574 young’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE .

grow freely on the banks, edges, and fides of the canals, and to clear them in the middleonly. Such a conduct would in time quite choak them up, and enable the farmer tokeep his canals exactly to their right width. All thefe plants covering the fpaces-, whichin canals often cleaned, are bare earth or mud, would be very beneficial towards pre-venting and decomposing that noxious, and mephitic, and inflammable gas, always ilfu-ing from 1'uch mud, which is fo peflilential to animals, yet fo falutiferous to plants; formud covered with plants that are ready to feed on its exhalations, is much lei’s mifchie-vous than that which is expofed to the rays of a burning fun. Count Carlo Bettoni, ofBrefcia*, has pradifcd a method which acts on fimilar principles; namely, that ofburying or fixing willow's or poplars to the fides of the rivers whofe banks he wantedto preferve, with the precaution only of keeping the ends of the branches out of water;he finds that they grow' vigouroufly in this Situation, and by flopping the mud of thecurrent, form a Solid bank ; this, on a Small Scale, might certainly be executed : alfo inthe canals of irrigation, as it has been remarked, by the author already quoted, in theAtti di Milano.

'Venetian State. — Vaprioto Bergamo. —The^eis a mixture of watered meadow'inthis line, but the quantity is not considerable. In Some which are old, I found a goodSprinkling of trifolium repens, chicorium intybus , and pi ant ago lanceolata ; but alfo muchranunculus and rubbilh. In the plain clofe to Bergamo , they clean the irrigation-ditches at the end of November, and harrowing them with 4 faggot, to thicken thewater, let it immediately on to their meadows, w'hich is faid to enrich them much.

To Brefcia. —The Venetian State, thus far, is a considerable falling off from the Mila-nefe, in refpe£t to irrigation ; the country is not without canals, but neither the numbernor the importance of them is to be compared to thofe of Milan. From Coquillio toBrefcia there are many channels, yet the lands are not half watered.

Brefcia to Verona. —The road pafles for Some diftance by a very fine canal, yet thequantity of watered land in this route is but inconfiderable. Before we arrive at Lagodi Guarda, there are a few meadows never ploughed, that have a good appearance, butnone from the lake to Verona. On the whole, thefe forty miles, for want of more irri-gation, are not comparable to the Milanefe or to Piedmont. This route fo much to thenorth, gives the traveller an opportunity of feeing a chain of considerable cities, and ofobferving the effects of one of the molt celebrated governments that has exifted; but abetter direction by me v'ould have-been by Cremona and Mantua.

Verona. —The meadows here are cut thrice, and fed once ; are never ploughed, ifgood and well watered. Water for irrigation here, as in all Lombardy , is meafuredwith great care and attention, by what is called the quadrata, which is a fquare foot(the Veronefe foot is to the Englilh about as twenty are to twelve). Twelve quadrateare Sufficient to water five hundred campi of rice grounds (about three hundred andeighty Englilh acres), and the price of fuch a quantity of water is commonly about5000 zecchini (1425I. fterling). The wheels in this city forraifing water for irrigatingthe gardens are very complete; they receive the water as in Spain , into hollow fellies.There is one in the garden of the Daniele monaftry for watering about four campi, whichare faid to yield a revenue of 300 zecchini; which is 100 zecchini, of 9s. 6d. per Eng-lilh acre. The wheel raifes the water about twenty-five feet, receiving its motion bythe ffream; a low wall, croffing the garden, conveys the water in a trench of mafonryon its tops; and a walk palling along the centre of the garden, the wall there is open toadmit the path, the water finking in a fyphon, and rifing on the other fide to the fame

* Heifer 1 ful Govern, de Fiumi. Brefcia, 1782.

height,