by Janet Ross.
Originally published in Longman's Magazine (Longman, Green, & Co.) vol.3 #16 (Feb 1884).
Agriculture in Italy, at least in Tuscany, has changed so little since old Virgil sang, that his descriptions would pass muster with any peasant of the present day. The 'hardy rustic' still goes into the woods and seeks for an elm or, by preference, an oak, to fashion into a plough-beam, for a 'stanga' or 'stiva,' stegola (handle), not less than eight feet long, and for the earthboards, called 'orecchi,' aures (ears), and also for the share-beams with double backs, called 'dentale a due dorsi,' duplici aptantur dentalia dorso, which hold the 'gombere,' vomero, or large iron coulter for breaking up the earth, and the 'vangheggiola' or smaller one for making furrows for sowing. On the slopes of the hills of Fiesole the whole plough is often called 'bombero,' instead of 'aratro.' The yoke is rudely made of lime or beech, and the capacious chimney of the peasant's house still affords room for seasoning the wood.
The 'aja,' or threshing-floor is still made solid with potter's clay, and beaten hard. Virgil recommends a huge roller, which is an unknown implement in Tuscany. The careful peasant still picks and chooses beans, maize, and such large seeds one at a time by hand, and the ancient theory that a fine crop of bloom on the walnut-trees indicates a good wheat-harvest still holds as good, witness the well-known proverb:
Quando le noce vengono a mucchierelli
La va bene pei ricchi e i poverelli.
(When the walnuts come in handfuls,
All goes well for rich and poor.)
I cannot recognise any of Virgil's names for olives, orchades, radii, or pausia, in the Tuscan 'morinelle,' 'infrantoie,' 'rosselline, 'correggiuole,' or 'pendoline' and 'leccine.' The two first named are also called 'morcai,' because they contain more oil than the others and make more 'morchia' or pulp in the crushing-machine. They are larger olives, but not so aromatic in taste as some of the smaller sorts. The approved way of making an olive plantation is still to hew an old stock in small pieces for planting, when a young olive-tree springs from the sapless wood:
Quin et caudicibus sectis, mirabile dictu!
Truditur e sicco radix oleagina ligno.
Pliny says that olive-wood worked and made into hinges for doors has been known to sprout; but on propounding this to a Tuscan countryman I met with extreme disbelief.
Some rash innovators have lately suggested sowing olive-kernels and grafting the young trees; but Tuscans do not like changes and are apt to quote:
Chi lascia la via vecchia per la nuova
Sa quel che lascia, non sa quel che trova.
(Whoso leaves the old road for the new,
Knows what he leaves, but not what he may find.)
If Virgil found it impossible to enumerate the different kinds of grapes and their names, how much more so is it the case to-day? But his praises of the Falernian wine are well deserved. White Falernian is excellent, and has an aroma and bouquet of its own, withal strong and generous. Tuscany is deservedly proud of her 'Chianti,' and 'Vin Santo' from any respectable 'fattoria' is not to be despised. But the worst of Italian wines is, that you are seldom sure of getting the same class of wine two years running.
The manner of making wine has not changed since the time of Virgil. The white oxen bring the grapes from the fields, in a vat placed on an unwieldy, heavy ox-cart, painted scarlet, to the 'tinaja,' or place where the 'tini' or vats are. The grapes are emptied out into 'bigoncie,' tall wooden pails without handles, which the men carry on their shoulders. The grapes are poured into the immense open vats, where they are stamped upon night and morning by the bare-legged peasants, to prevent the upper stratum of grapes becoming acid by too long a contact with the air. When the fermentation has ceased the clear must is run off; a man gets into the vat and pitchforks the murk into 'bigoncie' again, which are emptied into the winepress. As a pictorial subject this press is delightful, but it is inconvenient and extremely wasteful. Two huge posts of wood support an immense beam, through which works a wooden screw, finishing at the bottom in a square block of wood with two square holes straight through it. Under this stands what is called the 'gabbia' (cage), a round, vat-shaped, iron-clamped receptacle, made of strong bars of wood. The murk is put into this, and when it is full, 'toppi,' round slabs of wood, like colossal cheeses, are piled on the top of the murk. Then a long pole is stuck into one of the square holes at the bottom of the screw, and to the other end is hooked a rope, which is secured round a turning pillar of wood about eight feet off, with a handle against which three or four men throw their whole weight. Slowly, with many creaks and groans, the huge block of wood descends on the round slabs and the rope curls round the pillar, while from between the bars of the press gushes out a dark, turbid, dirty-looking liquid, which one can hardly believe will ever turn into ruby wine. This operation is repeated by unhooking the rope, lifting the beam out of its hole, and carrying it, on a man's shoulder, to the hole behind, until the murk by sheer physical force is pressed into a compact mass and contains no more liquid.
Virgil's excellent advice about thoroughly seasoning and breaking up the land before planting vines is carried out to the letter in Tuscany, where the ditcher makes a trench at least six feet deep and four feet wide, called 'scasso reale,' which is left open to sun, wind, and rain for six months or a year before it is again filled in, after having been drained in a rough and ready manner by pitching all available stones into the bottom of the trench. The vinecuttings, 'maglioli,' or, better still, two-year old rooted plants, 'barbatelli,' are then planted two on each side of a young maple-tree destined for their support. If a vineyard is to be made, the quincunx system, recommended by Virgil, is always followed, and you will still hear the head of the gang of workmen saying 'they must be like soldiers, properly in line.' A little further on you will see a sturdy peasant following the plough, and others sowing and hoeing over the field; one at least will be singing a 'stornello' at the top of his voice. Their legs are generally bare far above the knee, and 'nudus ara, sere nudus' is at once recalled to your mind. Down in the valley, by the brawling streamlet, whose course you can trace far away into the blue distance by the double line of tall poplars, glinting in the sun, grow the tall, graceful, blue-green canes (Arundo donax). What would they do in Tuscany without the 'canne'? Hedges are mended, young trees staked, and vines trained on 'canne.' They need no care, and are as useful as they are ornamental.
The warning against planting olive-trees in the vineyards, for fear of fire, is no longer regarded; on the contrary, olives are very generally planted in the new-fashioned 'vigne alla francese,' or vineyards according to the French system, partly because they give very little shade, and partly with an eye to the future, in case the dreaded phylloxera were to devastate Italy, when the unhappy proprietors would have at least their olive-trees to fall back upon. The tree sacred to Pallas will grow on the wild mountain side, in the 'biancana' or white marl, which is so poor that even the vine needs a very large quantity of manure in order to succeed well. Virgil's advice to study the colour of the soil is borne out in the Tuscan proverb—
Terra bianca, tosto stanca;
Terra nera, buon gran mena.
(White earth is soon exhausted;
Black earth bears good wheat.)
Vines are still planted and trained as in Virgil's day; and, alas! his warning against the 'poison of the hard tooth' of sheep and goats still holds good. Would that all goats had long ago been sacrificed to Bacchus!
The fashion, in Tuscany at least, and I believe more or less all over Italy, is to keep a herd numbering from 10 to 300 sheep or goats at your neighbours' expense. Hedges are ruined, forests denuded of underwood and young trees; and often it is the syndic of the village, or some important person in the commune, who thus sets the law (for there is a law against permitting goats and sheep to injure other people's property) at defiance. Being persons of authority they are not likely to be attacked for breaking the laws they ought to administer.
The care of vines, as Virgil says, is never-ending, the ground must be dug over three or four times in the year, and the clods broken with the back of the hoe. As soon as the labour of the vintage is finished that of pruning begins. If the Tuscans laid to heart what the poet so truly observes—
Be the first to dig the ground, &c.;
Be the latest to reap the produce,
the wine would much improve. As a rule the grapes in Tuscany are picked too soon, with a consequent loss of saccharine and alcohol in the wine. The old saying though, 'Fammi povera, ti farò ricco' (Make me poor, I will make thee rich), is being more followed, and the vines are more scientifically pruned and with better instruments.
The propagation of the vines is done in various ways. The 'magliolo,' which I take to be Virgil's truncus, is the most used. The well-ripened wood of the long branches of the vine is cut into lengths of about 3 feet; nearly 2 feet is pushed underground with a long iron instrument which has a deep slit at one end, like two fingers. Then there is the 'propaggine' (propaginis arcus), which consists in arching a long vine-branch and burying about a foot of it underground. When the roots are formed this is severed from the parent plant; but they say the vine is not so long-lived as when treated in the first-mentioned way.
Cattle are a great resource to the Tuscans, and they take a legitimate pride in the noble white oxen from the Val di Chiana, with small heads and horns, large liquid brown eyes, and soft, fine skins. I have seen a pair at the fair at Prato, standing twenty-three hands high, their beautiful heads all decked with various coloured bits of cloth and small looking-glasses. Round their immense bodies was tied a scarlet ribbon to show off still more their girth. One involuntarily repeated Lord Macaulay's lines—
And deck the bull, Mevania's bull,
The bull as white as snow.
The breeding of these cattle is most profitable; they are all stall-fed, as pasture is unknown in Tuscany. It is generally the work of the women and boys and girls to collect the fodder, which varies with the time of year from grass and clover to vine, elm, and oak leaves. The calves are most carefully attended to, and Virgil's advice not to fill the pails with milk, white as snow, but to leave it all for the beloved young, is perforce attended to, as the large white breed are such poor milkers that they have but just enough for their calves. When a milch cow is wanted she is bought from the herds driven twice a year down from the Swiss Alps. But Italians use so little milk and butter, that in any rather out-of-the-way village it is impossible to buy either.
As to the horses, so beautifully described by Virgil that one recognises at once a first-class breed, their descendants are indeed degenerate! The Italian horse, generally speaking, is a wretched animal. Small, ill-made, cow-hocked, overworked and underfed, broken-in and made to do hard work at between two and three years old, he is the type of what a horse ought not to be. The small ponies are the best animals they have now in Italy. They probably owe something to Eastern blood, as their heads, legs, and good hoofs recall the Arab. They are fast and hardy, but generally overdriven, which ruins their paces.
The sheep and goats, as I have before said, are a real pest in Tuscany, and the municipalities are beginning to awake to the damage they commit. The milk-cheese described by Virgil is extremely popular to the present day. The sheep are milked, and the milk is slightly warmed over a fire; some 'presame' is thrown in, which consists of a mixture of rennet and the beard of the wild artichoke. In four hours the milk is set; and large quantities are sold, neatly folded up in a mat of green rushes strung together. It is called 'raveggiolo.' Unless salt is added it will not keep good more than twelve hours. To make the 'raveggiolo' into cheese is a simple operation: it is put on an inclined plane of basketwork and gently pressed with the hands for some time. It seems some of the shepherds have a reputation for making far better cheese than others, and this is attributed to their having hotter hands. I have, though, noticed that a pretty daughter often has a great deal to do with the goodness of the cheese.
The lambs are killed when between twenty-eight and thirty-five days old—a great waste of meat. But Italians as a rule will not eat mutton, and lamb is often passed off as kid, which is considered more delicate.
Bees are usually kept by the monks, and few things are more picturesque and serenely beautiful than an old monastery garden in the spring-time. The double avenues of dark cypresses, and a tangled undergrowth of rosemary, lavender, and China roses, the grass all enamelled with daffodils, primroses, and wild orchises, and the bees busily humming hither and thither, form a picture not easily forgotten.
The hives are almost invariably made of the hollowed trunks of willow trees, closed at the top and bottom with boards, and the cracks filled up with clay; very like what is described in the Georgics.
A village priest, living not far from Florence, has invented a wooden hive of most ingenious fashion, and a way of taking the honey without destroying the combs. Don Giotto has the rare gift of handling bees without having to fear their anger and painful sting. He will walk up to a hive of strange bees, open it, and take out the small inhabitants, who crawl all over him, and seem rather to like being disturbed; while the priest's kindly face beams with pleasure, he being an enthusiastic apiculturist.
Bees were always popular in Italy, and Messer Giovanni Rucellai's 'Le Api' (The Bees) still is a standard work, particularly on account of the beautiful Italian, for the author's notions about bees are on a par with Virgil's. He wrote 'Le Api' in 1524, and published the first edition in 1539.
Many of my readers must have often compared Virgil with Italy of the present day. The love of home and country, and the strong family affections which are so striking now, are described by the old Mantuan poet, whose 'Praise of Italy' is the most exulting hymn ever written in honour of a country.
'But neither the groves of Media, that land of wealth, nor fair Ganges, and Hermes turbid with its slime of gold, can vie with the glories of Italy. . . . . . Teeming crops o'erspread it, and the juice of the Massic vine; olive-trees possess it, and goodly herds; hence comes the warrior-horse, that proudly bounds into the field; hence the snowy flocks, Clitumnus, and the bull, the chiefest victim, which, often bathed in thy hallowed stream, lead to the shrines of the gods the triumphs of Rome. Here is ceaseless spring, and summer in months where summer is strange. . . . . . Think too of so many glorious cities and laboured works, so many towns piled by the hand of man on steepy crags, and the streams that flow beneath those ancient walls! . . . . . Hail, realm of Saturn, mighty mother of fruits, mighty mother of men!'