54 N. n. STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



huge bird's nest, with, usually, a crop of some annual root 

 or grain half buried in the shade of the larger perennial 

 plants; and, in the sunny nooks, through a half-shut gate, 

 or other chance opening in the leafy walls with Avhich the 

 jealous temper of the Italians environs their gardens and 

 pleasure grounds, you catch glimpses of orange groves, par- 

 terres gay with flowers, and decorated with vases and statu- 

 ary, fountains and shady alleys, and perhaps a carefully 

 sheltered date-palm, barren indeed of fruit, but reared as 

 an ornamental exotic, or for the religious uses and signifi- 

 cance of its leaf-branches. The prickly pear cactus now 

 appears, hiding the crevices of the rock in which it is root- 

 ed, and occasionally a row of the American aloe, with its 

 thick, succulent leaf and its tall flower stem, is made to 

 serve the purpose of a quick-set hedge. Thus you find, 

 even in the heart of winter, a softness of climate, an ever- 

 green luxuriance, and a type of vegetable growth that seems 

 to give the lie to Peter Parley, who told you, in your school- 

 boy days, that the duchy of G enoa lay ia the same latitude 

 as New Hampshire and Vermont. 



Passing out of the Sardinian territory and keeping on 

 the west of the Apennines, you enter some of the smaller 

 Ducal states, and here, separated by ridges composed of 

 the marbles of Carrara and Serravezza, you cross exten- 

 sive plains teeming with fertility, and yielding the same 

 agricultural products already described, with the addition 

 of Indian corn, and some other less important crops. The 

 growing of wheat, for the sake of employing its straw in 

 the fabrics so famous as the Tuscan hats, which formerly 

 produced in tiic duchy of Tuscany not less than a million 

 of dollars annually, has considerably fallen off, from the 

 changes of fashion, and especially from the high duties 

 now levied on these braids in France and England ; but 

 the straw manufacture is still continued on a respectable 

 Bcale. 



The fields in this part of Italy are irrigated by cauaU 



