STATE OF AGRICULTURE IN EUROPE. 15 



Instead of devoting themselves to the hardy and 

 masculine labours of the field, the successors of Cato 

 and of Pliny are employed in fabricating sacred vases, 

 hair-powder and pomatums, artificial pearls, fiddle- 

 strings, embroidered gloves, and religious relics ! They 

 are also great collectors of pictures, statues, and 

 medals " dirty gods and coins" and find an ample 

 reward in the ignorance and credulity of those who 

 buy them. 



II. How different from this picture is that of Tus- 

 cany ! where the soil, though less fertile,* is covered 

 with grain, with vines, and with cattle ; and where 

 a surface of 1200 square leagues subsists a popula- 

 tion of 950,000 inhabitants, of which 80,000 are ag- 

 riculturists, f It may amuse, if it does not instruct, 

 the reader, to offer a few details of a husbandry 

 among the most distinguished of the present age. 

 The plough of northern Europe, like that of this 

 country, has the power of a wedge, and acts hori- 

 zontally ; that of Tuscany has the same direction, 

 but a very different form. With the outline of a 

 shovel, it consists of two inclined planes sloping 

 from the centre, and forming a gutter and two ridg- 

 es. This instrument is particularly adapted to the 

 loose and friable texture of the soil. A second 

 plough of the same shape, but of smaller size, fol- 

 lows that already described, and, with the aid of the 

 hoe and the spade,J throws the earth, already bro- 



* " Two thirds of Tuscany consists of mountains." Vol. viii., 

 p. 232, Geographique Mathematique et physique. See also Forsyth's 

 remarks, p. 80, where are detailed the principal causes of her 

 prosperity. "Leopold," says he, "in selling the crown lands, 

 studiously divided large tracts of rich but neglected land into 

 small properties. His favourite plan of encouraging agriculture 

 consisted, not in boards, societies, and premiums, but in giving the 

 labourer a security and interest in the soil, in multiplying small free- 

 holds, in extending the livelli or life leases," &c., &c. 



t Tuscany, including the islands belonging to it, is stated to 

 have a superficial area of about 8000 square miles, and, by the 

 last census, somewhat more than 1,300,000 inhabitants. 



t It is among the most important covenants of a Tuscan lease, 



