204 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



lying, the source of every fraud, and blighted by a feeble gov- 

 ernment and the inroads of the Malaria, all its former glory has 

 departed. Its classical villas and populous villages are gone. 

 This lonely waste is covered with pasturages over which roam 

 flocks, the riches of its rude and sickly inhabitants whose haunts 

 are the lurking places from which issue those fiends that rob on 

 the highways and murder by stealth. Climate and a peculiar 

 geological formation give to Italy a great variety of agricultural 

 productions. What country, for its size, can show a more splen- 

 did exhibition of the fruits of the field and garden. Here grow 

 to perfection, wheat, maize, and the difl'erent grapes, by the side 

 of the olive, mulberry and cotton plant. To crown the pleasures 

 of the landscape from the hill tops, you have your senses regaled 

 by the odors wafted from orange groves and delicious peach 

 orchards. 



A brief and rapid sketch of the rural economy of this far-famed 

 land, I propose for my subject. 



Time will not allow me to go into an extensive survey of Roman 

 tillage, a delightful study for those who like to regale themselves 

 on the precious remains of antiquity, but oui" task is to enquire 

 into the present state of rural economy, of modern Italy. It 

 might be here premised that there is a great difference between 

 modern and ancient Italy in point of agricultural improvement. 

 The evil lies partly in bad government, but more in the degraded 

 condition of the peasantry. As a body they are passionately fond 

 of amusements and social assemblies ; the religion of the country 

 favors this natural indolence, and its abuse plunges them into a 

 vile superstition. The festival days take up near one-fourth of 

 the year, the monastic institutions which crowd the land are the 

 nurseries of idleness, and sure grave of morality ! The agricul- 

 ture of North Italy greatly suffers by reason of the discourage- 

 ment given to the small farmers arising from a wrong system by 

 which lands are rented. The tenure by which lands are held is 

 the Metayer system. I will endeavor to explain this plan of cul- 

 tivating the earth which prevails most every where in the South 

 of Europe. Metayer comes from the Italian word Meta, which 

 signifies " half." The practice in Lombardy is for the tenant to 

 pay in kind the moiety of the yield of the land to the proprietor. 

 The Metayer furnishes labor, cattle and rural instruments, the 

 landlord bears all the other burdens that fill on the land. The 

 evil of the system is, that it produces no intimacy between the 

 owner of the soil and him that tills it. The Italian proprietor 



