ITALY. 



ed in breaking off the ripe capsules, and carrying them 

 home in sacks. The cotton is then separated from the 

 seed, by means of two cylinders, and is afterwards 

 drawn through a comb, or heckle. On account of the 

 careful tillage of the land in raising the cotton, it is fol- 

 lowed by an abundant crop of wheat or barley next year ; 

 and the produce of the cotton itself, is the most profit- 



Tobacco. 



Fruits. 



Grapes and 



Olive and 

 oil. 



able of all crops, surpassing even the vine and the olive. Statistio. 

 A tomolata of land, that would be adapted to the culti- *"Y~*" ' 

 vation of cotton, bears a higher price, but 'still yields a 

 greater profit, than what is employed either in vineyards 

 or olive plantations, according to the following state- 

 ment by M. de Salis. 



, . ( For cotton, 

 One tomolata A Foro]ives ; 

 of land. | ForvineSj 



Purchase money. 

 1000 ducats (187, 10s.) 



250 ( 46, l?s.) 



200 ( 37, 10s.) 



Value of produce. 

 100 ducats (. 18, 15s. Od.) 



15 ( 2, 16s. 3d.) 



10 ( I, 17s. 6d.) 



The 



proprietor and tenant usually cultivate the cot- 

 ton fields in partnership. The latter generally fur- 

 nishes the seed ; but the trouble of tillage, the expence 

 of the harvest, and the profits of the crop, are equally 

 shared by both parties. 



Tobacco is cultivated successfully in many of the 

 southern districts ; but the best is produced near Cape 

 Leuca. It is transplanted in April, and the leaves gra- 

 dually stripped off. These are dried in the shade, and 

 placed in a heap, but never moistened. The points of 

 the leaves, dried in ovens, and then ground, are con- 

 sidered as yielding the best sort of snuff. This article 

 forms also a considerable branch of interior trade in the 

 Ecclesiastical territory. 



Among the fruits of Italy most deserving of particu- 

 lar notice, must be ranked the grapes and olives ; which 

 are cultivated so generally and on so great a scale, as 

 to come properly under the head of agricultural pro- 

 duce. In many farms, corn, wine, and oil, are equally 

 the objects of attention ; and the fields which bear the 

 grain and pulse are little more than ridges, or narrow 

 stripes between the rows of olive-trees, or of poplars 

 and elms clothed with the vine. The vines are also in 

 many places, particularly at Taranto, kept low upon 

 pales ; but little care is taken in selecting the grape, 

 according to its quality; and the modern wines of 

 Italy, except in some of the southern districts, are so 

 very inferior to what the ancient vintage must be sup- 

 posed to have produced, that the inferiority has been 

 ascribed to an alleged change in the climate. But, 

 even in the days of Pliny, the two most celebrated of 

 the ancient wines, the Caecuban and the Falernian, had 

 lost much of their excellence ; the former, in conse- 

 quence of a canal cut by Nero across the vale of Amy- 

 clae, where it was produced ; and the latter, in conse- 

 quence of the cultivators being induced, by the great 

 demand, to pay more attention to the quantity than 

 the quality of their produce. In the Ecclesiastical states 

 particularly, it is a practice to put a great quantity of 

 water into the vat along with the grape, which renders 

 the wine, though otherwise good, unfit for exportation 

 or long keeping. The modern Italians also, being ha- 

 bitually sober, and using wine chiefly for the purpose 

 of quenching thirst, are not very careful of the quali- 

 ties of their wines, and are quite satisfied if they are 

 not new, flat, or unwholesome. They are generally 

 either too racy .or too luscious for the taste of the Euro- 

 pean nations. 



The olive is cultivated very generally in Tuscany ; 

 and particularly in the southern provinces of Bari, 

 Qtranto, Calabria, and Abruzzo. Six hundred thou- 

 sand salme * of oil are estimated as the annual pro- 

 duce of the Neapolitan dominions, of which more 

 than one half is consumed within the kingdom. O- 



live plantations extend along the whole coast of Ba- 

 ri ; and at Biseglia, a small town of this province, 

 the olives are equal to the finest produced at Seville. 

 But it is at Gallipoli, in the province of Otranto, that 

 the greatest attention is paid to the culture of the olive, 

 and the preparation of the oil. A lightish clay soil, 

 dry situation, and sloping exposure to the south, shel- 

 tered as much as possible from winds, is considered as 

 most eligible for the cultivation of the olive. The plant is 

 propagated in a great variety of ways ; by grafting slips 

 or runners from the roots upon the wild olive tree, 

 which then yields fruit in three years; by planting 

 very deep in the earth a branch of a bearing tree, which 

 in ten years becomes a profitable tree ; by putting 

 small shoots into the ground, which are transplanted in 

 tiie third year, and bears fully in thirteen years ; or by 

 slipping off snoots from the stem of a bearing tree in 

 such a manner as to take a part of the parent stock 

 along with them, and planting them in a nursery, to 

 be removed into the olive grounds in the third or fourth 

 year. Too little attention is paid to the quality of the 

 olives which are propagated ; but the two prevailing 

 kinds are the Salentina, which yields the best fruit, 

 though it is very subject to the blight ; and the Cellina, 

 which, though less productive of oil, yet grows to a 

 greater size, and is less liable to be injured by the wea. 

 ther. Where the trees are not pruned, which is the 

 case in Calabria, they grow to a great height, but yield 

 a smaller quantity of fruit. It is the practice, however, 

 to cut out the central branches ; and, without leaving 

 any leading stems, to give the whole a bushy spread- 

 ing form. The ground is dug around the trees upon 

 the hills in the beginning of the year, and a quantity 

 of fine manure applied to the roots ; but the plantations 

 on level grounds are sufficiently tilled by the crops 

 which are raised betweer. the rows, generally of wheat 

 for two successive years, and fallow during the third. 

 The olive is sufficiently ripe for the table in the month 

 of October, but not for making oil till the end of De- 

 cember. The quality of the oil is greatly injured by 

 the practice (which is very common, except at Taranto,) 

 of allowing the fruit to hang on the tree till it drop, 

 which often does not take place till the end of March, 

 or beginning of April. In Calabria, the fruit is .also 

 suffered to remain on the ground after it has dropped, 

 sometimes so long as the month of June, so that much 

 of it is rotted, and the rest produces a very inferior 

 kind of oil. This negligence is principally owing to 

 the obligation laid on the vassals of carry ing their olives 

 to be bruised at the mills of their baron, which are 

 usually too few in number for the purpose ; and the 

 cultivators seem to think the olives as safe on the 

 ground, as in the fermenting heaps, waiting for their 

 turn at the mill. 



* One tulma is equal to 10 English gallons. 



