ie a ce a ass~<a—. hun I, 34 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Parr I, fy eg mnmert ¥:: ae;: fe com buiidings, and lived in abundance and luxury. Their lands were cultivated by servants, ie under the direction of the priests, who would have recourse for information to the eae =..~ S nek aitur Roman agricultural writers, which, in common with such other books as then existed, a= were almost exclusively to be found in their libraries. We know little of the progress Bf . s..‘i more p UULY of agriculture under these circumstances for nearly ten centuries, when it began to qt == S A A° of a cllmat revive throughout Europe among the lay proprietors. We shall notice some particu- MN vat lars relative to this revival, first in Italy, and next in Germany, France, and England. eae: e. e. OH© arly(1) att) So little is known of the husbandry of Spain and the Netherlands during this period, a i : aa: nt unde that we shall defer what we have to say of those countries till we treat of their modern ante! if state 7 pnder the : formed of Secr. I. History of Agriculture in Italy during the Middle Ages. ture of a : c.: 5..: ntiquartal 180. Little ts known of the agriculture of Italy from the time of Pliny till that of aif =° sc= vie 5 A.: hit in beldg Crescenzio, a senator of Bologna, whose work In Commodium Ruralium, written in< Dubin pes 1300, was first printed at Florence in 1478. He was soon followed by several of his Gen ll

countrymen, among whom Tatti, Stefano, Augustino Gallo, Sansovino, Lauro, and Torello deserve to be mentioned with honor. From some records, however, it appears

that irrigation had been practised in Italy previously to 1037. The monks of 185, The Chiarevalle had formed extensive works of this kind, and had become so celebrated as and Pranks, to be consulted and employed as hydraulic engineers by the Emperor Frederic I. in Loves Burg the thirteenth century. Silk worms were imported from Greece into Sicily by Roger, sate of prop the first king of that island, in 1146; but they did not extend to the continental states Franks ism for many years afterwards, dealt more f 181. In the early part of the fourteenth century, the inhabitants of the south of Italy 186, All. were strangers to many of the conveniences of life; they were ignorant of the proper century is de cultivation of the vine, and the common people were just beginning to wear shirts. tocultivation The Florentines at that time were the only people of Italy who traded with England a distinction and France.‘The work of Crescenzio is obviously a compilation from the Roman was at that: authors, and therefore cannot be considered as giving an account of the agriculture of were past his time; but an edition published at Basil in 1548, and illustrated with figures, may en probably be considered as indicating the implements then in use. The plough is encouraged drawn by only one ox: but different kinds to be drawn by two and four oxen are comin described in the text. A driver is also mentioned, which shows that the ploughmen of particular i those days were less expert than during the time of the Romans, who used none. A eta waggon is described with a wooden axle and low wooden wheels; each 5 9] 187, Du wheel formed either out of one piece or of four pieces joined together.. civil wars, Knives, scythes(fig. 21.), and other grafting tools, as well as the mode of to ascertai performing the operation, are figured. Sowing was then performed ex- superior en actly as it was among the Romans, and is still in most parts of slourh, he Europe, where a sowing machine is not employed. The various hand I He a p tools for stirring and turning the soil are described and exhibited; and wl en Vee, alain} the Roman bidens shown as in use for cultivating the vine. All the—-<"~~~ 198 Py 88, In 4

agricultural and horticultural plants described by Pliny are treated of, but no others. 182. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Tarello’s Ricordo d@ Agricultura was published. In 1584, Pope Sixtus, according to Harte(Essay, i.), forced his subjects

aeticulture of St Dennis

to work, that they might pay the heavy taxes imposed on them; and by this means ee rendered them happy and contented, and himself rich and powerful. He found them Mom sunk in sloth, overrun with pride and poverty, and lost to all sense of civil duties; but 1 oe a ands he recovered them from that despicable state, first to industry, and next to plenty and aie Inte regularity. He effected this by a plain maxim, the practice of which however none| ge but a great genius could have enforced, which was that“a people not pressed by taxes me In th are apt to grow indolent, and that industry is the only source of riches and plenty to a Wats a state.’ etree 183. Naples being at this period a Spanish province, the wars in which Spain was en- a About gaged obliged her to put a tax upon fruit; and as fruits were not only the chief de- ate nade licacies but articles of subsistence among the Neapolitans, this imposition is said to Tear de have rendered them industrious. But though some agricultural books were published| Mee of eg at Naples during the sixteenth century, there is no evidence that they ever made much ef this progress in culture. Their best lands are in Sicily; and on them a corn crop and a"EDING pag fallow was andis the rotation, and the produce seldom exceeded eight or ten for one, 1) Prange as in the time of the Romans. This is the case in Sicily at present; and it is not a il likely to have been different or at least not better from the fifth to the seventeenth“Ot conven centuries. ie ih) 184. The greatest agricultural improvements in Italy which took place during the ty

period in question, were in Tuscany and Lombardy. In the former country the culture“ll 6 of the vine and the olive were brought to greater perfection than any where else in Europe. The oil of Lucca and the wines of Florence became celebrated in other countries, and I Nh a "Rie