mainly of Wheat and Indian Corn. Potatoes, Barley, Rye, &c., are grown,
but none of them extensively, nor is much of the soil devoted to Grass.
There are no forests, properly so called, but a few rocky hill-sides,
which occur at intervals, mainly about half way from Venice to Milan,
are covered with shrubbery which would probably grow to trees if
permitted. Wheat and all Summer Grains are very good; so is the Grass;
so the Indian Corn will be where it is not prevented by the vicious
crowding of the plants and sugar-loaf hoeing of which I have frequently
spoken. I judge that Italy altogether, with an enormous area planted,
will realize less than half the yield she would have from the same acres
with judicious cultivation. With Potatoes, nearly the same mistake is
made, but the area planted with these is not one-tenth that of Corn and
the blunder far less vital.

This ought to be the richest country in the world, yet its people and
their dwellings do not look as if it were so. I have seen a greater
number of Soldiers and Beggars in passing through it than of men at
work; and nearly all work out-doors here who work at all. The dwellings
are generally shabby, while Barns are scarce, and Cattle are treading
out the newly harvested wheat under the blue sky. New houses and other
signs of improvement are rare, and the people dispirited. And this is
the garden of sunny, delicious Italy!

THE ITALIANS.

I leave Italy with a less sanguine hope of her speedy liberation than I
brought into it. The day of her regeneration must come, but the
obstacles are many and formidable. Most palpable among these is an
insane spirit of local jealousy and rivalry only paralleled by the
"Corkonian" and "Far-down" feud among the Irish. Genoa is jealous of
Turin; Turin of Milan; Florence of Leghorn; and so on. If Italy were a
Free Republic to-day, there would be a fierce quarrel, and I fear a
division, on the question of locating its metropolis. Rome would
consider herself the natural and prescriptive capital; Naples would urge
her accessible position, unrivaled beauty and ascendency in population;
Florence her central and healthful location; Genoa her extensive
commerce and unshaken devotion to Republican Freedom, &c., &c. And I
should hardly be surprised to see some of these, chagrined by an adverse
decision, leaguing with foreign despots to restore the sway of the
stronger by way of avenging their fancied wrongs!

And it is too true that ag