Book I. 



AGRICULTURE IN ITALY. 



55 



Mfr * 



and assist in sowing the succeeding crop ; after which the whole disappear, and the 

 maremmes remain a desert with a few men, whom Chateauvieux designates as " half 

 savages, who run over these solitudes like Tatars, armed with long lances, and covered 

 with coarse woollens and untanned skins." The lance they use in hunting down the 

 oxen when they are to be caught for the butcher, or to be broken in for labour ; and the 

 clothing alluded to has been recommended by the medical men of Rome, as the most 

 likely to resist the attacks of the malaria (bad air), or pestilence. 



302. The agricultural implements and operations differ little from those of other parts 

 of Italy. The plough, or araire, of Rome 

 (fiS' ^^0 ^'^ ^ rude implement, with a broad 

 flat share, on the hinder end of which the 

 ploughman stands ; and thus drawn along, 

 his weight makes a deeper furrow. Two 

 strips of wood (the bincB aures of Virgil), 

 about eighteen inches long, are often attached 

 to the share, diverging a little from each other, 

 and these serve to lay open the furrow like 

 our mould-board. In the operation of propagating the vine, cuttings are planted in 



trenches four feet 

 deep, into which stones 

 have been previously 

 thrown, for the alleged 

 purpose of encouraging 

 moisture about the 

 roots. The same mode 

 was practised in Vir- 

 gil's time. (Georg., ii. 

 346.) The common 

 Roman cart (Jig, 39.) 

 is supposed to have 

 been originally de- 

 signed by the celebrated Michael Angelo, in his quality of engineer and wheeler. (See 

 Lasteyrie, Col. des Mach.) 



303. The farm ofCampo Morto (field of death) includes the whole property of St. Peter's 

 church in Rome, which is supported from its sole revenue. Tliis vast estate is situated in 

 the Pontine marshes, and the following outline of its management is taken from a letter 

 of Chateauvieux^ written in July 1813 



504. The farmery, the only Building on an estate of many thousand acres, consists of a central building 

 and two wings, the ground-floor of the central part consists of an immense kitchen and five large rooms, 

 the latter without windows, and unfurnished. The first story consists of six rooms, used as corn-chambers, 

 with the exception of one, which was furnished, and served to lodge the principal officers. The two wings 

 contained large vaulted stables, with hay-lofts over. One female lived in the house, in order to cook for 

 the officers or upper servants, whose wives and families live in the towns as do those of the shepherds. 

 There was no garden, nor any appearance of neatness or cleanliness, and not a fence or a hedge, and 

 scarcely a tree on the whole farm. 



305. The failure, or steward, was an educated man, and a citizen of Rome, where his family lived ; he 

 and all the other officers, and even shepherds, always went out mounted and armed. 



306. The reapers were at work in a distant part of the estate, when Chateauvieux went over it : they 

 were an immense band, ranged as in the order of battle, and guarded by twelve chiefs or overseers on 

 horseback, with lances in their hands. These reapers had lately arrived from the mountains; half 

 wore men and the rest women. " They were bathed in sweat ; the sun was intolerable ; the men were 

 good figures, but the women were frightful. They had been some days from the mountains, and the foul 

 air had begun to attack them. Two only had yet taken the fever ; but they told me, from that time a 

 great number would be seized every day, and that by the end of harvest the troop would be reduced at 

 least one half. What then, I said, becomes of these unhappy creatures ? They give them a morsel of 

 bread, and send them back. But whither do they go ? They take the way to the mountains ; some remain 

 on the road, some die, but others arrive, stuSering undet misery and inauition, to come again the following 

 year." 



307. The corn is threshed fifteen days after being cut : the grain is trodden out under the feet of horses, 

 cleaned, and carried to Rome. The straw was formerly suffered to be dispersed by the wind ; but it is 

 now collected in heaps at regular distances over the country, and always on eminences : there it lies ready 

 to be burned on the approach of " those clouds of grashoppers which often devastate the whole of this 

 country." 



308. The live slock of the farm consisted of a hundred working oxen ; several hundreds of wild cows and 

 bulls, kept for maintaining the stock, and for the sale of their calves and heifers ; two thousand swine, 

 which are fatted upon nuts and acorns in theforests belonging to the estate; and a hundred horses for the use 

 of the herdsmen. There were four thousand sheep on the low grounds, and six hundred and eighty thou- 

 sand on the mountains belonging to the estate. Of the latter, eighty thousand were of the Negretti breed, 

 whose wool it was intended to have manufactured into the dresses of all the mendicant monks in Italy, and 

 into the grealt coats of the shepherds : the rest were of the Pouille breed, which produces a white wool, 

 but only on the upper part of the body. As mutton is not good in Italy, and but little eaten, they kill most 

 of the tup-lambs as soon as they are born, and milk the ewes to make cheese. The temporary flocks had 

 not arrived when Chateauvieux was at Campo Morto, the fiields not being then cleared of their crops. 



309. The farmer of this extensive domain is M. Trucci, who pays a rent for it of 

 22,000 piastres (49501.). This, said M. Trucci to Chateauvieux, ^ supposes an extent 

 of three thousand rubbi, or six thousand acres, of culturable land. I have nearly as 



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