380 Prof. Hausmann's Sketches of South European Nature. 



Apennines^ the soil possesses varying qualities, according to the 

 difference of the rocks from which it proceeded, and which it 

 still covers in its present situation, as well as according to the 

 different ways in which its particles, borne forward by water, 

 were deposited. The greatest difference is seen between that 

 soil which belongs to the middle and principal limestone re- 

 gion of the Apennines, which is mostly of a clayey nature, and 

 the fine, loose, and generally dark-brown coloured soil, which 

 proceeded from the decomposition of volcanic products. If the 

 clayey soil resembles those which generally cover our limestone 

 strata; so, on the contrary, the volcanic kind, in its physical 

 and chemical qualities, which are in general highly favourable 

 to vegetation, essentially resembles our basaltic arable mould. 

 Though great tracts, possessing a soil with these qualities, as the 

 Campagna di Roma, still bear out a poor vegetation, the ap- 

 pearances afforded by our basaltic mountains are not contradict- 

 ed ; for the inconsistency is easily explained by other relations, 

 which limit and oppress cultivation in those districts. 



The influence of the differences of the soil, of which a general 

 sketch is here given, upon vegetation and the state of cultivation 

 in Italy, cannot indeed be mistaken, but there are yet other cir- 

 cumstances which have a much more powerful influence. The 

 great extent of the country, according to its latitude, occasions 

 upper Italy to possess an entirely different vegetation from the 

 southern part : the height of the soil, too, above the level of the 

 sea, from the mountain ridges to the plains and sea-coast, affords 

 various vegetable regions. 



The vegetation of Upper Italy has altogether much resem- 

 blance to that of the warmer regions of Southern Germany and 

 Switzerland, as well as of those parts of France which have 

 their boundary at the Alps. The chestnut tree is the ornament 

 of the forest; the vine with its tendrils climbs the mulberry 

 tree ; wheat and maize in some districts, as well as rice^ are 

 the principal sorts of grain. Cultivation, which is favoured by 

 the loose soil of the valley of the Po, derives considerable ad- 

 vantage from the water which flows abundantly from the Alps. 

 An extensive and skilful irrigation is constantly employed, not 

 only in watering the meadows, but likewise to maintain the cul- 



