VOUNg’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE.
595
A Bergamafque writer obferves, that wheat cultivated with the plough commonlyyields four, five, and fix times the feed ; but cultivated with the fpade, twelve, fourteen,and fixteen times that quantity *, and this of greater weight; a fure proof of their mifer-able tillage.
Brefcia . —Arable produ&s in this vicinity, are,—wheat, three facchi, of fourteenpeze each peze twenty-five pounds being about fix feeds. The peze of twenty-fivepounds Brefcian, being equal to iqf French , makes two hundred and fix poundsfrench per fack, or two hundred and twenty-four pounds Englifh: the three faeks,therefore, are fix hundred and feventy-two pounds Englifh, on a jugero of four per-tiche; this is fcarcely twelve bufhels the Englifh acre, reckoning four one-fourth per-tiche in that acre f. Maize fown in March, produces fix, eight, ten facchi, eachtwelve peze of twenty-five pounds. This is about twenty-eight bufhels to the Englifnacre, fuppofing a bufliel of maize to be fifty pounds; but quarantino does not yieldmore than five fuch facks. Melico (the great millet,) fifteen facchi, of ten or elevenfuch peze. Flax, fix to nine peze, at 20 livres to 25 livres the peze ; this is about onehundred and twenty-five pounds the Englifh acre, and 170 livres at 6d. Englifh, 4I. 5s.and per Englifh acre 4I. Millet gives three facchi, of eleven peze. Clover, threehundred peze of hay, at three cuts ; meadows yield the fame as clover, but are paf-tured in autumn. Price of hay 70 livres the carro, of one hundred peze. Threehundred peze equal four thoufand eight hundred and twenty-feven pounds Englifh, andper Englifh acre, four thoufand five hundred and twenty-two pounds, which we maycall grofsly two tons; a very poor crop for three mowings.
To Verona. —In this line of country, the Lombardy fyftem, of planting all the arablelands with row’6 of pollards, for training vines, is at its height. There is a good dealof it from Bergamo to Brefcia; and fome are feen in pafiing from Vaprio to Bergamo ,but not fo univerfally as here. It is a moft fmgular fyftem; rows of maple, afh, orpoplar, are planted from four to feven yards afunder, and rows of vines at their feet,which are trained up thofe trees, and in feftoons from tree to tree ; the fpace is cultivatedfor corn. They do not feem to approve of a fingle ftem for thefe pollards fo much asfeveral, for they have three or four, about fix feet high ; cropped every fecond year, toprevent too great a fhade. In fome places, mulberries are mixed with thefe commonforefl trees: one mulberry, and then two afli or maple. In fome rows, beyond alldoubt, the vines are trained equally on the mulberries as on the other trees; but notgenerally, being faftened only to the Hems of the mulberries. The better the land, thefarther afunder are thefe rows, even to fixty or leventy feet; but, in worfe land, muchnearer. All the way, the foil is a ftoney gravel, of a different appearance in quality, butwhere holes are dug for trees, it looks better.
Verona. —Wheat here yields five or fix times the feed. They fow one hundredVeronefe pounds upon a campo of land, and reap five hundred and fifty, which isabout two bufhels of feed per Englifh acre, and the produce eleven bufhels. We havenot, upon the poorefl lands in England, fo wretched a crop : to what are we to attri-
* Cantvni, Inflruzion't Pratiche intorno al slgricuhura. 8vo. 1788, Bergamo , p. 16,
f In the new edition of Agoftino Gallo, the editors give a line for the length of a Brefcian inch (encia)
which is the length of 1 3 th inch Englifh. Twelve of thofe oncia make onebraccio,,and fix braccia make one cavezzo ; confequently there are 9 3 feet in a cavezzo A pertica is anoblong fquare, twenty cavezzi long and five wide ; now multiply 9’ by 20 = 195 ; and multiply 9 3 by y,— 48 3 ; and the one produft by the other, — 9^0&j fquare feet for a pertica ; and 4! pertiche equals anEnglifh acre ; perhaps the editors of that new edition have made an error, In Hating 30,709 French feet intheir jugero of 4 pertiche.
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