APPENDIX. 229 



of Bombay will be none the worse for that in the compe- 

 tition with the British manufactures. 



I. IRRIGATED MEADOWS IN ITALY. 



In the Journal de f Agriculture (and Feb., 1889) we find 

 the following about the mar cites of Milan : 



" On part of these meadows water runs constantly, on 

 others it is only left running for ten hours every week. The 

 former give six crops every year ; since February 80 to 100 

 tons of grass, equivalent to twenty to twenty-five tons of 

 dry hay, being obtained from the hectare (eight to ten tons 

 per acre). Lower down, thirteen tons of dry hay per acre 

 is the regular crop. Taking eighty acres placed in average 

 conditions, they will yield fifty-six tons of green grass per 

 hectare, that is, fourteen tons of dry hay, or the food of three 

 milch cows to the hectare (two and a half acres). The rent 

 of such meadows is from ,8 to ,9 125. per acre." 



For Indian corn, the advantages of irrigation are equally 

 apparent. On irrigated lands, crops of from seventy-eight 

 to eighty-nine bushels per acre are obtained, as against 

 from fifty-six to sixty-seven bushels on unirrigated lands, also 

 in Italy, and twenty-eight to thirty-three bushels in France 

 (Garola, Les Cereales). 



As to the ways in which agriculture is ruined in Italy 

 we can best see them from the work of Mr. Beauclerck 

 (Rural Italy, London, 1888). Speaking of the Milan pro- 

 vince, he remarks that we find there " one of the densest 

 agricultural populations in the world, congregated in a 

 country, of which half is occupied by arid mountains " (416 

 inhabitants to the square mile). " Flanders alone equals 

 Milan in density of population. The soil is not naturally 

 fertile, and an immense expenditure of capital and labour 

 has alone produced the richness of the land." But " the 

 taxation is fabulously high," as it attains 2620 francs per 

 square kilometre of the cultivated area. Altogether, Mr. 

 Beauclerck considers that rural Italy pays 300,000,000 francs 

 of direct taxes, out of returns not exceeding 1,000,000,000 

 francs, not to mention the salt tax, the tax on persona] 

 property and the indirect taxation. 



