56 N. H.* STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in whicli the Eternal City is embosomed. The Campagna 

 is, to a considerable extent, of igneous origin, but to the 

 south and west it gives place to the Pontine marshes, 

 ■which arc composed of marine or alluvial deposits. The 

 whole of these extensive regions, the former of which has 

 a certain resemblance to the rolling, the latter to the flat 

 and more swampy prairies of the West, would admit of 

 unlimited agricultural improvement, and again sustain, as 

 they once did, a dense population, were it not for the 

 fevers which render them almost uninhabitable, and are 

 threatening to depopulate the city of Rome itself. For 

 this evil, science has failed to find a remedy, as it has been 

 unable to detect its ca-use ; and though considerable winter 

 crops are grown upon the Campagna, yet the greater por- 

 tion of it is occupied for the pasturage of herds of half- 

 wild oxen, sheep, and horses, which are driven to tho 

 mountains for pasturage in summer, and brought back on 

 the approach of winter. The buffalo alone passes the hot 

 as well as the cold season in the Campagna, and, with tho 

 exception of the mountaineers who venture down to gather 

 the crops in harvest, at the imminent risk of their lives, 

 and a few pallid wretches,' who remain to watch the prop- 

 erty of their employers through the summer and autumn, 

 or to attend at the government port-stations, the whole of 

 this vast tract is quite uninhabitable during the half of tho 

 ejitire year. 



Leaving the Campagna and the Pontine marshes, you 

 traverse a more diversified region and soon enter upon 

 the fertile plains of Neapolitan Campania or the Terra di 

 Lavoro, which are almost wholly composed of ejections 

 from the volcanic group whose only present active crater 

 is that of Vesuvius. The soil of this province is exuber- 

 antly productive, and its climate is more salubrious than 

 that of the Eoman Campagna. The vine, which, in moro 

 northern Italy, had, as wo have seen, already begun to 

 to assume more freedom and luxuriance of growth, is hero 



