SECRETARY'S REPORT. 285 



the works for it were made many years, perhaps eeiituries ago. 

 But the careful peasants who live in the valleys of the Alps, 

 and cultivate elevated situations, avail themselves often of the 

 existence of a hrook in the neighborhood, and lead the water 

 round in trenches often great distanqes, upon their lands. 



These plains are not very thickly peopled. The lands are 

 rented generally " at the halves," and the owners spend but 

 very little time upon their estates, often not more tlian two or 

 three weeks at harvest. The peasantry are generally very poor, 

 the farming often slovenly and careless, as if those who work 

 the soil had little or no interest in it, which here on the plains 

 is the case. Those who have capital sufficient to stock their 

 farms can make a better bargain than others, but often tlie 

 landlord has to furnish land and capital also, while on the 

 irrigated lands rented in this way the laborer has but a third 

 instead of half the produce. Among the valleys of the southern 

 Piedmontese Alps, a few miles to the north of the plains, the 

 love of land is very strong, and the poor peasant clings to 

 it, unwilling to sell at any price, while the principle of minute 

 division, originating here also in the great French Revolution, 

 prevails to a great extent ; but lower down, the holdings are 

 somewhat larger, there are less independent owners, the country 

 is less healthy and less populous. It is manifest that there is 

 little interest in agriculture. It is not fashionable here. More 

 than this, country life is not fashionable. The wealthier classes 

 prefer the city. Every thing is left to laborers who are poor and 

 ignorant, and this part of Italy, with one of the finest climates in 

 the world, with natural facilities for production unsurpassed, 

 languishes for want of the fostering care of those who might 

 make it the garden of Italy, the paradise of Europe. 



The deprivations and hardships of a large portion of the 

 peasantry of Piedmont are scarcely credible. Whole families 

 are often obliged to go from oye year's end to another without 

 tasting meat oftener than once a fortnight, some not oftencr 

 than once a month. Tlieir food consists chiefly of Indian 

 meal, made into a kind of polenta or porridge. Fuel is so 

 scanty, and so difficult to obtain, owing to the want of forests, 

 which were long since stripped from every hilltop, that they 

 are compelled, during the winter, which is here rather severe, 

 to huddle together in low, dirty sheds, with their cattle, where 



