ITALIAN PICTURES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16550, 14 May 1914, Page 2

ITALIAN PICTURES.

MR BUDDO ON TOTJR. :: . THE OLD-WORLD FARMER. , Tho Hon D. Buddo, M.P. for Kaia- i poi, is at present on a trip to Europe. ! In a letter to a friend in Kaiapoi he , gives the following account of his j travels in Italy and his impressions of

life on tho land:— ''Landing at Naples, I took a trip to Pompeii-to see the remains of the' town that Vesuvius buried with vol- ; canio ashes 1900 years ago. The . Italian Government has carted off some eighteen feet of this volcanic ' shower from an area as big as the town of Kaiapoi, and now one can see howthey ground their corn in a big stone '1 hopper inside another with a hole for a stick to go through and one can fancy the old Romans being set to turn' this'machine in their spare time. The best houses had their walls painted in ; what even yet aro beautiful designs. These old chaps seem to have been > quite up-to-date—public baths, both hot and cold, and evidently a Turkish' 1 bath system with checks to go in. They had a really good theatre, too big to have a roof, seated for 5000; -Evi-. dently when an entertainment was on. half the town turned out. , • "But I ; must get back to the land, 1 -To a New Zealander it seems that every rood of good laud supported a worker. Hardly any fences, the boundaries being a few stones in line a foot high. The cultivation is mostly spade work and the whole family turn out and dig and I don't think an eight-hour day is the rule. Where the farms are larger, say 50 to 100 acres, ai plough is- used, with a pole to which are fastened two useful looking bullocks. One man drives and turns over a good deep furrow. I saw no horses ploughinf but on a large farm 5-disc harrows were working, each drawn by two bullocks. On the whole the system of 1 working may bo old-fashioned but I do not think it possible to take more out of the land than Italian farmers do. Vines on high poles run up every rid°e in a field of oats or wheat, and after harvest the land \ is dug up or ploughed and green stuff sown. A great deal of vegetables must be used, j Erery hill of reasonable height that ( is not rockv is terraced and growß grapes, as high as half-way up Mount Grey. Everybody seems comfortable. I was informed that nearly oil the gardens or farms were leasehold (this has no reference to New Zealand land tenure), but whatever the system is in- j tense cultivation is making Italy support a population of some thirty-five

million. '' "1 spent soma time in Rom© and • met lots of dukes and princes visiting the city of churches* They were riding; »I was walking. Everywhere I went there were crowds of visitors to this ancient seat of a Government that ruled a great part of the world. I will not describe the ruins, but will remind Kaiapoi that the old Colosseum or theatre would probably seat all the j people in Christchurch on a first-clasa '■ show night. ; " Between Milan and the Alps is one of the best districts for the silkworm.. The trees run for many miles along the railway and aro generally growing on. land cultivated for grain. There i* little grass for pasture grown in Italy* Everywhere it is cultivation aud thougl' there were uo cows in the fields I coulc quite understand when the warm weather came they would be tethered 01 • ' herded on the "small plots of grass noi used for hay. By the way, the cattle were a very useful lot, fine workers in the dray or plough, and I saw some good cows being driven in some of the towns that would be very profitable on a New Zealand dairy farm. There* were no mixed herds of cattle. The Italian sticks to his own breed. The sheep I saw were just middling, and would hardly make good Canterbury half-breds, and the wool was very short —evidently a mutton breed. Altogether tho Italian farmer or gardener makes the most of everything and tit he does drive a very 6iuall donkey or pony cart and ploughs with bullocks he wastes nothing and does much to make sunny Italy a prosperous country. " I cross the Alps to-morrow via the Simplon tunnel and will write you what I think of France as a farming country. The Alps look not unlike our South Island mountains and like them do not carry much stock to the acre but they are a great tourist at- ' traction."