young's TRAVELS IN FRANCE.
61 r
Olives.
State of Venice . —On the banks of the Lago di Guarda are the only olives I havefeen fince I left the country of Nice; but the number is not confiderable, and mod ofthem are dead or nearly fo, by the froft of lalt winter, which made fuch deftru&ion like-wife in Fance.
Tufcany. —Near Florence, at Martelli, the product of a farm of 190 Jliori was asfollows: in 1786, thirty barri/s. In 1787, it was no more than three. In 1788, ityielded eight. In 1789, it was twenty-five but on an average ten ; for which producethere are two hundred trees. They are dunged every two or three years, and dug aboutonce in three years. They are reckoned to leffen the produCt of corn one fifth; this isa notion of the country, but I believe very far from accurate. The average price of oilis 5 fcudi per barril, of one hundred and fifty pounds (11. 8s. 4d.) ; ten barrils amountto 14I. 3s. 4d.; and as there are about thirty-four acres in one hundred and ninety Jliori,the product of oil is 8s. to 9s. per acre : a fum that yields no very favourable impreffionof the culture:—and, divided amongft two hundred trees, it does not amount to is. 6d.a tree.
The plain of Florence is all lined into rows of thefe trees, with vines between andupon them; in fome places, an efpalier of vines between the rows of olives; and whenall are well cutivated, the olives yield the greateft produce, next the wine, and thenthe corn. I viewed, near Florence, fome fields, in which I found twenty olives on aJliora of land, but this is not common : and on a very bad ftony foil, though in the plain,
I found that it took twenty trees of twenty-five years growth to yield a barril of oil.But in a fine foil, and with very old trees, a barril a tree has been known. Vines arefuffered here alfo to run up the trees, but they reckon it a bad cuftom. The price ofoil is more than doubled in forty years. Very few olives were loll by the laft hardfroft, but great numbers by that of 1709. Landlord’s half produce of fome fields Iviewed—oil, 10 pauls ; grain, 7 ; wine, 1 ; in all 18 pauls per Jliora (2I. 5s. per Eng-lifh acre.)
r l his year, 1789, the Grand Duke , for the firft time, has given a gold medal, of thevalue of 25 zeccl/mi, for the greateft number of olives planted ; no claimant to be ad-mitted for lefs than five thoufand : in confequence of this premium above forty thou-fand trees have been planted. It will be continued annually.
There is, in the Maremma fome remarkable inftances of the vaft age to which oliveswill attain: Sig. Zucchino, profeflor of agriculture at Florence, informed me that,upon examining the hills in the middle of that tract, he found in the midft of woods,and almoft over-run with rubbilh, olives of fo immenfe an age and magnitude that heconje&ures them to have been planted by the ancient Hetrufcans, before the Romanswere in pofleftion of the country ; there mull, of courfe, be much uncertainty in anyconjectures of this kind, but a great antiquity of thefe trees is undoubted.
Piedmont. — Ciglione to Verceil. —They are now threlhing rice with horfes, as wheatin Languedoc ;—threlh as much in the night as in the day :—meet alfo gleaners goingho me loaded with it . About five miles before Verceil the rice-grounds are in greatquantities : their culture, however, of this crop feems to want explanations. Here is,for inftance, a great field, which was under rice laft year, now left to weeds, with hogsfeeding.—Why not fown with clover among or after the rice ? They never plough
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