field and
meadow. The great highway generally runs along the bank of one of these
Canals, which are filled from the rivers when they have just been raised
by rains and are thus surcharged with fertilizing matter, and drawn off
from day to day thereafter to refresh and enrich the remarkably level
plain they traverse. Thus not only the plain and the glades lying nearer
the sources of the rivers, but the sterile, rugged crests of the Alps
and Apennines which enclose this great basin are made to contribute
evermore to the fruitfulness of its soil, so that Despotism, Ignorance,
Stolidity, Indolence and Unthrift of all kinds vainly strive to render
it other than the Garden of Europe. The banks of the Canals and the
sides of the highways are generally lined with trees, rows of which also
traverse many if not most of the fields, so that from certain points the
whole country seems one vast, low forest or "timbered opening" of
Poplar, Willow, Mulberry, Locust, &c. There are a few Oaks, more Elms,
and some species I did not recognize, and the Vine through all this
region is trained on dwarfed or shortened trees, sometimes along the
roadside, but oftener in rows through one-fourth of the fields, while in
a few instances it is allowed thus to obtain an altitude of thirty or
forty feet. Of Fruit, I have seen only the Apricot and the Cherry in
abundance, but there are some Pears, while the Orange and Lemon are very
plentiful in the towns, though I think they are generally brought from
Naples and the Mediterranean coast. But finer crops of Wheat, Grass,
Hemp, &c., can grow nowhere than throughout this country, while the
Indian Corn which is abundantly planted, would yield as amply if the
people knew how to cultivate it. Ohio has no better soil nor climate for
this grain. Of Potatoes or other edible roots I have seen very little.
Hemp is extensively cultivated, and grows most luxuriantly. Man is the
only product of this prolific land which seems stunted and shriveled.
Were Italy once more a Nation, under one wise and liberal government,
with a single tariff, coinage, mail-post, &c., a thorough system of
common school education, a small navy, but no passports, and a public
policy which looked to the fostering and diversifying of her industry,
she might easily sustain and enrich a population of sixty millions. As
it is, one-half of her twenty-five millions are in rags, and are pinched
by hunger, while inhabiting the best wheat country in Eu