there is another circumftance, which might induce them to try
-this kind o f cultivation, and that is, the facility o f tranfporting
their fruit to Venice, The p.ifDge requires no long time, and
frequently may be made in fewer hours than muft be employed
in traniporting the Paduan or Vicantine fruit to the capital,
Befides, the culture o f fruit trees requires no very great attention
; which is an advantage that ought alfo to be calculated in a
country, where the affiduous,labours,, of the peaiants arc conftant-
ly neeaful fur the corn, vines, and olives, the principal, and
fure produds.
The Maiz, or Indian corn, is not much cultivated, nor would
it turn to account in this riland, as it requires rich and moift foil,
reiembling its native land of America. The people of Cherfi
are judicious enough not to endeavour to force this grain to grow
on the parched fides o f their hills; and it would be well i f our
mountaineers followed their example,
Pulfe, and garden herbs, thrive very well, but th? inhabitants
think little about garden ilriff; their whole attention being
taken up about the more important improvements of their vine
and olive yards', r m
I believe the culture o f potatoes might prove very ufeful to
this country, as well as to feveral others in the neighbourhood;
though perhaps they have been recommended with too much
folemnity, for our, rich and fertile lands. With us they may be
o f advantage in preparing the land, but in thofe mountainous
countries they might ferve, as in Scotland, for food to the inhabitants.
They would be very convenient for hilly countries
which produce little corn; and the common people o f Cherfq
woujd
would gladly make ufe of' them, ' as they now eat, T know- not
whether through depravation o f tafte, or by cuftom, which perhaps
took its rife from feme former famine, fmall loaves made
o f roots o f the A n ti, macerated with a little water, and reduced
to a paite exaftly in the fame manner as is ufed in feme parts of
Sweden.* Thefe loves have a kind o f fweetiih tafte, but too her-
bacious. They cannot naturally be very wholefeme, and the
carelefs mamner in which they are baked muft contribute much,
to pr.eferve the cauftick quality o f the Arus,
As the culture o f potatoes, and other farinaceous roots in this
ifiand would prove a very opportune relief to the poor, in confe-
qence o f the fcarcity o f corn; fo the introduftion' o f cheft-
nuts in the rocky and naked parts; would be im o ft advantageous
improvement, and -in the courfe o f a few years would (how its
good e fie ¿Is. Befides the great yearly-benefit of a fruit reducible
to bread, and which requires very little care, the inhabitants
might, in the courfe of time, recover fome good land on the
fides of the hills by the defence the cheftnut-trees would give
it from the wind, rain, and feorching heat o f the fun, and o f
courfe the aridity of the country would be leflened. In the hills
of Bologna, in many parts o f Tufcany, the Modahefe, and t o
other provinces out o f Italy, the cheftnuts are aft u ally the manna
o f the mountaineers, who feed on them almsft all the year
round, and are well fati;died, healthy, and robuft to an extrao-
dinary degree. Nor can it reafenably be alledged that the ch ft-
nut tree would not grow on the ifiand o f CherJo, as might be
faid of feme other plants, and exotick methods o f cultivation; for
that tree is very eafily reared, and much in ufe among the Auf-
ftrian fubjefts on the neighbouring continent. This fuppofition,
that
* V, Linnael iter Odandlcum, & Gothland icum.