34 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



182. Towards the end of the sixteenth century., Torello's JRicordo d" Agricultura was 

 published. In 1584, Pope Sixtus, according to Harte (Essay 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. 



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

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

 delicacies, 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 pro- 

 gress in culture. Their 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 likely that it was not 

 different, or at least, that it was not better, from the fifth to the seventeenth centuries. 



184. The greatest agiicidtural improvements in Italy which took place during the 

 peiiod 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 coun- 

 tries, and the commerce in these articles enriched the inhabitants, and enabled the pro- 

 prietors to bestow increased attention on the cultivation of their estates. Lombardy 

 excelled in the management of corn and cattle as well as of the vine. The butter, cheese, 

 and beef of the country, were esteemed the best in Italy. The pastures were at that 

 time, and still are, more productive than any in Europe, or perhaps in the world, having the 

 three advantages of a climate so temperate in winter that the grass grows all the year, a 

 soil naturally rich, and an abundant supply of river water for irrigation. The irrigation 

 of Lombardy forms the chief feature of its culture. It was begun and carried to a con- 

 siderable extent under the Romans, and in the period of which we speak extended and 

 increased under the Lombard kings and wealthy religious establishments. Some idea 

 may be formed of the comfort of the farmers in Lombardy in the thirteenth century, by 

 the picture of a farm-house given by Crescenzio, who lived on its borders, which, as 

 a French antiquarian (Paulinay) has observed, differs little from the best modem ones of 

 Italy, but in being covered with thatch. 



Sect. II. History of Agriculture in France, f-om, the Fifth to the Seventeenth Century. 



185. The nations who conquered France in the fifth century were the Goths, Vandals, 

 and Franks. The two former nations claimed two thirds of the conquered lands {Leges 

 JSurgundiorum, tit. 54. ), and must of course have very much altered both the state of 

 property, and the management of the affairs of husbandry. The claim of the Franks is 

 more uncertain ; they were so much a warlike people, that they probably dealt more 

 favourably with those whom they subjected to their dominion. 



186. All that is known of the agriculture of these nations and of France, till the ninth 

 century, is derived from a perusal of their laws. These appear to have been favourable 

 to cultivation, especially the laws of the Franks. Horses are frequently mentioned, and 

 a distinction made between the war horse and farm horse, which shows that this animal 

 was at that period more common in France than in Italy. Horses, cattle, and sheep 

 were pastured in the forests and commons, with bells about the necks of several of them, 

 for their more ready discovery. The culture of vines and orchards was greatly encouraged 

 by Charlemagne in the ninth century. He planted many vineyards on the crown lands 

 which were situated in every part of the country, and left in his capitularies particular 

 instructions for their culture. One of his injunctions prohibits an ox and an ass from 

 being yoked together in the same plough. 



1 87. During great part of the ninth and tenth centuries, France was harassed by civil 

 wars, and agriculture declined ; but to what extent, scarcely any facts are left us to ascer- 

 tain. A law passed in that period, respecting a farmer's tilling the lands of his superior, 

 enacts that, if the cattle are so weak that four could not go a whole day in the plough, he 

 was to join these to the cattle of another and work two days instead of one. He who 

 kept no cattle of his own was obliged to work for his superior three days as a labourer. 



188. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the country enjoyed more tranquillity, and 

 agriculture was improved. Judging from the Abb6 Suger's account of the abbey lands 

 of St. Denis, better farm-houses were built, waste lands cultivated, and rents more than 

 doubled. T^e church published several canons for the security of agriculture during 

 this period, which must have had a beneficial effect, as the greatest proportion of the best 

 lands in every country was then in the hands of the clergy. 



189. In the thirteenth century little alteration took place ; but the number of holidays 

 were diminished, and mills for grinding corn driven by wind introduced. 



