part of the population, in seasons of great scarcity, such as those following the harvest of 1816 and 1828, the indispensable demand for it caused the price to rise higher than that of wheat. From the circumstances here stated, more than one third of all the arable land of Lombardy is destined to the cultivation of this grain, and the average product per acre is greater than that of wheat. It is grown almost indiscriminately on all kinds of soil; and the nature of the climate is but little regarded, as it is to be seen equally on the cold hills, and in the warm valleys of the provinces. The culture of it does not appear to have received any improvement since its first introduction. It is in some cases sown broadcast, and covered in with the plough. From this mode of sowing it, it can only be cleared of weeds by hand, and the earth is thrown round the plants in the same way; whereas, in the countries where it is sown in rows or drills, these operations can be more advantageously performed by appropriate instruments. The expense of this hand-hoeing and shovelling up the earth is said to be equal to the value of one third of the gross product of the crop. It is customary, after the bloom is off, to strip the plant of its leaves, and also to cut the stalks above the cobs or ears, which, if not done too early, is not injurious to the grain. There are several species of this plant. The most common is that with a large yellow grain, whose cobs grow about half way up the stalk, and which ripens in three months, if sown in the month of May. If it cannot be sown so early, or if it is sown after a crop of flax, or on clover after the first mowing, it is usual to sow another kind called brigantino, whose grains are smaller, and of a darkish brown colour. In the vicinity of Bergamo, the greatest quantity of maize is of this kind. There are some species of this corn of much smaller grains, called cinquanto and quarantô, from the number of days which pass between the sowing and the harvesting. These kinds are commonly sown on the wheat stubbles, or after a crop of flax or of rape-seed has been gathered. It is seldom very productive, and, if the field on which it is sown be poor, scarcely repays more than the seed and the labour.

In a country where the soil and the climate are so various as in Lombardy, and where the difference in the quantity of manure applied to the soil is so great in the several portions, it is impossible to arrive at any average calculation of the produce of grain per acre. Nothing more can be done here than to state a few facts on the subject. One very accurate cultivator on the richest irrigable land, to which abundant manure is applied, stated that his crops yielded annually in a series of years from fifty-nine to seventy-eight English bushels an acre. Another also, in the same circumstances, a few miles distant, gave his range of bushels at from fifty to seventy-eight per acre. The other side of the picture is vastly different. According to an official valuation in the revenue office at Milan, the following average of the produce of maize in some of the poorest provinces is given, viz. in Verona, the greatest produce is rated at fifteen bushels the acre; in Vicenza, from thirty-two to forty-two; in Padua, from twelve to twenty-one; and in Udine, from thirteen to twenty-two. No other provinces are noticed in the account. To this account of the average produce of maize may be added calculations made by two of the most accurate agriculturists of Lombardy. Count Dandolo informs us, that the average produce from the colonists on his estates near to Vanese, on whose fields the peasantry had been induced to plant the beans called fisole amongst the maize, was 2If bushels of maize, and 4½ bushels of beans. The average on the whole of his estate, including the part cultivated by himself, is stated to be 32½ bushels of maize, and 7½ bushels of beans. Another intelligent agriculturist asserted, that, according to the best calculation he could make, and he had taken much pains on the subject, the average produce of maize did not exceed twenty-one metzen the jock, or twenty-five bushels the acre, which he considered to be a produce one third greater than that of wheat.

Rice is a plant introduced from India and China at some distant but not very remote period. According to some, it was known as early as the tenth century; but no one large field was cultivated with it, until a patrician of Milan, in the year 1522, first destined to it some marshy land upon his own estate in the province of Verona. In the provinces of Verona, Mantua, and Pavia, it is the most profitable grain that is grown; and in the provinces of Lodi and Milan it always secures to the farmer moderate benefit. Much of it is consumed at home, as those who do not subsist on maize alone have one meal a day of this article. Some of it is exported, but the amount of that portion does not exceed in value L.12,000 sterling. Rice is a marsh plant, and can only be grown where the land can be covered with water till it warms, and is very slowly dried up. The evaporation is injurious to human health, and hence laws are enacted regulating the distance which must intervene between the rice-fields and the cities and towns. Without these restrictions, rice would be more extensively cultivated. At present about 125,000 English acres form the extent of this culture. Some portion of rice is grown in the rich provinces, as one of the crops in rotation of convertible husbandry. In this practice, called risare a vicenda, it is most commonly sown after clover. The land is ploughed very deep, but not harrowed. The water is then turned on, so as to cover the surface, and to show any inequalities which remained by the use of the spade. The seed is then sown, or rather scattered on the water, having been previously steeped during eight or ten hours, to give it additional specific gravity, so that it may sink immediately to the bottom. If it were sowed after clover, two bushels of seed would be sufficient for one acre. When it is sowed, as is oftentimes the case, after maize, the quantity is usually three bushels.

The time of sowing is from the beginning of April till the middle of May. It remains covered with water to the height of from two to three inches, and in that state remains till weeding becomes necessary. That early sown requires the operation to be performed in the middle of May, that later sown, some time in June. It is executed chiefly by the females, who, with their lower garments tucked up, stand in water over the ancles, and with the hand pluck up the weeds by the roots. If the land were [7:13:481]dry, the weeds would break off, and leave the roots to shoot out again. The most prevalent weed is the cockfoot grass, which, at an early period, it is difficult to distinguish from the rice. Besides this, there are several other weeds, chiefly of the rush kind. In the first year the operation of weeding is performed twice. If the same field be sown with the rice in the next year, once is deemed sufficient. This is the most expensive part of the process, and is said in the first year to require twenty-five days’ work for an acre, which, as the employment is unpleasant and unhealthy, is commonly paid for at the rate of about tenpence per day. Much of this work is executed by the colonists upon plans marked definitively in their leases. The terms vary excessively, according to the locality and the soil. A common plan is, for the colonist to receive one quarter of the gross produce, after the quantity used as seed has been abstracted from it. For this he is bound to perform the following portions of the labour, viz. the levelling the surface, the sowing, the weeding, the reaping, and all the labour not performed by cattle, until the crop is placed on the threshing-floor. In the case of some of the poorest land, the colonist receives one third, instead of one fourth, of the produce. About midsummer-day the water is allowed to run off the land, and during eight or ten days it is suffered to become dry. This is done to destroy the numerous water insects, which would prove injurious to the roots of the rice, and cause it to fall into the water.

Some few persons have, however, of late abandoned this practice of letting off the water, and say it is advantageous to the perfecting the grain. In common cases, at the end of this drying, the field is again covered with water, and it continues until the time of harvest, which is usually the first week of September. It is reaped, bound in sheaves, and carried to the threshing place, where it is commonly trodden out by horses. When the rice has been trodden out, it is exposed to the sun to dry it for a few days, and carried to the place where, by stamping in a kind of mortar with wooden pestles, it is cleared from the husks, which are separated from the grain by appropriate sieves, through which it is frequently poured. If the rice is very good, it yields, when stamped, about one half the measure it did in the raw state. If it yield but one third, it is considered as scarcely marketable. The product of rice, as far as can be gathered from the returns of the crops in various years and various localities, is surprisingly different, and there seems to be no means of forming any approximate average. The following are all the acts that could be collected on the subject.
[table]

These are the quantities of rice before it was cleaned from the husks, and from which one half must be deducted, to give the produce in marketable rice.

Wheat is a grain cultivated upon a small scale in most parts of Lombardy, excepting in that portion of it which comprehends the mountainous Alps. It is not, however, a plant which succeeds to the same extent as it does in climates somewhat colder. There is but one species of it sown in the whole of the province. It is a winter wheat, sown between the first week of October and the first week of November; but the best farmers wish to finish their sowing by the 21st of October, if the season permit. The wheat is all of the bearded kind, the preference of which has been owing to the opinion that the beard is a protection against the fogs of the blooming season, and against the depredations of the small birds at the time of the grain ripening. The produce is a kind of wheat harder than that of the west and north of Europe, but less hard than some of the wheat from the Black Sea. From this circumstance it is better calculated to be converted into maccaroni than our wheat would be, for which purpose it is much more frequently pounded in a mortar than ground-at a mill. The product of the crops is less per acre than it is generally in the German dominions of Austria, and considerably less than in England or in the best parts of the Netherlands.

It is of course most productive on the best lands of the rich provinces, where irrigation is practicable to the exact extent which the nature of the crop may require. On that description of soil it is less profitable than other crops, and, therefore, only a small portion ,is applied to its growth; but even on the best of that land it is a rare event to obtain sevenfold the quantity of the seed that has been sown. On the farm of Tavezzano, one of the best cultivated in the province of Lodi, the average produce of the wheat land in the past year had been twenty-four and a third English bushels the acre. In the farm of Viltadoni, near to it, the report was, that three and a fourth bushels per acre had been sown, fifteen and a half reaped. Berra, in his work ÇSull' attuale Avvilimento del Prezzo di Granï) published in 1826, calculates the increase of wheat in the dry parts of Lombardy to be only at the rate of four and a half times the quantity of the seed. In plain figures reduced into English measures, he averages the seed sown to be two and a fourth bushels per acre, and the crop gathered nine bushels and three fourths. The late Count Dandolo estimates the produce higher, and concludes that, with the common culture, the increase of wheat is about five times the seed, or that three bushels an acre are sown, and fifteen bushels reaped. He does not state what the increase had been on his own land, which was highly cultivated; but it appears, without being informed whether he sowed thicker or thinner than his neighbours, that he usually had a crop of twenty and a half bushels. In the neighbourhood of Mantua, where the poor colonists grow wheat and maize in alternate years, where the soil is sandy, and where, from the paucity of cattle, little manure is applied, it does not appear that the crop of wheat grown more than equals four times the seed. In some of the other provinces of the part of Lombardy within the government of Milan, as well as in some of those in the Venetian government, the report of the officers employed in making a new valuation or cadastral, and who had been occupied three years in examining the state of the produce for financial purposes, was obtained. As it was the business of these officers to examine only the produce, no proportion is stated between the quantity of the seed and that of the result.

In Verona, the higher part of which is stony, and the lower part sandy, the best of the land yields ten bushels, and the worst only six and a half. In Vicenza, where the soil is better, the lands of the first quality yield eighteen bushels, those of the second fifteen, the lowest twelve. In Padua, the first class of lands yields fifteen and a half bushels, the second eleven and a fourth, and the lowest class only seven bushels. In Udine, a poor sandy soil, mixed with many pebbles, and where there are but few cattle, the first class of soils yields ten and a half bushels, the second nine, and the lowest only six and a half.

It is not easy to ascertain what portion of the fields is appropriated to the growth of wheat. It appears by the appendix, that the whole land under the plough is 1,461,700 English acres; of this portion, 125,000 acres are cultivated with rice. On the best of the soils, according to the regular rotation of crops, one half of the land is in grasses, the proportion of maize is greater than that of wheat, and some [7:13:482]portion is sown with pulse, rye, millet, oats, flax, hemp, and other kinds of crops. The whole portion sowed with wheat does not probably exceed 200,000 acres, and the best judges estimate that such is nearly the extent. If, then, the crop be calculated to yield on the average two quarters to the acre, it will afford 400,000 quarters. If from this be deducted what will be required for seed, being about a fifth, or 80,000 quarters, it will leave as food for 2,500,000 persons, at the rate of little more than one bushel for each, or about one eighth part of what is usually considered as the annual consumption of each individual in England. From the great articles of human consumption being so different, a comparison seems unnecessary; but it may serve to illustrate a general principle of great importance, viz. that consumption and production so act upon each other as constantly to tend towards an equilibrium. Hence we may infer, that few countries extend their growth of articles of the first necesssity far beyond what their own population require.

The other kinds of grain are but very little cultivated. Barley and oats are scarcely needed. They are never used as human food, and neither is any beer brewed, nor any corn-spirit distilled. A little rye is grown upon some poor districts, but it yields a very low price, and the quantity sown is every year diminishing, as the taste of the people changes in favour of maize. Millet is grown, but is not deemed a profitable crop, except occasionally, when it comes to maturity, which it sometimes does if sown in stubble after the harvest. Buck-wheat is known only in or near the Alpine districts, and is but slightly attended to.

The plants which do not serve for food are not of any great importance. Though flax is grown chiefly for the employment it gives in spinning and weaving, yet some oil is made from the seed, as also from rape, and the seed of other plants of the brassica kind. The hilly regions abound with several kinds of nuts; and chestnuts form an important portion of the sustenance of the poorer classes of the inhabitants. The walnuts and hazelnuts are converted into a fine oil, much valued by painters; but the demand for it, as well as the supply, has been gradually declining of late years. Scattered olive-trees are to be seen in most places between the hills and the lake of Garda, and a few olive gardens on that and the lake of Como; but the quantity of oil expressed from them is very insignificant. As none of the trees have been planted within the last sixty years, their number has diminished, and is still constantly diminishing. The inducement to extend the growth of mulberry trees and of vines is so much more powerful than exists with regard to olive-trees, that the latter are almost neglected, and more especially as the parts of Italy to the south of Lombardy in contact with it have a more genial soil and climate, and can render olive-oil upon more beneficial terms than it could be produced if much extended within that territory.

Few things are more striking to a visitor in Italy from the north of Europe, than the straight rows of trees of all kinds that run through the corn fields, at the foot of which vines are planted and trained, so as to extend in elegant festoons from one tree to another, exhibiting the pendant clusters of grapes. If the same mode of training the vines were attempted in the somewhat colder climates of France and Germany, it is thought the shade of the trees would prevent the grapes from ripening. This effect is not produced in Lombardy, where the berries become ripe, and, when eaten, are of good flavour; but the wine produced from them is in general of a bad or very indifferent quality. Though much of the wine is produced from such vines in the corn fields as are distinguished by the names of Campi Arative Vitati, or of Campi Arborati Vitati, and others from vines planted in rows at such a distance from each other as to admit of maize being grown between them, and called Ponchi ; yet in some parts are vineyards properly so called, because, like those of France and Germany, they alone occupy the ground, and are, like them, supported by props. The greater part of the best wine, however, is produced from the Ponchi.

The wine generally in Lombardy is of a very bad quality, which is attributed to its production being left almost exclusively to that description of cultivators before noticed under the name of colonists. These exercise little discretion and little care, either in the choice of the kind of grapes they plant, or in the management of the juice when it is expressed from them. Their chief care is to obtain the largest quantity, without much regard to the flavour or the aptitude of keeping; and commonly, as soon as it is made, they divide it in equal shares with their landlords. One cause to which the inferiority of the wine is attributed arises from the general predilection in favour of red wine, or, as it is called, Vin Nero, which is prized according to the darkness of its colour. In order to produce this deep colour, the skins of the grapes are left, in the first part of the process, to ferment with the juice. Sometimes this is suffered to continue during eight or ten days in a vat before the liquor is drawn off, and sometimes still longer, as the longer it continues the darker the wine becomes.

There is no old wine in Lombardy, except, perhaps, in small quantities in the hands of a few amateur proprietors. The wine of each vintage is sold in the course of the following year; and when any of it is kept, even though it should not have become, or show a tendency to become, vinegar, it will sell at a lower price than new wine, because it is milder, and more agreeable to the taste of the consumers. It would be as difficult to estimate the quantity of wine made annually in Lombardy, as it would have been fifty years ago, if no duty had been paid on malt, to have calculated the quantity of malt liquor of all kinds made in England; at which time almost every family out of London brewed its own beer. From a long list of the number of vines, and their produce in wine, of several farms of various soils, around the corn-fields of which the vines had been trained to the trees, it appears that in the most productive, the highest produce was 122 gallons from 100 vines; that in the least productive year, from that number of vines only thirty-three gallons were produced; and that on the average of thirty-one such farms, every 100 vines yielded fifty-one and a half gallons of wine.

In the vineyards properly so called, the vines are, like those of France and Germany, supported with sticks. Each vine, of course, produces less than those trained from one tree to another. From a return of the produce of fourteen such vineyards, it appears that the quantity yielded by the lowest was thirty-two gallons, and the average of the whole seventy gallons to the acre. As wine is not an article of export from the province of Lombardy, but, on the contrary, much is imported from the other parts of Italy, and, for the few who indulge in such luxuries, some from France and from Germany, it has been looked upon, whilst drawing up these notices, purely in an agricultural point of view. It would have been easy to have given more details respecting the preparation, but it seemed to be more proper to leave that part of the subject to such persons as may be employed in writing the history of vines, than to enter into it in this place.

Potatoes, which form so important a part of the food of the inhabitants in the more northern parts of Europe, are very little cultivated in Lombardy. They are almost exclusively confined to the Alpine districts, or, when grown on the level country, are confined to the gardens. The absence of this root is a subject of sincere regret to the most patriotic individuals who have devoted their attention[7:13:483] to rural economics. Count Dandolo attributes much of the dreadful consequences which followed the deficient harvests of 1816 and 1828, when great numbers perished from want of common necessaries, to the absence of that seasonable supply of food which potatoes would then have furnished. Others have made similar and ineffectual remarks. The taste for polenta is much too deeply rooted and the dislike to potatoes so common amongst the working classes of the rural’districts, that there is no present prospect of their cultivation being speedily extended.

Specification, from am official Document, of the Appropriation of the Cultivated Lands in Lombardy, in the year 1831, rendered into English Acres.
[table]

The most important tax is the territorial impost. It is an ancient payment, which has been alike collected under the several changes of rulers which have administered the finances of the country. It has resisted all general attempts to equalize its rate according to the productive powers of the soil, and therefore falls in a very unequal degree upon different estates. Attempts have been constantly making, and still are in progress, to equalize this impost; but the pace of the commissioners appointed for the business is so very slow, that no one can form an opinion of the period at which the work will terminate. It will not be possible here to give more than a general view of the amount of this tax. The province of Milan extends over 16,500 square miles. Of this, the roads and the water are 730, and of the remainder, one quarter is esti-jnated to consist of sterile rocks, of miserable pasture, or of more miserable woods, yielding no produce worth collecting. This would leave of all descriptions of valuable ιand to the extent of 11,830 square miles, or about 7,370,000 English acres. The whole amount of the tax s 26,171,338 lire, or, taking the lira as the thirtieth part of a pound sterling, is L.872,374, or about 2s. 2d. per ιcre. In estates in the province of Lodi the amount of whose tax is clearly stated, it amounted in one instance to Is. per acre, in others to 2s. 10d., in most to 2s. 6d. In the province of Pavia it amounted in one instance to 7s. per ιcre, in others to 6s. and in several to 4s. 6d. In the province of Milan some estates near the city were made to )ay as much as from thirty-eight to forty-one and a fourth )er cent, on the actual rent. The estates here referred o were the best land, and the best cultivated; and those he highest taxed were in that condition when the last .urvey was made. These prices, so high above the ave- ' age, make up for the little value of the extensive parts of l he poor land of the other and larger six provinces. As his impost is collected in all cases from the proprietor, it s regularly paid, and attended with little cost in the col-

I ection.

It is generally believed that more than five sixths of the nhabitants of Lombardy subsist wholly by the labours of he field. Of these, the far greater proportion are of the de-cription which is here called colonists. They are small Occupiers, dividing the trifling products of the soil with the proprietors. Their condition is far worse than that of day-labourers in this country, for they have no resource in case of a deficient harvest but beggary or starvation. Their dwellings are small and miserable; they are without furniture, utensils, or the means of cleanliness. They generally marry early, and have families, though they have no prospect of supporting them, beyond the hope that the half of the produce of maize on an acre of land may yield them food during the year, with the exercise of the greatest parsimony in its use. In the event of sickness they have no relief; and their clothing is deficient, and of the coarsest materials. The charity of those who can afford it is bestowed with as fair liberality as can be expected, considering the numerous claimants that offer for its reception. The worst part of this picture is, that no hope is entertained of bettering their condition, an,d no means of doing so attempted to be put in practice, either by public bodies, such as monasteries, which formerly existed, or by the government, or by private associations of individuals.

The mining operations are inconsiderable, and are confined to the procuring of iron in the Alpine valleys of Bergamo and Brescia, and of copper in Belluno.

The manufactures of Lombardy are extensive; that of silk gives the most employment, but very large occupation is afforded by the linen and woollen trades, and in both those branches the use of machinery has been widely diffused. Woollen goods of almost every description are made in the delegations of Venice, Padua, and Como. Milan has been from remote times celebrated for its weapons and arms, and iron work of all kinds is still extensively made in the delegation. Besides the great branches of manufacture, most of the smaller ones are carried on, especially those of paper, glass, gold and silver articles, and domestic utensils.

The foreign trade is not material; that of Venice has much declined since its union with Austria, though some of the smaller articles of that division are still dispersed throughout the eastern countries. There are still many ships navigating the Adriatic and the Mediterranean Seas, now bearing the Austrian flag, which are built and equipped at Venice, and at the other ports under the dominion of that power. The following table will show the extent of the foreign trade.
[7:13:484]

An Account showing the Value of Goods Imported and Exported in 1824.
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Note — The above account is made up in lire, of which thirty-are about the value of the pound sterling; according to which, the excess of the exports beyond the imports amounts to L.958,000 sterling.

The government is almost an unlimited monarchy; for although, by the constitution of April 1815, there are both central and provincial assemblies of representatives of the people, their function is rather to form rules for the execution of the laws promulgated from Vienna, than to contribute any share in making such laws; and though they may make representations against them, they have no power to prevent or suspend their operation. The kingdom of Lombardy is ruled by a viceroy, who resides at Milan, and enjoys a salary of about L.40,000 yearly. Under him are the governors of the two divisions into which the kingdom is formed, viz. Milan and Venice.

The revenue of the kingdom is derived in part from national domains and royalties, part of which once belonged to the church, a heavy tax upon tobacco, with some other direct and indirect taxes. The gross sum extracted is about L.2,000,000; but the collection is expensive, and the interest of the local debt is paid off it, so that not one fifth of that amount reaches the imperial treasury. There are also local taxes, which are collected and dispensed by the municipal authorities of the cities and towns. By some recent laws, all taxation on commodities passing from this kingdom into the other Austrian dominions have been abolished, and commerce between them is free. A military board has the direction of the army, and of the several fortresses, with their stores and garrisons. Six regiments of infantry and two of cavalry are recruited in this part of the empire.

The chief or head of the ecclesiastical body is the patriarch of Venice, under whom are the archbishops of Milan and Udine, with seventeen suffragan bishops. The institutions for education are, the universities of Pavia and of Padua, medical and surgical colleges at Milan, lyceums at Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Mantua, Vicenza, Treviso, and Udine. The promotion of the higher branches of science is achieved by learned societies in most of the cities, the most eminent of which are those of Milan, Venice, Padua, and Verona.

The naval force of Austria is constructed and equipped in this kingdom. It consists of eight ships of the line of seventy-six guns each, seven frigates of forty-four guns, one corvette, eight brigs, and six schooners, mounting together 1064 cannon. Besides, there are several vessels on the stocks, but their building proceeds in a dilatory manner. Most of them are at Venice, but some are stationed at Trieste, Cattaro, and Zara. The commissioners who regulate naval affairs meet at Venice. There is a corps of naval engineers, and a battalion of infantry who serve as marines.

(G.)