60 N. H. STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



contrary usually a small level plat of earth at the bottom, 

 on which garden vegetables are grown, yet they communi- 

 cate so directly with the caves, tbat the rains and melted 

 snows leach immediately through, and out of hundreds 

 that I observed on two different occasions after a long 

 continuance of very rainy weather, I found but two in 

 which any water was standing. Upon such a surface, of 

 course, there can be but few springs or running brooks, the 

 plains yield little but a meagre pasturage, and you find in 

 the heart of Europe an extensive district, which, in dry 

 seasons, is almost as parched and unfruitful as the Arabian 

 desert. 



The agricultural plants of Illyria and Styria are the 

 same as with us; but the grape is still cultivated to a con- 

 siderable extent in favored localities, and millet, of which 

 there are two or three varieties, is raised in large quanti- 

 ties. As a second crop, buckwheat is very extensively 

 grown, and forms one of the principal articles of diet 

 among the laboring classes. The peasantry live in rude 

 and comfortless dwellings in the Slavic, iu far better 

 houses in the German districts ; and as their homes are 

 scattered over the face of the country, each living on the 

 soil he cultivates, the general aspect of these provinces is 

 much more cheerful than that of many parts of France and 

 northern Germany where almost the only human habita- 

 tions are those grouped in miserable villages. The peas- 

 antry present a very unfavorable contrast with persons of 

 the same class in many other parts of Europe. The 

 "Carintliian boor" is still as "rude" and as inhospitable 

 as he was in the days of Goldsmith. He is dull, clownish, 

 ignorant, suspicious of strangers, and exhibits nothing of 

 the life, intelligence, and ready and helpful kindness so 

 characteristic of the poorer class of Italians. 



In many parts of tlie Austrian empire, as well as in the 

 other Germanic states, much attention is paid to surface- 

 draining, the proprietors not being usually wealthy enough 



