Томас Джефферсон
Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2
March 24. From Nismes to Arles. The plains extending from Nismes to the Rhone, in the direction of Aries, are broken in one place by a skirt of low hills. They are red and stony at first, but as you approach the Rhone, they are of a dark gray mould, with a little sand, and very good. They are in corn and clover, vines, olives, almonds, mulberries, and willow. There are some sheep, no wood, no enclosures.
The high hills of Languedoc are covered with snow. At an ancient church, in the suburbs of Aries, are some hundreds of ancient stone coffins, along the road-side. The ground is thence called Les Champs Elysees. In a vault in a church, are some curiously wrought, and in a back yard are many ancient statues, inscriptions, &c. Within the town are a part of two Corinthian columns, and of the pediment with which they were crowned, very rich, having belonged to the ancient capitol of the place.
But the principal monument here, is an amphitheatre, the external portico of which is tolerably complete. How many porticoes there were, cannot be seen; but at one of the principal gates there are still five, measuring, from out to in, seventy-eight feet, ten inches, the vault diminishing inwards. There are sixty-four arches, each of which is, from centre to centre, twenty feet, six inches. Of course, the diameter is of four hundred and thirty-eight feet; or of four hundred and fifty feet, if we suppose the four principal arches a little larger than the rest. The ground floor is supported on innumerable vaults. The first story, externally, has a tall pedestal, like a pilaster, between every two arches; the upper story, a column, the base of which would indicate it Corinthian. Every column is truncated as low as the impost of the arch, but the arches are all entire. The whole of the upper entablature is gone, and of the Attic, if there was one. Not a single seat of the internal is visible. The whole of the inside, and nearly the whole of the outside, is masked by buildings. It is supposed there are one thousand inhabitants within the amphitheatre. The walls are more entire and firm than those of the ampitheatre at Nismes. I suspect its plan and distribution to have been very different from that.
Terrasson. The plains of the Rhone from Arles to this place, are a league or two wide; the mould is of a dark gray, good, in corn and lucerne. Neither wood, nor enclosures. Many sheep.
St. Remy. From Terrasson to St. Remy, is a plain of a league or two wide, bordered by broken hills of massive rock. It is gray and stony, mostly in olives. Some almonds, mulberries, willows, vines, corn, and lucerne. Many sheep. No forest, nor enclosures.
A laboring man’s wages here, are one hundred and fifty livres, a woman’s half, and fed. Two hundred and eighty pounds of wheat sell for forty-two livres. They make no butter here. It costs, when brought, fifteen sous the pound. Oil is ten sous the pound. Tolerably good olive trees yield, one with another, about twenty pounds of oil. An olive tree must be twenty years old before it has paid its own expenses. It lasts for ever. In 1765, it was so cold, that the Rhone was frozen over at Aries for two months. In 1767, there was a cold spell of a week, which killed all the olive trees. From being fine weather, in one hour there was ice hard enough to bear a horse. It killed people on the road. The old roots of the olive trees put out again. Olive grounds sell for twenty-four livres a tree, and lease at twenty-four sous the tree. The trees are fifteen pieds apart. But lucerne is a more profitable culture. An arpent yields one hundred quintals of hay a year, worth three livres the quintal. It is cut four or five times a year. It is sowed in the broadcast, and lasts five or six years. An arpent of ground for corn rents at from thirty to thirty-six livres. Their leases are for six or nine years. They plant willow for fire-wood, and for hoops to their casks. It seldom rains here in summer. There are some chateaux, many separate farm-houses, good, and ornamented in the small way, so as to show that the tenant’s whole time is not occupied in procuring physical necessaries.
March 25. Orgon. Pontroyal. St. Cannat. From Orgon to Pontroyal, after quitting the plains of the Rhone, the country seems still to be a plain, cut into compartments by chains of mountains of massive rock, running through it in various directions. From Pontroyal to St. Cannat, the land lies rather in basins. The soil is very various, gray and clay, gray and stony, red and stony; sometimes good, sometimes middling, often barren. We find some golden willows. Towards Pontroyal, the hills begin to be in vines and afterwards in some pasture of greensward and clover. About Orgon are some enclosures of quick-set, others of conical yews planted close. Towards St. Cannat, they begin to be of stone.
The high mountains are covered with snow. Some separate farm-houses of mud. Near Pontroyal is a canal for watering the country; one branch goes to Terrasson, the other to Arles.
March 25, 26, 27, 28. Aix. The country is waving, in vines, pasture of greensward and clover, much enclosed with stone, and abounding with sheep.
On approaching Aix, the valley which opens from thence towards the mouth of the Rhone and the sea, is rich and beautiful; a perfect grove of olive trees, mixed among which are corn, lucerne, and vines. The waste grounds throw out thyme and lavender. Wheat bread is three sous the pound. Cow’s milk sixteen sous the quart, sheep’s milk six sous, butter of sheep’s milk twenty sous the pound. Oil, of the best quality, is twelve sous the pound, and sixteen sous if it be virgin oil. This is what runs from the olive when put into the press, spontaneously; afterwards they are forced by the press and by hot water. Dung costs ten sous the one hundred pounds. Their fire-wood is chene-vert and willow. The latter is lopped every three years. An ass sells for from one to three louis; the best mules for thirty louis. The best asses will carry two hundred pounds; the best horses three hundred pounds; the best mules six hundred pounds. The temperature of the mineral waters of Aix is 90° of Fahrenheit’s thermometer, at the spout. A mule eats half as much as a horse. The allowance to an ass for the day, is a handful of bran mixed with straw. The price of mutton and beef, about six and a half sous the pound. The beef comes from Auvergne, and is poor and bad. The mutton is small, but of excellent flavor. The wages of a laboring man are one hundred and fifty livres the year, a woman’s sixty to sixty-six livres, and fed. Their bread is half wheat, half rye, made once in three or four weeks, to prevent too great a consumption. In the morning they eat bread with an anchovy, or an onion. Their dinner in the middle of the day is bread, soup, and vegetables. Their supper the same. With their vegetables, they have always oil and vinegar. The oil costs about eight sous the pound. They drink what is called piquette. This is made after the grapes are pressed, by pouring hot water on the pumice. On Sunday they have meat and wine. Their wood for building comes mostly from the Alps, down the Durance and Rhone. A stick of pine, fifty feet long, girting six feet and three inches at one end, and three feet three inches at the other, costs, delivered here, from fifty-four to sixty livres. Sixty pounds of wheat cost seven livres. One of their little asses will travel with his burthen about five or six leagues a day, and day by day; a mule from six to eight leagues.3
March 29. Marseilles. The country is hilly, intersected by chains of hills and mountains of massive rock. The soil is reddish, stony, and indifferent where best. Wherever there is any soil, it is covered with olives. Among these are corn, vines, some lucerne, mulberry, some almonds, and willow. Neither enclosures, nor forest. A very few sheep.
On the road I saw one of those little whirlwinds which we have in Virginia, also some gullied hill-sides. The people are in separate establishments. Ten morning observations of the thermometer, from the 20th to the 31st of March inclusive, made at Nismes, St. Remy, Aix, and Marseilles, give me an average of 52 1/2°, and 46° and 61°, for the greatest and least morning heats. Nine afternoon observations, yield an average of 62 2/3°, and 57° and 66°, the greatest and least. The longest day here, from sunrise to sunset, is fifteen hours and fourteen minutes; the shortest is eight hours and forty-six minutes; the latitude being –.
There are no tides in the Mediterranean. It is observed to me, that the olive tree grows nowhere more than thirty leagues distant from that sea. I suppose, however, that both Spain and Portugal furnish proofs to the contrary, and doubt its truth as to Asia, Africa, and America. They are six or eight months at a time, here, without rain. The most delicate figs known in Europe, are those growing about this place, called figues Marseilloises, or les veritables Marseilloises, to distinguish them from others of inferior quality growing here. These keep any length of time. All others exude a sugar in the spring of the year, and become sour. The only process for preserving them, is drying them in the sun, without putting any thing to them whatever. They sell at fifteen sous the pound, while there are others as cheap as five sous the pound. I meet here a small dried grape from Smyrna, without a seed. There are few of the plants growing in this neighborhood. The best grape for drying, known here, is called des Panses. They are very large, with a thick skin and much juice. They are best against a wall of southern aspect, as their abundance of juice requires a great deal of sun to dry it. Pretty good fig trees are about the size of the apricot tree, and yield about twenty pounds of figs when dry, each. But the largest will yield the value of a louis. They are sometimes fifteen inches in diameter. It is said that the Marseilles fig degenerates when transported into any other part of the country. The leaves of the mulberry tree will sell for about three livres, the purchaser gathering them. The caper is a creeping plant. It is killed to the roots every winter. In the spring it puts out branches, which creep to the distance of three feet from the centre. The fruit forms on the stem, as that extends itself, and must be gathered every day, as it forms. This is the work of women. The pistache grows in this neighborhood also, but not very good. They eat them in their milky state. Monsieur de Bergasse has a wine-cellar two hundred and forty pieds long, in which are one hundred and twenty tons, of from fifty to one hundred pièces each. These tons are twelve pieds diameter, the staves four inches thick, the heading two and a half pouces thick. The temperature of his cellar is of 9 1/2° of Reaumur. The best method of packing wine, when bottled, is to lay the bottles on their side, and cover them with sand. The 2d of April, the young figs are formed; the 4th we have Windsor beans. They have had asparagus ever since the middle of March. The 5th, I see strawberries and the Guelder rose in blossom. To preserve the raisin, it is first dipped into ley, and then dried in the sun. The aloe grows in the open ground. I measure a mule, not the largest, five feet and two inches high. Marseilles is in an amphitheatre, at the mouth of the Veaune, surrounded by high mountains of naked rock, distant two or three leagues. The country within that amphitheatre is a mixture of small hills, vallies, and plains. The latter are naturally rich. The hills and vallies are forced into production. Looking from the Chateau de Notre Dame de la Garde, it would seem as if there was a bastide for every arpent. The plain-lands sell for one hundred louis the carterelle, which is less than an acre. The ground of the arsenal in Marseilles sold for from fifteen to forty louis the square verge, being nearly the square yard English. In the fields open to the sea, they are obliged to plant rows of canes, every here and there, to break the force of the wind. Saw at the Chateau Borelli pumps worked by the wind.
April 6. From Marseilles to Aubagne. A valley on the Veaune, bordered on each side by high mountains of massive rock, on which are only some small pines. The interjacent valley is of small hills, vallies, and plains, reddish, gravelly, and originally poor, but fertilized by art, and covered with corn, vines, olives, figs, almonds, mulberries, lucerne, and clover. The river is twelve or fifteen feet wide, one or two feet deep, and rapid.
From Aubagne to Cuges, Beausset, Toulon. The road, quitting the Veaune and its wealthy valley, a little after Aubagne, enters those mountains of rock, and is engaged with them about a dozen miles. Then it passes six or eight miles through a country still very hilly and stony, but laid up in terraces, covered with olives, vines, and corn. It then follows for two or three miles a hollow between two of those high mountains, which has been, found or made by a small stream. The mountains then reclining a little from their perpendicular, and presenting a coat of soil, reddish, and tolerably good, have given place to the little village of Olioules, in the gardens of which are oranges in the open ground. It continues hilly till we enter the plain of Toulon. On different parts of this road there are figs in the open fields. At Cuges is a plain of about three fourths of a mile diameter, surrounded by high mountains of rock. In this the caper is principally cultivated. The soil is mulatto, gravelly, and of middling quality, or rather indifferent. The plants are set in quincunx, about eight feet apart. They have been covered during winter by a hill of earth a foot high. They are now enclosing, pruning, and ploughing them.
Toulon. From Olioules to Toulon the figs are in the open fields. Some of them have stems of fifteen inches diameter. They generally fork near the ground, but sometimes have a single stem of five feet long. They are as large as apricot trees. The olive trees of this day’s journey are about the size of large apple trees. The people are in separate establishments. Toulon is in a valley at the mouth of the Goutier, a little river of the size of the Veaune; surrounded by high mountains of naked rock, leaving some space between them and the sea. This space is hilly, reddish, gravelly, and of middling quality, in olives, vines, corn, almonds, figs, and capers. The capers are planted eight feet apart. A bush yields, one year with another, two pounds, worth twelve sous the pound. Every plant, then, yields twenty-four sous, equal to one shilling sterling. An acre, containing six hundred and seventy-six plants, would yield thirty-three pounds sixteen shillings sterling. The fruit is gathered by women, who can gather about twelve pounds a day. They begin to gather about the last of June, and end about the middle of October. Each plant must be picked every day. These plants grow equally well in the best or worst soil, or even in the walls, where there is no soil. They will last the life of a man, or longer. The heat is so great at Toulon in summer, as to occasion very great cracks in the earth. Where the caper is in a soil that will admit it, they plough it. They have pease here through the winter, sheltering them occasionally; and they have had them ever since the 25th of March, without shelter.
April 6. Hieres. This is a plain of two or three miles diameter, bounded by the sea on one side, and mountains of rock on the other. The soil is reddish, gravelly, tolerably good, and well watered. It is in olives, mulberries, vines, figs, corn, and some flax. There are also some cherry trees. From Hieres to the sea, which is two or three miles, is a grove of orange trees, olives, and mulberries. The largest orange tree is of two feet diameter one way, and one foot the other (for the section of all the larger ones would be an oval, not a round), and about twenty feet high. Such a tree will yield about six thousand oranges a year. The garden of M. Fille has fifteen thousand six hundred orange, trees. Some years they yield forty thousand livres, some only ten thousand; but generally about twenty-five thousand. The trees are from eight to ten feet apart. They are blossoming and bearing, all the year, flowers and fruit in every stage at the same time. But the best fruit is that which is gathered in April and May. Hieres is a village of about five thousand inhabitants, at the foot of a mountain, which covers it from the north, and from which extends a plain of two or three miles to the sea-shore. It has no port. Here are palm trees twenty or thirty feet high, but they bear no fruit. There is also a botanical garden kept by the King. Considerable salt-ponds here. Hieres is six miles from the public road. It is built on a narrow spur of the mountain. The streets in every direction are steep, in steps of stairs, and about eight feet wide. No carriage of any kind can enter it. The wealthier inhabitants use chaises à porteurs. But there are few wealthy, the bulk of the inhabitants being laborers of the earth. At a league’s distance in the sea is an island, on which is the Chateau de Géans, belonging to the Marquis de Pontoives: there is a causeway leading to it. The cold of the last November killed the leaves of a great number of the orange-trees, and some of the trees themselves.
From Hieres to Cuers, Pignans, Luc, is mostly a plain, with mountains on each hand at a mile or two distance. The soil is generally reddish, and the latter part very red and good. The growth is olives, figs, vines, mulberries, corn, clover, and lucerne. The olive trees are from three to four feet in diameter. There are hedges of pomegranates, sweet-briar, and broom. A great deal of thyme growing wild. There are some enclosures of stone; some sheep and goats.
April 9. From Luc to Vidavban, Muy, Frejus, the road leads through vallies, and crosses occasionally the mountains which separate them. The vallies are tolerably good, always red and stony, gravelly or gritty. Their produce as before. The mountains are barren.
Lesterelle, Napoule. Eighteen miles of ascent and descent of a very high mountain. Its growth, where capable of any, two-leaved pine, very small, and some chêne vert.
Antibes, Nice. From Napoule the road is generally near the sea, passing over little hills or strings of vallies, the soil stony, and much below mediocrity in its quality. Here and there is a good plain.
There is snow on the high mountains. The first frogs I have heard are of this day (the 9th). At Antibes are oranges in the open ground, but in small enclosures; palm trees also. From thence to the Var are the largest fig trees and olive trees I have seen. The fig trees are eighteen inches in diameter, and six feet stem; the olives sometimes six feet in diameter, and as large heads as the largest low-ground apple trees. This tree was but a shrub where I first fell in with it, and has become larger and larger to this place. The people are mostly in villages. The several provinces, and even cantons, are distinguished by the form of the women’s hats, so that one may know of what canton a woman is by her hat.
Nice. The pine-bur is used here for kindling fires. The people are in separate establishments. With respect to the orange, there seems to be no climate on this side of the Alps sufficiently mild in itself to preserve it without shelter. At Olioules they are between two high mountains; at Hieres covered on the north by a very high mountain; at Antibes and Nice covered by mountains, and also within small, high enclosures. Quære. To trace the true line from east to west, which forms the northern and natural limit of that fruit? Saw an elder tree (sambucus) near Nice, fifteen inches in diameter, and eight feet stem. The wine made in this neighborhood is good, though not of the first quality. There are one thousand mules, loaded with merchandise, which pass every week between Nice and Turin, counting those coming as well as going.
April 13. Scarena. Sospello. There are no orange trees after we leave the environs of Nice. We lose the olive after rising a little above the village of Scarena, on Mount Braus, and find it again on the other side, a little before we get down to Sospello. But wherever there is soil enough it is terraced, and in corn. The waste parts are either in two-leaved pine and thyme, or of absolutely naked rock. Sospello is on a little torrent, called Bevera, which runs into the river Roia, at the mouth of which is Ventimiglia. The olive trees on the mountain are now loaded with fruit; while some at Sospello are in blossom. Fire-wood here and at Scarena costs fifteen sous the quintal.
April 14. Ciandola. Tende. In crossing Mount Brois we lose the olive tree after getting to a certain height, and find it again on the other side at the village of Breglio. Here we come to the river Roia, which, after receiving the branch on which is Sospello, leads to the sea at Ventimiglia. The Roia is about twelve yards wide, and abounds with speckled trout. Were a road made from Breglio, along the side of the Roia to Ventimiglia, it might turn the commerce of Turin to this last place instead of Nice; because it would avoid the mountains of Braus and Brois, leaving only that of Tende; that is to say, it would avoid more than half the difficulties of the passage. Further on, we come to the Chateau di Saorgio, where a scene is presented the most singular and picturesque I ever saw. The castle and village seem hanging to a cloud in front. On the right is a mountain cloven through, to let pass a gurgling stream; on the left, a river, over which is thrown a magnificent bridge. The whole forms a basin, the sides of which are shagged with rocks, olive trees, vines, herds, &c. Near here I saw a tub-wheel without a ream; the trunk descended from the top of the water-fall to the wheel in a direct line, but with the usual inclination. The produce along this passage is most generally olives, except on the heights as before observed; also corn, vines, mulberries, figs, cherries, and walnuts. They have cows, goats, and sheep. In passing on towards Tende, olives fail us ultimately at the village of Fontan, and there the chestnut trees begin in good quantity. Ciandola consists of only two houses, both taverns. Tende is a very inconsiderable village, in which they have not yet the luxury of glass windows: nor in any of the villages on this passage have they yet the fashion of powdering the hair. Common stone and limestone are so abundant, that the apartments of every story are vaulted with stone to save wood.
April 15. Limone. Coni. I see abundance of lime-stone as far as the earth is uncovered with snow; i.e. within half or three quarters of an hour’s walk of the top. The snows descend much lower on the eastern than western side. Wherever there is soil, there is corn quite to the commencement of the snows, and I suppose under them also. The waste parts are in two-leaved pine, lavender, and thyme. From the foot of the mountain to Coni the road follows a branch of the Po, the plains of which begin narrow, and widen at length into a general plain country, bounded on one side by the Alps. They are good, dark-colored, sometimes tinged with red, and in pasture, corn, mulberries, and some almonds. The hill-sides bordering these plains are reddish, and where they admit of it are in corn; but this is seldom. They are mostly in chestnut, and often absolutely barren. The whole of the plains are plentifully watered from the river, as is much of the hill-side. A great deal of golden willow all along the rivers on the whole of this passage through the Alps. The southern parts of France, but still more the passage through the Alps, enable one to form a scale of the tenderer plants, arranging them according to their several powers of resisting cold. Ascending three different mountains, Braus, Brois, and Tende, they disappear one after another: and descending on the other side, they show themselves again one after another. This is their order, from the tenderest to the hardiest. Caper, orange, palm, aloe, olive, pomegranate, walnut, fig, almond. But this must be understood of the plant; for as to the fruit, the order is somewhat different. The caper, for example, is the tenderest plant, yet being so easily protected, it is the most certain in its fruit. The almond, the hardiest plant, loses its fruit the oftenest on account of its forwardness. The palm, hardier than the caper and the orange, never produces perfect fruit in these parts. Coni is a considerable town, and pretty well built. It is walled.
April 16. Centale. Savigliano. Racconigi. Poirino. Turin. The Alps, as far as they are in view from north to south, show the gradation of climate by the line which terminates the snows lying on them. This line begins at their foot northwardly, and rises as they pass on to the south, so as to be half way up their sides on the most southern undulations of the mountain now in view. From the mountains to Turin we see no tree tenderer than the walnut. Of these, as well as of almonds and mulberries, there are a few: somewhat more of vines, but most generally willows and poplars. Corn is sowed with all these. They mix with them also clover and small grass. The country is a general plain; the soil dark, and sometimes, though rarely, reddish. It is rich, and much infested with wild onions. At Racconigi I see the tops and shocks of maize, which prove it is cultivated here: but it can be in small quantities only, because I observe very little ground but what has already something else in it. Here and there are small patches prepared, I suppose, for maize. They have a method of planting the vine, which I have not seen before. At intervals of about eight feet they plant from two to six plants of vine in a cluster At each cluster they fix a forked staff, the plane of the prongs of the fork at a right angle with the row of vines. Athwart these prongs they lash another staff, like a handspike, about eight feet long, horizontally, seven or eight feet from the ground. Of course, it crosses the rows at right angles. The vines are brought from the foot of the fork up to this cross-piece, turned over it, and conducted along over the next, the next, and so on, as far as they will extend, the whole forming an arbor eight feet wide and high and of the whole length of the row, little interrupted by the stems of the vines, which being close around the fork, pass up through hoops, so as to occupy a space only of small diameter. All the buildings in this country are of brick, sometimes covered with plaister, sometimes not. There is a very large and handsome bridge, of seven arches, over the torrent of Sangone. We cross the Po in swinging batteaux. Two are placed side by side, and kept together by a plank-floor, common to both, and lying on the gunwales. The carriage drives on this, without taking out any of the horses. About one hundred and fifty yards up the river is a fixed stake, and a rope tied to it, the other end of which is made fast to one side of the batteaux, so as to throw them oblique to the current. The stream then acting on them, as on an inclined plane, forces them across the current in the portion of a circle, of which the rope is the radius. To support the rope in its whole length, there are two intermediate canoes, about fifty yards apart, in the heads of which are short masts. To the top of these the rope is lashed, the canoes being free otherwise to concur with the general vibration in their smaller arcs of circles. The Po is there about fifty yards wide, and about one hundred in the neighborhood of Turin.
April 17, 18. Turin. The first nightingale I have heard this year is to-day (18th). There is a red wine of Nebiule made in this neighborhood, which is very singular. It is about as sweet as the silky Madeira, as astringent on the palate as Bordeaux, and as brisk as Champagne. It is a pleasing wine. At Moncaglieri, about six miles from Turin, on the right side of the Po, begins a ridge of mountains, which, following the Po by Turin, after some distance, spreads wide, and forms the duchy of Montferrat. The soil is mostly red, and in vines, affording a wine called Montferrat, which is thick and strong.
April 19. Settimo. Chivasso. Ciliano. S. Germano. Vercelli. The country continues plain and rich, the soil black. The culture, corn, pasture, maize, vines, mulberries, walnuts, some willow, and poplar. The maize bears a very small proportion to the small grain. The earth is formed into ridges from three to four feet wide, and the maize sowed in the broad-cast, on the higher parts of the ridge, so as to cover a third or half of the whole surface. It is sowed late in May. This country is plentifully and beautifully watered at present. Much of it is by torrents, which are dry in summer. These torrents make a great deal of waste ground, covering it with sand and stones. These wastes are sometimes planted in trees, sometimes quite unemployed. They make hedges of willows, by setting the plants from one to three feet apart. When they are grown to the height of eight or ten feet, they bend them down, and interlace them one with another. I do not see any of these, however, which are become old. Probably, therefore, they soon die. The women here smite on the anvil, and work with the maul and spade. The people of this country are ill dressed in comparison with those of France, and there are more spots of uncultivated ground. The plough here is made with a single handle, which is a beam twelve feet long, six inches in diameter below, and tapered to about two inches at the upper end. They use goads for the oxen, not whips. The first swallows I have seen are to-day. There is a wine called Gatina, made in the neighborhood of Vercelli, both red and white. The latter resembles Calcavallo. There is also a red wine of Salusola, which is esteemed. It is very light. In the neighborhood of Vercelli begin the rice-fields. The water with which they are watered is very dear. They do not permit rice to be sown within two miles of the cities, on account of the insalubrity. Notwithstanding this, when the water is drawn off the fields, in August, the whole country is subject to agues and fevers. They estimate, that the same measure of ground yields three times as much rice as wheat, and with half the labor. They are now sowing. As soon as sowed, they let on the water two or three inches deep. After six weeks, or two months, they draw it off to weed; then let it on again, and it remains till August, when it is drawn off, about three or four weeks before the grain is ripe. In September they cut it. It is first threshed; then beaten in the mortar to separate the husk; then, by different siftings, it is separated into three qualities. Twelve rupes, equal to three hundred pounds of twelve ounces each, sell for sixteen livres, money of Piedmont, where the livre is exactly the shilling of England. Twelve rupes of maize sell for nine livres. The machine for separating the husk is thus made. In the axis of a water-wheel are a number of arms inserted, which, as they revolve, catches each the cog of a pestle, lifts it to a certain height, and lets it fall again. These pestles are five and a quarter inches square, ten feet long, and at their lower end formed into a truncated cone of three inches diameter, where cut off. The conical part is covered with iron. The pestles are ten and a half inches apart in the clear. They pass through two horizontal beams, which string them, as it were, together, and while the mortises in the beams are so loose, as to let the pestles work vertically, it restrains them to that motion. There is a mortar of wood, twelve or fifteen inches deep, under each pestle, covered with a board, the hole of which is only large enough to let the pestle pass freely. There are two arms in the axis for every pestle, so that the pestle gives two strokes for every revolution of the wheel. Poggio, a muleteer, who passes every week between Vercelli and Genoa, will smuggle a sack of rough rice for me to, Genoa; it being death to export it in that form. They have good cattle, and in good number, mostly cream-colored; and some middle-sized sheep. The streams furnish speckled trout.
