AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 207 



is sub-soil plowing, which is unknown in Italy. These two dif- 

 ferent modes of working wet and sickly soils go well, in many 

 cases, together. The ground must be made dry before the sub- 

 soil plow can break tlirough the hard pan. 



But the Italian farmer uses the same plow as the ancient Ro- 

 mans. The instrument so neatly and circumstantially described 

 by the greatest Eomaii poet, will answer, by slight change of 

 names, for the one followed by the Italian peasant. The modern 

 Italians have lost none of the skill of their ancestors in working 

 straight fiurows. Some of the Tuscan plowmen have attained 

 to such perfection in this way as to turn over the furrow slice 

 in an unbroken line, and so true that the ej^e cannot detect any 

 divergence. They do not lay oflt' their land like us, into acres, 

 and go round it, but as we have already observed, the imple- 

 ment is poor, and the team that drags it is sorry in comparison to 

 those beautiful and strong English horses, that step so light and 

 majestic across the field, and in the same degree you see the 

 husbandry of the country lags behind better cultivated parts of 

 the world, where the yeomanry have not the mulish disposition to 

 follow old and continued systems of farming. 



In the plains of Tuscany the eye is greeted with the sight of 

 patches of land, exceeding 500 feet in length, and about five 

 times less in breadth. What contributes greatly to their beauty 

 is the prospect of long fields bordered by ditches on the banks of 

 which grow the poplar or willow, or along the side a row of 

 mulberry whose leaves feed the silk-worm that spin those fine 

 and lustrous cocoons, the sure and valuable produce of the land, 

 the maple or ash from which issue the manna, once an article of 

 commerce, but now very little used in pharmaceutal preparations. 

 They all give a refreshing shade. Clusters of grapes hang from 

 the elm, and a green hedge wards off the steps of the intruder. 



These often constitute the only enclosures between adjacent 

 owners. Hedge fences are also made here. Those in the most 

 common use are the hawthorn, evergreen, rose, and laurel. The 

 hedge and ditch with rows of trees beautifies the landscape in 

 Lombardy so favorable to vegetation, and constitutes to the lon- 

 gevity of man, and ever affords a shelter to the lower animals. 

 Cottage husbandry is followed in the neighborhood of the large 

 towns. Naples, Geneva, and Milan might be instanced where this 

 kind of husbandry meets the best returns. The drill is here 

 successfully used in a few places, but is very far from becoming 

 a universal mode of tillage. The furrows between the beds 



