52 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Paet I. 



bandry part of the edifice (a) ; and the other above it to the dwelling family apartments. 

 The ground floor consists of this porch, which is arched over (a), a workshop (6), a harness 

 and tool-room (c), pigsty (rf), poultry-house (e), a stove {f), staircase (g), stable (A), 

 cow or ox house (i), and sheep-house {k). The dwelling floor consists of the upper 

 gallery or open hall {I), which serves as a sort of kitchen, work-room, or scullery, a kitchen 

 (m), a master and mistress's room (w), a girls' room (o), a boys' room {p), a store room 

 (^), and silkworm room (r). -' 



285. The peasants, or fanners, of the plains are for the most part metayers ; their farms 

 are from five to ten acres, each having a house and offices, like that just described, towards 

 its centre. Some pay a fixed rent on short leases ; and some hold farms on improving 

 leases which extend to four generations. They are more than economical ; never tasting 

 butcher's meat but on Sunday. The three repasts of the other days are either of porridge 

 of maize and a salad ; porridge of bread and French beans, seasoned with oUve oil ; or 

 of some sort of soup. In general the whole family remain at home, and aid their parents 

 in performing the labours of the farm. Seldom any but the oldest son marries ; and 

 when the father dies he succeeds in his turn, and his brothers and sisters serve him as 

 they did their father till they die off, and are replaced by tlieir nephews and nieces. Such 

 is the state of things which, as Chateauvieux has observed, is the result of early civilisation 

 and excessive population. 



286. The culture of the hills and declivities, Chateauvieux supposes to have been intro- 

 duced from Canaan at the time of the crusades : but, though that culture, and also the 

 irrigation system, have, no doubt, been originally copied from that country and Egypt, 

 yet some think it more likely to have been imported by the Romans or the priests, than 

 by the chivalric adventurers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 



287. The soil of the hills is in general either schistous or calcareous, on a pliable rocky 

 or gravelly bottom. It is cut into horizontal terraces, of different widths according to the 

 steepness of the declivity, and each terrace is supported by a wall or sloping bank of turf 

 or stones. Intercepting gutters are formed every sixty or seventy feet, in the direction of 

 the slope, to carry off the waters wliich do not sink in the rainy season. Sismondi con- 

 siders the turfed terraces of the hills of Nievole the most elegant. On the terraces of the 

 most rapid and least favourably exposed slopes, olives are planted ; on the best exposure, 

 vines. Where th6 terrace is broad, two rows of mulberries, and sometimes of fig trees, 

 are planted, and between these, where the soil is not too dry, early crops of grain or 

 legumes are taken. The walls of turf are mown. 



288. The olive being an evergreen, and in a state of growth all the year, requires a more 

 equable climate than the vine ; but it will grow on any dry soil, and in an inferior 

 exposure, because the fruit never ripens till the hoar frosts have commenced. The young 

 plants are raised from cuttings or suckers in a nursery, and in the same manner in 

 which it was during the time of the Romans. " An old tree is hewn down, and the 

 ceppo, or stock (that is, the collar or neck between the root and the trunk, wliere in all 

 plants the principle of life more eminently resides), is cut into pieces of nearly the size 

 and shape of a mushroom, and wliich from that circumstance are called novali ; care at 

 the same time is taken that a small portion of bark shall belong to each novalo ; these, 

 after having been dipped in manure, are put into the earth, soon throw up shoots, are 

 transplanted at the end of one year, and in three years are fit to form an olive yard." 

 (Blunt' s Vestiges, 216.) They are planted generally fifteen feet apart in rows, with the 

 same distance between the rows. 



289. The olive is of very slow growth but of great duration. Some plantations exist, which 

 are supposed to be those mentioned by Pliny, and therefore must have existed nearly 

 two thousand years, if not more. In one of these, which we have seen in the vale 

 of Marmora, near Temi, the trunks of many trees have rotted at the core, and the 

 circumference has split open and formed several distinct stems. Though in ruins, these 

 trees still bear abundant crops. The olive requires little pruning, and is seldom otherwise 

 manured than by sowing lupines under it, and digging them in. The fruit becomes 

 black in November ; is gathered in the course of that and the three foUovidng months ; 

 and ground in a stone trough by a stone turned by a water-wheel. The paste formed by 

 the fruit, and its kernels, is then put in a hair cloth and pressed, and the oil drops in a tub 

 of water somewhat warm, from which it is skimmed and put in glass bottles for sale, 

 or glazed jars for home consumption. The paste is moistened and pressed a second and 

 third time for oils of inferior quality. The crop of olives is very uncertain ; sometimes 

 one that yields a profit does not occur for six or eight years together, as in the culture of 

 wine and cider : and these departments of culture on the Continent are considered as 

 injurious to the peasant, because in the year of plenty he consumes his superfluous profits, 

 without laying any thing aside to meet the years of loss. Hence the remark common in 

 France and Italy, that wine and oil farming is less beneficial than that of corn. 



290. The vine on the hills is generally raised where it is to rem'ain, by planting cuttings ; 

 but it is also planted with roots procured by layering : in eitlier case, it seldom bears fruit 



