The whole is cultivated like a garden:
rows of lopped elms or poplars intersect the fields, at the distance of
40 or 50 feet between each row, to which vines are trained: and the
intermediate space is occupied by luxuriant wheat; lupines, pulled green
for fodder; garden-beans; or ground prepared for ploughing by two oxen,
without a driver, for Indian corn, &c. This is one of the grand
advantages of the climate of Italy, that, while in northern Europe vast
tracts of land are devoted to the exclusive growth of barley for beer,
the Italians obtain a far better beverage from the very same land that
supplies their bread corn, and without materially interfering with its
produce: for both the vines and the trees that support them are planted
so deep as to consume only the manure, which, in any case, would be
washed away; and their slight shade is rather beneficial than injurious
to the crops below.
_Fruit at Naples._--Mr. Spence saw in March grapes of several varieties,
kept through the winter, not much shrivelled, and quite free from
mouldiness. Oranges in glorious profusion (chiefly from Sorrento,
fifteen miles distant,) and so cheap as to allow the poorest of the poor
to enjoy (what Dr.
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