34 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



buiidings, and lived in abundance and luxury. Their lands were cultivated by servants, 

 under the direction of the priests, w^ho would have recourse for information to the 

 Roman agricultural writers, which, in common Vith such other books as then existed, 

 were almost exclusively to be found in their libraries. We know little of the progress 

 of agriculture under these circumstances for nearly ten centuries, when it began to 

 revive throughout Europe among the lay proprietors. We shall notice some particu- 

 lars relative to this revival, first in Italy, and next in Germany, France, and England. 

 So little is known of the husbandry of Spain and the Netherlands during this period, 

 that we shall defer what we have to say of those countries till we treat of their modern 

 state. 



Sect. I. History of Agriculture in Italy during the Middle Ages. 



180. Little is known of the agriculture of Italy from the time of Pliny till that of 

 Crescenzio, a senator of Bologna, whose work In Commodium Ruralium, written in 

 1300, was first printed at Florence in 1478. He was soon followed by several of his 

 countrymen, among whom Tatti, Stefano, Augustino Gallo, Sansovino, Lauro, and 

 Torello deserve to be mentioned with honor. From some records, however, it appears 

 that irrigation had been practised in Italy previously to 1037. The monks of 

 Chiarevalle had formed extensive works of this kind, and had become so celebrated as 

 to be consulted and employed as hydraulic engineers by the Emperor Frederic I. in 

 the thirteenth century. Silk worms were imported from Greece into Sicily by Roger, 

 the first king of that island, in 1 146 ; but they did not extend to the continental states 

 for many years afterwards. 



181. In the early part of the fourteenth century, the inhabitants of the south of Italy 

 were strangers to many of the conveniences of life ; they were ignorant of the proper 

 cultivation of the vine, and the common people were just beginning to wear shirts. 

 The Florentines at that time were the only people of Italy who traded with England 

 and France. The work of Crescenzio is obviously a compilation from the Roman 

 authors, and therefore cannot be considered as giving an account of the agriculture of 

 his time; but an edition published at Basil in 1548, and illustrated with figures, may 

 probably be considered as indicating the implements then in use. The plough is 

 drawn by only one ox : but different kinds to be drawn by two and four oxen are 

 described in the text. A driver is also mentioned, which shows that the ploughmen of 

 those days were less expert than during the time of the Romans, who used none. A 

 waggon is described with a wooden axle and low wooden wheels ; each 

 wheel formed either out of one piece or of four pieces joined together. 

 Knives, scythes (fg. 21.), and other grafting tools, as well as the mode of 

 performing the operation, are figured. Sowing was then performed ex- 

 actly as it was among the Romans, and is still in most parts of 

 Europe, where a sowing machine is not employed. The various hand 

 tools for stirring and turning the soil are described and exhibited ; and 

 the Roman bidens shown as in use for cultivating the vine. All the 

 agricultural and horticultural plants described by Pliny are treated of, but no others. 



182. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Tarello's Ricordo d' Agricultura was 

 published. In 1584, Pope Sixtus, according to Harte (ssay,i.), forced his subjects 

 to work, that they might pay the heavy taxes imposed on them ; and by this means 

 rendered them happy and contented, and himself rich and powerful. He found them 

 sunk in sloth, overrun with pride and poverty, and lost to all sense of civil duties ; but 

 he recovered them from that despicable state, first to industry, and next to plenty and 

 regularity. He effected this by a plain maxim, the practice of which however none 

 but a great genius could have enforced, which was that " a people not pressed by taxes 

 are apt to grow indolent, and that industry is the only source of riches and plenty to 

 a state." 



183. Naples being at this period a Spanish province, the wars in which Spain was en- 

 gaged obliged her to put a tax upon fruit ; and as fruits were not only the chief de- 

 licacies but articles of subsistence among the Neapolitans, this imposition is said to 

 have rendered them industrious. But though some agricultural books were published 

 at Naples during the sixteenth century, there is no evidence that they ever made much 

 progress in culture. Tlieir best lands are in Sicily ; and on them a corn crop and a 

 fallow was and is the rotation, and the produce seldom exceeded eight or ten for one, 

 as in the time of the Romans. This is the case in Sicily at present ; and it is not 

 likely to have been different or at least not better from the fifth to the seventeenth 

 centuries. 



1 84. The greatest agricultural improvements in Italy which took place during the 

 period in question, were in Tuscany and Lombardy. In the former country the culture 

 of the vine and the olive were brought to greater perfection than any where else in Europe. 

 The oil of Lucca and the wines of Florence became celebrated in other countries, and 



