S7 2
ounce of water running continually from the 24th of March to the 8th of Septem-ber, is worth, and will fell for ioco livres. When arable crops want water, it is alwaysgiven.
Milan to Mozzato. —Every confiderablc fpring that is found becomes the origin of anew canal. They clear out the head for a bai’on, and fink calks by way of tunnels for thewater to rife freely, and without impediment from mud or weeds. There are ufuallythree, four, or five of thel'e tunnels at the bottom of a bafon of twenty or thirty yards.
Milan to Lodi.— Of all the exertions that I have any where feen in irrigation, they arehere by far the greateft. 1 he canals are not only more numerous, more inccffant, andwithout interruption, but are condufted with the moll attention, (kill, and expence.There is, for moll of the way, one canal on each fide of the road, and fometimes two.Crofs ones are thrown over thefe on arches, and pafs in trunks of brick or ftone underthe road. A very confiderable one, after palling for feveral miles by thfe fide of thehighway, finks under it, and alfo under two other canals, carried in ftone troughs eightfeet wide; and at the fame place under a fmaller that is conduced in wood. The va-riety of direblions in which the water is carried, the eafe with which it flows in contrarydirections, the obftacles which are overcome are objeCts of admiration. The expencethus employed, in the twenty miles from Milan to Lodi, is immenfe. There is butlittle rice, and fome arable, which does not feem under the belt management; but thegrals and clover rich and luxuriant; and there are fome great herds of cows to whichall this country ought to be applied. I cannot but efteem the twenty miles as affordingone of the molt curious and valuable profpefts in the power of a farmer to view ; wehave fome undertakings in England that are meritorious, but they fink to nothing incomparifon with thefe great and truly noble works. It is one of the rides which I withthofe to take, who think that every thing is to be feen in England.
Lodi. —Examining fome watered meadow's in high eftimation, I found the followingplants mod predominant, and in the order in v'hich I note them :—1, Ranunculus re-pens ; 2, Trifolium pratenfe ; 3, Chicorium intybus ; 4, Plantago lanceolata ; 5, Achilleamillefolium * ; and about one-fifth of the whole herbage at bottom feems what are pro-perly called graffes. Thefe rich meadows about Lodi are all interfered by ditches,without hedges, but a double row of pollard poplars; all on a dead level, and no drainsto be feen. They are now (October) cutting the grafs and weeds in the ditches, to carthome for making dung. The meadows are commonly cut thrice ; but the bell fourtimes. The produce of hay per pertica, fix faffi of one hundred pounds, of tw'enty-eight ounces at the three cuts. Price of the firft, 8 livres per fafs ; of the fecond, 5livres ; of the third, 4I livres. They w'ater immediately after clearing if there be norain. Without irrigation, the rent of the country in general would be only one-third ofof what it is at prefent. In forming thefe watered meadows they have very Angularcuftoms : — all are broken up in rotation ; flax fown for the firft crop, and their way ofLying down is to leave a wheat ftubble to clothe itfelf; clover is prohibited by leafe,from an abfurd notion that it exhaufts the land; and that it is not fo good as w'hatthe nature of the ground gives; but onworfe land, the other fide of the Adda, they fowclover.
* There appeared but few figns of ray-grafs, yet it certainly abounds in fome of their fields: opinionsin Lombardy differ cancer.,ing it; Sig. Scannagatta praifes it highly (Jtti di Milano, torn. ii. p. 114;)but one ( f the belt writers in their language, big. Lavezari (tom. i. p. 82.) wonders rather at the commen-d,.iio’s given oi it in other countries, he miifakes the French name, it is not fainfoin ; the lojejfa of Lom-bardy, and t \it-ray-grafs of England, is the folium perennt j the French fainfoin is the hedyfarum onobrachis.
Lodi