Potatoes, then
Clover, then Beets, or Hemp, or Flax, and so on. For a small part of the
way, Grass seems to preponderate, but generally Wheat and Rye cover more
than half the ground, while Potatoes have a very large breadth of it.
Rye is now being harvested, and is quite heavy: in fact, all the crops
promise abundant harvests. The Vine appears at intervals, but is not
general through this region: Indian Corn is also rare, and appears in
small patches. In some places many acres of Wheat are seen in one piece,
but usually a breadth of four to twenty rods is given to one crop, and
then another succeeds and so on. I presume this implies a diversity of
owners, or at least of tenants.

The cultivation, though not always judicious, is generally thorough,
there being no lack of hands nor of good will. The day being fine and
the season a hurrying one, the vast plain was everywhere dotted with
laborers, of whom fully half were Women, reaping Rye, binding it, raking
and pitching Hay, hoeing Potatoes, transplanting Cabbages, Beets, &c.
They seemed to work quite as heartily and efficiently as the men. But
the most characteristically European spectacle I saw was a woman
unloading a great hay-wagon of huge cordwood at a Railroad station, and
pitching over the heavy sticks with decided resolution and efficiency.
It may interest the American pioneers in the Great Pantalette (or is it
Pantaloon?) Movement to know that she was attired in appropriate
costume--short frock, biped continuations and a mannish oil-skin
hat.--And this reminds me that, coming away from Rome, I met, at the
half-way house to Civita Vecchia, a French marching regiment on its way
from Corsica to the Eternal City, to which regiment two women were
attached as sutlers, &c., who also wore the same costume, except that
their hats were of wool instead of oil-skin. Thus attired, they had
marched twenty-five miles that hot day, and were to march as many the
next, as they had doubtless done on many former days. It certainly
cannot be pretended that these women adopted that dress from a love of
novelty, or a desire to lead a new fashion, or from any other reason
than a sense of its convenience, founded on experience. I trust,
therefore, that their unconscious testimony in behalf of the Great
Movement may not be deemed irrelevant nor unentitled to consideration.
Their social rank is certainly not the highest, but I consider them more
likely to render a correct judgment on the