useful labours and eminent zeal; and that of Blockley and Merior, in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia. In the Eastern States, they are numerous; and in New York, forty or fifty are recently formed and are making successful progress.

I shall not enlarge further upon these topics, but will dismiss you with the expression of a hope that you may be governed in all your deliberations by the pure principles of justice; that by preserving your minds entirely free from hate, from friendship, from anger, and from pity, they may be directed to such conclusions as may best effectuate the great purposes for which you are assembled, and that in clearing the innocent from unjust suspicion, and dragging the guilty to deserved punishment, you may promote the best interests of society, and secure the freedom and happiness of its individual members.

LETTERS ON AGRICULTURE.

(Concluded from last Number.)

Though the cultivation of land by metayers may be unfavourable to its amelioration, still it may be easily imagined, that the smaller products of every little farm will be greater, as each must possess both a garden and a poultry yard. Every field in Lombardy is encircled with a band of poplars, mulberries, oaks, &c., and they are often so thick that the eye can scarcely penetrate the rich growth of leaves. From the boughs, luxuriant vines hang in festoons, and present to the passing traveller a scene of rural beauty and enjoyment which he may search for in vain in other countries. The shade of the trees does not injure the crops, such is the invigorating effect of a humid soil and an Italian sky.

Of the constant succession of crops we here know very little; indeed it is the result of experience alone. So much depends on climate, that we imagine the rotation practised elsewhere can never afford certain information to us. The largest quantity of the most valuable product, which may be taken from a spot of ground in any number of years, is a problem whose solution is of the greatest importance. In Piedmont the rotation is generally as follow:

1st year, Indian corn, manured, Beans—hemp.

2d year, Wheat.

3d year, Clover, turned up after the first cutting and fallowed by a fallow.

4th year, Wheat.

This rotation, says M. de Chateauvieux, is one of the most abundant, and may be pursued indefinitely, notwithstanding the recurrence of wheat, though perhaps the result may be atributed to the abundance of manure furnished by a meadow cut three times. After stating that a farm of sixty arpents supported a family of eight or nine persons, who kept twenty-two head of large cattle, of which two oxen and a cow are fattened every year, as well as one or two hogs, that it gave about one hundred and twenty-five dollars worth of silk, and furnished more wine than could be consumed, that the preparatory crop of Indian corn and beans almost subsisted the metayers, and that nearly all the grain might be sold, as well as a great quantity of smaller products, he celebrates the industry and management of the Piedmontese proprietors in the following terms: 'It will be easy for you, after this, to conceive how Piedmont is perhaps, of all countries, that where the economy and management of land is best understood, and the phenomenon of its great population and immense exportation of produce will thus be explained.'

In the neighbourhood of Placenza, cattle rather than grain constitute the wealth of the farmer. The cows and oxen are distinguished by immense horns and beautiful figures, and we believe that our American race is in no way to be compared with them.—Their origin is said to be Hungarian; the males are noble animals, but the cows give little milk. To remedy this inconvenience, two thousand cows are imported from Switzerland, and the valuable qualities of the animal are thus perpetuated. The cattle are almost universally of a slate-grey colour. The rotation of crops is here as follows:

1st year, Indian corn and hemp, manured.

2d year, Wheat.

3d year, Winter beans.

4th year, Wheat, manured.

5th year, Clover, ploughed after the first cutting.

6th year, Wheat.

This succession, however, can only be pursued in a rich soil, which is manured every three years. There is one article we beg leave to notice particularly. We imagine that the winter bean might easily be introduced among us, and with great advantage, as it is capable of supporting the cold of the severest winter. It is sown in the beginning of September, and it must have considerable growth before autumn to resist the attacks of the cold. The stalk then perishes by the frost, but at the moment the genial warmth of the spring is felt, two or three new stalks arise, which bloom in the month of May, and the beans are fit to gather at the end of July. The management of this important vegetable we give in the words of the author. 'La culture est extrêmement simple; aprés a récolte du blé fumé, on retourne la terre par un seul labour et on la laisse émietter par l'influence de la saison. Aux premiers jours de Septembre on séme les féves, soit en les enterrant á la charrue, soit en les recoverant á la herse, soit enfin avec le semoire, qui les place par rangées, de manière à pouvoir au printemps les sarcler avec la houe à cheval. Si on ne suit pas cette dernière méthode, il faut les sarcler à la main, dans le courant d'avril.' The culture of the winter bean is suited to argillaceous soils, and while it allows the proper intervals between ploughing the ground and sowing wheat which succeeds, it is admirably calculated to maintain the fertility of the ground.

The plains which border on the Po, in the vicinity of Parma and Lodi, support those fine animals, whose milk is converted into the celebrated Parmesan cheese. The grass is here far more valuable than any crop of grain. In the summer the cows are housed and fed with the green grass of the first and second mowings: that of the third is converted into hay. At the end of autumn the cows are allowed to pick up whatever may be left in the fields. These meadows are perhaps the most fertile on earth; they are generally mowed four times a year. The cheese is here never made from less than fifty cows, and as the farms are small, there is one common establishment, to which the milk is brought twice during the day; an account of it is kept by the cheesemaker and settled in cheese every six months. The same plan has been introduced in Switzerland.

In the Milanese, the farms are larger than in other parts of Italy, because the culture of the grasses demands less care and labour than other branches of farming, and fewer advances. Irrigation is here carried to such an extent, that every two or three arpents can be inundated by its own canal. The good quality of the grass, however, in time becomes deteriorated, other plants gradually spring up in the place of the grasses; the sluices are then closed, and the ground is ploughed for hemp; after which, and a crop of legumes, oats, and wheat, it is again laid down in grass. A meadow will generally last fifteen years, and the course of harvests returns every five. M. de Chateauvieux gives the following remarkable outline:

1st year, Hemp, followed by legumes.

2d year, Oats.

3d year, Wheat, followed by legumes.

4th year, Indian corn.

5th year, Wheat.

15th year, Natural meadow, dunged every 3 years, and mowed 4 times a year.

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20 years 67

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Of these sixty-seven crops from the same ground there are sixty-one for the use of animals, five for the sustenance of man, and only one for his clothing. There is, perhaps, no country on the face of the earth