336 CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



ing its last extinct craters in the Eoman Campagna, and its last erup- 

 tions at Vesuvius and -ZEtna. 



Toward the close of the Tertiary and at the commencement of tho 

 Quaternary, the Venetian Alps presented very much the aspect of tbo 

 Fiords of Norway the sea washed their bases and penetrated into every 

 opening to the foot of the great glaciers which descended between their 

 precipitous spurs. The inciting of these glaciers, with tho altered tem- 

 perature of the region, left in the deeper cavities the masses of impris- 

 oned water which now form the Italian lakes, and with tho dispersion 

 of their abandoned moraines commenced the formation of the Lombard 

 and Venetian plain. 



The composition of this alluvion shows everywhere the material of 

 the mountain sides from which it is derived. Its arrangement depends 

 on the capricious action of the streams which transported it, as well 

 as of great inundations, which have changed its whole surface at inter- 

 vals. At its eastern limit, where the margin of plain grows narrower 

 and slopes more rapidly to the sea, the variations of soil and surface be- 

 come more frequent, as the rapid torrents change their course and deposit 

 their coarser detritus in fresh localities, carrying their tine sediment to 

 the lower levels, still half submerged by the Adriatic. 



THE PROVINCE OF TJDINE. 



This narrow seaboard, with the broader region of the Carnic Alps 

 stretching north and east to the Austrian frontier, forms the province 

 of Udine, still known as the ancient Friuli. 



It is composed, in the plain, of tracts of barren clay, passing into 

 more fertile mixtures with calcareous matter, everywhere sown with 

 gravel, beds of which occur constantly in the surface as underlying it 

 at various depths. At a distance from the water courses the soil, with 

 a smaller admixture of gravel, becomes more fertile. Along the lowest 

 border are small tracts of rich alluvion, soon sinking into salt marsh, 

 liable to inundation from the sea with the unusual persistence of a 

 strong southeast wind. The mountainous portion of the province or 

 Carnia is a confusion of narrow and sinuous valleys and irregular hill- 

 sides, with a considerable surface of vegetable earth in broken masses, 

 mostly of schist and limestone, with rare apparitions of granite and 

 tufa, affording tolerable pasture in nearly every part. A few of tho 

 summits of the region approach a height of 9,000 feet. Gemona, the 

 principal town, stands at 932 feet above the sea, and villages are found 

 at 2,100 feet. 



The medium temperature is 18 to 20 0. in summer, 2 to 3 C. in 

 winter, with a minimum of 15 O. in the last thirty-eight years. Rain 

 and hail are frequent, and grow more so with the destruction of forests, 



MOUNTAIN AND PASTURE LANDS OF UDINE. 



All reports concur in stating the cultivated meadows at about one- 

 sixth of the arable land in the plain, planted with lucern principally, 

 and, unmanured or cared for, they give an average of forty quintals to 

 the acre. .These meadow grasses, lucern and clover, were only intro- 

 duced here toward the beginning of the century, and their cultivation 

 seems little understood. In the more fertile soil of the sea-side a better 

 quality of forage and a more careful cultivation is found on the estates of 

 a few large proprietors, and here tho improvement of the stock has been 

 pursued with growing interest. Some remarkable products are shown 



