Agricultural Matters in Italy 



293 



labourers, usually inhabit the villages, al- 

 though sometimes they are allowed to occupy 

 cottages on the estates at a very low rent. 

 Both plans have their drawbacks. In the 

 villages, men of that class, grouped together, 

 easily get led into vicious courses, and some- 

 times become robbers. If they dwell upon 

 the estates, they are apt to help themselves 

 to the produce of the fields, and so also do 

 some of the inhabitants of the villages. Corn 

 and oHves are pretty safe; they cannot be 

 easily carried away in sufficient quantities to 

 make it worth the risk and toil ; but when 

 the maize and the grapes are ripening, the 

 peasant-farmer has to keep watch at night, 

 and the members of the family take it in 

 turns to patrol \h&podere and deter marauders. 

 Nevertheless, the moral state of the Umbrian 

 rural population is described to me as not 

 bad, although it is admitted there has been 

 some decline in this respect since the check 

 of priestly supervision and instruction has 

 been removed, and not yet replaced by a 

 proper system of education. But one hears 

 of no brigandage or ricatti (kidnapping for 

 ransom), the roads are safe, and one may 

 travel anywhere without fear of molestation. 

 I have been repeatedly struck, since my 

 arrival in the Province, by the frank, hand- 

 some countenances and ready courtesy of 

 many of the peasantry and by the beauty of 

 their children. Upon the whole, the rural 

 population of Umbria seem to be more moral 

 and docile, but less civilized than that of 

 Tuscany. 



Italy has been so tried by wars, revolu- 

 tions, and misgovernment, that it is not sur- 

 prising if improvements long since commonly 

 adopted in England and other countries are 

 only now penetrating here. Agricultural 

 machinery begins to make its way, and 

 would do so more rapidly but for want of 

 capital. The landholders are generally not 

 rich, and are exhausted by the heavy taxa- 

 tion which presses particularly hard upon 

 them. A new class of landholders, however, 

 is springing up ; men who have made money 

 in the cities, in banks and other speculations, 

 and have bought lands and can afford to 



introduce novelties. These are the men who 

 must be looked to for costly improvements, 

 and for those changes in cultivation which, 

 for a time, preclude crops, such, for instance, 

 as the formation of new vineyards and a 

 better manufacture of wine. Cattle-breed- 

 ing should also be encoiiraged in Umbrin. It 

 is already carried on to a considerable extent, 

 and there are some noted cattle fairs within 

 20 miles of Perugia, at Umbertide (for- 

 merly known as Frata), and at Tavernelli, 

 which is more especially the pig fair. Pigs 

 seem plentiful hereabouts ; one meets them 

 frequently in groups at the roadside, long- 

 legged, flat-sided, grass-munching grunters, 

 escorted by boys. An English farmer would 

 look at them contemptuously, but few of the 

 domestic animals get much food in this coun- 

 try beyond what they can pick up for them- 

 selves. 



In conclusion, I throw together a few 

 facts. Since i860 there has been a certain 

 improvement in the cultivation of the land 

 in Umbria, but it has not gone very far. 

 There has been a decided increase in the re- 

 quirements of the upper classes in the way 

 of comfort, in their dwellings, furniture, &c., 

 a craving after better things — in other words, 

 a progress in civilization. The rural popula- 

 tion have most extraordinary prejudices. As 

 a general rule, their deeply-rooted prejudices 

 stand much in the way of their improvement. 

 Thus, they look suspiciously on machinery, 

 obvious though its advantages may be \ and 

 an Umbrian gentleman told me of the diffi- 

 culty there is in preventing the almost total 

 extermination, by nets and snares, of small 

 birds, and of the tordi or grives, a kind of 

 thrush much used by cooks. The peasants 

 take the ignorant view that the birds devour 

 their crops, and will not be persuaded of their 

 value as consumers of many injurious insects. 

 This idea, and the temptation of profit, makes 

 them break the law which forbids their de- 

 struction otherwise than by powder and shot, 

 and at certain seasons of the year, ^^'hen 

 winter sets in there are razzias among the 

 small birds, and especially of the juniper- 

 eating, well-flavoured tordo, and this explains 



