194 



FARMIi^RS' REGISTER, 



[No. 4 



times. The produce of hay per pertica, 6 f ass I, 

 o/'lOO lb. of 28 oz. at the three cuts. Price ol'the 

 first, 8 liv. per Pass ; of the second, 5 liv. ; of the 

 third, ^liv. They water immediately alter clear- 

 ing, if there be no rain. Without irrigation, the 

 rent of the country in general would be only one- 

 third of what it is at present. In (brming these 

 watered meadows, they have very singular cus- 

 toms — all are broken up in rotation ; flax sown for 

 the first crop, and their way of laying down is to 

 leave a wheat stubble to clothe itself; clover is pro- 

 hibited by lease, from an absui-d notion that it ex- 

 hausts the land ; and that it is not so good as what 

 the nature of the ground gives ; but on worse land, 

 the other side of the Adda, they sow clover. 



Ziodi to C'oddgno. — All this country the same as 

 about Lodi ; a dead level, cut into bits of from three 

 to ten acres, by ditches, without hedges, and 

 planted with double rows of poplars and willows, 

 all young, for they are cut as soon as the size is 

 that of a thin man : here and there one is lelt to 

 run up to timber. I remarked, in the meadows 

 fed, that the ranunculus is avoided by the cows 

 as much as possible. I expected, in one meadow, 

 to find it the acris, but much of it was the repens. 

 All this country is alternately in tillage; ridge 

 and furrow every where: no permanent meadow. 

 After seven miles, the road being natural, shows 

 the soil to be a loamy sand, binding with rains.* 

 Codogno. — Thirteen pertiche of watered land 

 necessary for a cow ; the hay of which is cut 

 thrice and it is fed once ; such land sells at 300 

 liv. free from tax. The whole country is plough- 

 ed by turns, being down to clover for the cows 

 four years-. 1. Flax, and then millet; 2, maize; 

 3, wheat and clover; and rests then for feeding 

 cows; white clover comes, but it is bad for cheese. 

 The reader will note, that this opinion differs from 

 that near Milan. 



Codogno to Crema. — Crossing the Adda, from 

 the Lodizan, there is more arable, and much few- 

 er cows. 



31ilan to Vaprio. — In this line there are some 

 dairies, but not many. Near I he city there is 

 much grass, all cut into patch-work of divisions, 

 and planted so as to seem a wood of willows ; 

 after that much tillage: though all is flat, and 

 there are no great exertions in watering. But 

 the road passes by that fine navigable canal de 

 JVlartesano from Milan, which, at Vaprio is sus- 

 pended as it were against the hill, twenty feet 

 above the Adda : a noble spectacle. 



Before we quit the Milanese, it will be proper 

 to make a general remark on the conduct of their 



* As well watered as this country is, yet in the 

 spring 1779 the season was so dry, that, "where the 

 Lamfero enters the Po, men and women crossed the Po 

 itself on foot, as if merely a rivulet ; the rector of Al- 

 beroni himself passed it, and the water reached only to 

 his middle. The damage was great every where, but 

 fatal in the Lodizan, where herds of cows were obliged 

 to be sent out of the country to be pastured : the mis- 

 chief the greater, as from 1774 to 1779 they had aug- 

 mented their cows 5000, (Opuscoli Scelti, tom, vi, p. 

 56.) The climate has, however, in all ages, been sub- 

 ject to great droughts. From May 1158 to May 1159. 

 there fell no rain in Lombardy ; wells and springs all 

 dried up. The Emperor passed the Adige, witli his 

 army, near Verona, without boats ; and the Count Pa- 

 latine of Bavaria passed thus' the Poj below Ferrara. 

 GiuUna, toiii, vi. p. 175. 



irrigation, that some evils are observed to attend 

 the practice, for want of a better foresight and 

 more attention ; particularly from the gradual en- 

 largement of the carrier canals and ditches ; they 

 clean them with so much care, for the sake of ob- 

 taining the mud, as a manure, that these are every 

 where become too wide for the quantity of water 

 they convey. Sig. Bignami has written upon this 

 point very rationally, in his dissertation iS'w//' abu- 

 so dl scavarc i canali delle roggie ed ifossi nel Lo- 

 digiano ; where he asserts, that one-tenth part of 

 their lands is occupied by canals and ditches. The 

 evils are numerous; it is not only a considerable 

 loss of land, but it is an equal loss of water, for 

 when an oncia of a given run of water is purchased, 

 there is a great difference between its first filling 

 a great or a small channel, as in proportion to the 

 size will be the quantity of useless fluid. The at- 

 mosphere is also proportionably contaminated ; for 

 this great breadth, either of stagnant water, when 

 irrigation is not actually going on, or, what is 

 worse, of mud, in so hot a climate, must be pes- 

 tiferous; and to this have been attributed the dis- 

 tempers which have frequently m.ade such havoc 

 among their cattle. Another inconvenience is the 

 greater expense of all erections, bridges, sluices, 

 &c. which are in proportion to the breadth of the 

 channels. The remedy is obvious ; it is to forbear 

 all cleansing lor the sake of mud ; to let all aqua, 

 tic weeds, and other plants, grow freely on the 

 banks, edges, and sides of the canals, and to clear 

 them in the middle only. Such a conduct would, 

 in time, quite choak them up, and enable the far- 

 mer to keep hi.s canals exactly to iheir right width. 

 All these plants covering the spaces which, in 

 canals often cleaned, are bare earth or mud, would 

 be very beneficial towards preventing and decom- 

 posing that noxious, and mephitic, and inflamma- 

 ble gas, always issuing from such mud, which is 

 so pestilential to animals, yet so salutifijrous to 

 plants; for mud, covered with plants that are ready 

 to feed on its exhalations, is much less mischiev- 

 ous than that which is exposed to the rays of a 

 burning sun. Count Carlo Bettoni, of Brescia, has 

 practised a method which acts on similar pnnci- 

 ples; namely, that of burying or fixing willows or 

 poplars to the sides of the rivers whose banks he 

 wanted to preserve, with the precaution oidy of 

 keeping the. ends of the branches out of water; he 

 finds that they grow vigorously in this situation, 

 and, by stopping the mud of the current, form a 

 solid bank; this, on a small scale, might certainly 

 be executed : also in the canals of irrigation, as it 

 has been remarked, by the author already quoted, 

 in the j^tti di JMilano. 



Venetian State. — Vaprio to Bergamo. — 

 There is a mixture of watered meadow in this 

 line, but the quantity is not considerable. In some 

 which are old, I found a good sprinkling of trifo- 

 lium repens, chicorium intybus, and plantago Ian- 

 ccolata ; but also much ranunculus nni\ rubbish. 

 In the plain close to Bergamo, they clean the irri- 

 gation-ditches at the end of November, and har- 

 rowing them with a faggot, to thicken the water, 

 let it immediately on to their meadows, which is 

 said to enrich them much. 



To Brescia. — The Venetian state, thus far, is a 

 considerable falling off" from the Milanese, in re- 

 spect to irrigation ; the country is not without ca- 

 nals, but nefther the number, nor the importance 



