cially in Prussia, and poultry is every where attended to, particularly in the neighborhood of Vienna. The culture of forests likewise receives particular attention in that country as well as in France. The common agriculture of Germany is every where improving. Government, as well as individuals, have formed institutions for the instruction of youth in its principles. The Imperial Society of Vienna, the Georgical Institution at Presburg, and that of professor Thaer, in Prussia, may be numbered among recent institutions of this description.

Agriculture in Italy. The climate, soil and surface of Italy are so various as to have given rise to a greater diversity of culture than is to be found in the whole of Europe besides. Corn, grass, butcher's meat, cheese, butter, rice, silk, cotton, wine, oil and fruits of all kinds are found in perfection in this fertile country. Loudon asserts that only one-fifth of the surface of Italy is considered sterile, while only a fifth of the surface of France is considered fertile. The population of Italy is greater, in proportion to its surface, than that of either France or Great Britain. Among the writers on the rural economy of Italy are, Arthur Young, in 1788, Sismondi, in 1801, and Chateauvieux, in 1812.—In Lombardy, the lands are generally farmed by metayers (from metà, half). The landlord pays the taxes and repairs the buildings. The tenant provides cattle, implements and seeds, and the produce is divided. The irrigation of lands, in Lombardy, is a remarkable feature of Italian husbandry. All canals taken from rivers are the property of the state, and may be carried through any man's land, provided they do not pass through a garden, or within a certain distance of a mansion, on paying the value of the ground occupied. Water is not only employed for grass-lands (which, when fully watered, are mowed four and sometimes five times a year, and, in some cases, as early as March), but is conducted between the narrow ridges of corn-lands, in the hollows between drilled crops, among vines, or to flood lands, to the depth of a foot or more, which are sown with rice. Water is also used for depositing a surface of mud, in some places where it is charged with that material. The details of watering, for these and other purposes, are given in various works, and collected in those of professor Re. In general, watered lands let at one third higher price than those not irrigated.-The imple

ments and operations of agriculture in Lombardy are both imperfect. The plough is a rude contrivance, with a handle 13 or 14 feet long. But the cattle are fed with extraordinary care. They are tied up in stalls, bled once or twice, cleaned and rubbed with oil, afterwards combed and brushed twice a day. Their food in summer is clover or other green herbage; in winter, a mixture of elm-leaves, clover-hay, and pulverized walnut-cake, over which boiling water is poured, and bran and salt added. In a short time, the cattle cast their hair, grow smooth, round and fat, and so improved as to double their value to the butcher.-The tomato or love-apple (solanum lycopersicum), so extensively used in Italian cookery, forms an article of field-culture near Pompeii, and especially in Sicily, from whence it is sent to Naples, Rome and several towns on the Mediterranean sea.

Agriculture of the U. States of America. The territory of the U. States is very extensive, and presents almost every variety of soil and climate. The agriculture of this wide-spread_country embraces all the products of European cultivation, together with some (such as sugar and indigo) which are rarely made objects of tillage in any part of Europe. A full description of the agriculture of these states would require a large volume. We shall confine ourselves to such sketches as we may deem of most practical importance to those who are or intend to become cultivators of North American soil. The farms of the Eastern, Northern and Middle States consist, generally, of from 50 to 200 acres, seldom rising to more than 300, and generally falling short of 200 acres. These farms are enclosed, and divided either by stone walls, or rail fences made of timber, hedges not being common. The building first erected on a "new lot," or on a tract of land not yet cleared from its native growth of timber, is what is called a loghouse. This is a hut or cabin made of round, straight logs, about a foot in diameter, lying on each other, and notched in at the corners. The intervals between the logs are filled with slips of wood, and the crevices generally stopped with mortar made of clay. The fire-place commonly consists of rough stones, so placed as to form a hearth, on which wood may be burned. Sometimes these stones are made to assume the form of a chimney, and are carried up through the roof; and sometimes a hole in the roof is the only substitute for a chimney. The roof is

made of rafters, forming an acute angle at the summit of the erection, and is covered with shingles, commonly split from pine-trees, or with bark, peeled from the hemlock (pinus canadensis).-When the occupant or "first settler" of this "new land" finds himself in "comfortable circumstances," he builds what is styled a "frame house," composed of timber, held together by tenons, mortises and pins, and boarded, shingled and clapboarded on the outside, and often painted white, sometimes red. Houses of this kind generally contain a dining-room and kitchen and three or four bed-rooms on the same floor. They are rarely destitute of good cellars, which the nature of the climate renders almost indispensable. The farm-buildings consist of a barn, proportioned to the size of the farm, with stalls for horses and cows on each side, and a threshing-floor in the middle; and the more wealthy farmers add a cellar under the barn, a part of which receives the manure from the stalls, and another part serves as a store-room for roots, &c. for feeding stock. What is called a cornbarn is likewise very common, which is built exclusively for storing the ears of Indian corn. The sleepers of this building are generally set up four or five feet from the ground, on smooth stone posts or pillars, which rats, mice or other vermin cannot ascend. With regard to the best manner of clearing forest-land from its natural growth of timber, the following observations may be of use to a "first settler." In those parts of the country where wood is of but little value, the trees are felled in one of the summer months, the earlier in the season the better, as the stumps will be less apt to sprout, and the trees will have a longer time to dry. The trees lie till the following spring, when such limbs as are not very near the ground should be cut off, that they may burn the better. Fire must be put to them in the driest part of the month of May, or, if the whole of that month prove wet, it may be applied in the beginning of June. Only the bodies of the trees will remain after burning, and some of them will be burned into pieces. Those which require to be made shorter are cut in pieces nearly of a length, drawn together by oxen, piled in close heaps, and burned, such trees and logs being reserved as may be needed for fencing the lot. The heating of the soil so destroys the green roots, and the ashes made by the burning are so beneficial as manure to the land, that it will produce a 10

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good crop of wheat or Indian corn without ploughing, hoeing or manuring.-If new land lie in such a situation that its natural growth may turn to better account, whether for timber or fire-wood, it will be an unpardonable waste to burn the wood on the ground. But if the trees be taken off, the land must be ploughed after clearing, or it will not produce a crop of any kind.

The following remarks on this subject are extracted from some observations by Samuel Preston, of Stockport, Pennsylvania, a very observing cultivator. They were first published in the New England Farmer, Boston, Massachusetts, and may prove serviceable to settlers on uncleared lands. Previous to undertaking to clear land, Mr. Preston advises,-"1st. Take a view of all large trees, and see which way they may be felled for the greatest number of small trees to be felled along-side or on them. After felling the large trees, only lop down their limbs; but all such as are felled near them should be cut in suitable lengths for two men to roll and pile about the large trees, by which means they may be nearly all burned up, without cutting into lengths, or the expense of a strong team, to draw them together. 2d. Fell all the other trees parallel, and cut them into suitable lengths, that they may be readily rolled together without a team, always cutting the largest trees first, that the smallest may be loose on the top, to feed the fires. 3d. On hill-sides, fell the timber in a level direction; then the logs will roll together; but if the trees are felled down hill, all the logs must be turned round before they can be rolled, and there will be stumps in the way. 4th. By following these directions, two men may readily heap and burn most of the timber, without requiring any team; and perhaps the brands and the remains of the log-heaps may all be wanted to burn up the old, fallen trees. After proceeding as directed, the ground will be clear for a team and sled to draw the remains of the heaps where they may be wanted round the old logs. Never attempt either to chop or draw a large log, until the size and weight are reduced by fire. The more fire-heaps there are made on the clearing, the better, particularly about the old logs, where there is rotten wood. The best time of the year to fell the timber in a great measure depends on the season's being wet or dry. Most people prefer having it felled in the month of June, when the leaves are of full size. Then, by spreading the leaves and brush over the ground (for

they should not be heaped), if there should be a very dry time the next May, fire may be turned through it, and will burn the leaves, limbs and top of the ground, so that a very good crop of Indian corn and pumpkins may be raised among the logs by hoeing. After these crops come off, the land may be cleared and sowed late with rye and timothy grass, or with oats and timothy in the spring. If what is called a good burn cannot be had in May, keep the fire out until some very dry time in July or August; then clear off the land, and sow wheat or rye and timothy, harrowing several times, both before and after sowing; for, after the fire has been over the ground, the sod of timothy should be introduced as soon as the other crops will admit, to prevent briers, alders, fire-cherries, &c. from springing up from such seeds as were not consumed by the fire. The timothy should stand four or five years, either for mowing or pasture, until the small roots of the forest-trees are rotten; then it may be ploughed; and the best mode which I have observed is, to plough it very shallow in the autumn; in the spring, cross-plough it deeper, harrow it well, and it will produce a first-rate crop of Indian corn and potatoes, and, the next season, the largest and best crop of flax that I have ever seen, and be in order to cultivate with any kinds of grain, or to lay down again with grass.-These directions are to be understood as applying to what are generally called beech lands, and the chopping may be done any time in the winter, when the snow is not too deep to cut low stumps, as the leaves are then on the ground. By leaving the brush spread abroad, I have known such winter choppings to burn as well in a dry time in August as that which had been cut the summer before."-The agricultural implements and farming operations of the U. States are, in most particulars, very similar to those of Great Britain. Circumstances, however, require variations, which the sagacity of the American cultivator will lead him to adopt, often in contradiction to the opinions of those who understand the science better than the practice of husbandry. In Europe, land is dear and labor cheap; but in the U. States, the reverse is the case. The European cultivator is led, by a regard to his own interest, to endeavor to make the most of his land; the American cultivator has the same inducement to make the most of his labor. Perhaps, however, this principle, in America, is generally

carried to an unprofitable extreme, and the farmers would derive more benefit from their land, if they were to limit their operations to such parts of their possessions as they can afford to till thoroughly and to manure abundantly. A man may possess a large landed estate, without being called on by good husbandry to hack and scratch over the whole, as evidence of his title. He may cultivate well those parts which are naturally most fertile, and suffer the rest to remain woodland, or, having cleared a part, lay it down to permanent pasture, which will yield him an annual profit, without requiring much labor.-The climate and soil of the U. States are adapted to the cultivation of Indian corn, a very valuable vegetable, which, it has been supposed, could not be raised to advantage in Great Britain.* This entirely and very advantageously supersedes the field culture of the horse-bean (vicia faba), one of the most common fallow crops in that island. The root husbandry, or the raising of roots for the purpose of feeding cattle, is likewise of less importance in the U. States than in Great Britain. The winters are so severe in the northern section of the Union, that turnips can rarely be fed on the ground, and all sorts of roots are with more difficulty preserved and dealt out to stock, in this country, than in those which possess a milder climate. Besides, hay is more easily made from grass in the U. States than in Great Britain, owing to the season for hay-making being generally more dry, and the sun more powerful. There are many other circumstances which favor the American farmer, and render his situation more eligible than that of the European. He is generally the owner as well as the occupier of the soil which he cultivates; is not burthened with tithes; his taxes are light; and the product of his labors will command more of the necessaries, comforts and innocent luxuries of life.-The American public seem, at present, fully aware of the importance of spirited and scientific agriculture. The state of Massachusetts has appropriated considerable sums to add to the funds of the agricultural societies in that commonwealth. Institutions for the promotion of husbandry, cattleshows and exhibitions of manufactures are common in every part of the Union.

* Mr. Cobbett has lately attempted to raise Indian London, 1828, (A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn,) he corn in England. In a book which he published in professes to have met with much success in the culture of it.

A periodical publication, entitled the American Farmer, is established at Baltimore, and another, called the New England Farmer, is published in Boston. Men of talents, wealth and enterprise have distinguished themselves by their laborious and liberal efforts for the improvement of American husbandry. Merino sheep have been imported by general Humphreys, chancellor Livingston and others, and are now common in the U. States. The most celebrated breeds of British cattle have been imported by colonel Powel of Powelton, near Philadelphia; and there prevails a general disposition, among men of intelligence and high standing in the community, to promote the prosperity of American agriculture. We shall conclude with a few brief notices of some of the most prominent benefits and improvements which modern science has contributed to the art of agriculture. The husbandmen of antiquity, as well as those of the middle ages, were destitute of many advantages enjoyed by the modern cultivator. Neither the practical nor the theoretical agriculturists of those periods had any correct knowledge of geology, mineralogy, chemistry, botany, vegetable physiology or natural philosophy; but these sciences have given the modern husbandman the command of important agents, elements and principles, of which the ancients had no idea. The precepts of their writers were conformable to their experience; but the rationale of the practices they prescribed they could not, and rarely attempted to explain. Nature's most simple modes of operation were to them inexplicable, and their ignorance of causes often led to erroneous calculations with regard to effects. We are indebted to modern science for the following among other improvements: viz. 1. A correct knowledge of the nature and properties of manures, mineral, animal and vegetable; the best modes of applying them, and the particular crops for which particular sorts of manures are best suited. 2. The method of using all manures of animal and vegetable origin while fresh, before the sun, air and rain, or other moisture, has robbed them of their most valuable properties. It was formerly the practice to place barn-yard manure in layers or masses for the purpose of rotting, and turn it over frequently with the plough or spade, till the whole had become a mere caput mortuum, destitute of almost all its original fertilizing substances, and deteriorated in quality almost as much as it' was reduced in

quantity. 3. The knowledge and means of chemically analyzing soils, by which we can ascertain their constituent parts, and thus learn what substances are wanted to increase their fertility. 4. The introduction of the root husbandry, or the raising of potatoes, turnips, mangel-wurzel, &c. extensively, by field husbandry, for feeding cattle, by which a given quantity of land may be made to produce much more nutritive matter than if it were occupied by grain or grass crops, and the health as well as the thriving of the animals in the winter season greatly promoted. 5. Laying down lands to grass, either for pasture or mowing, with a greater variety of grasses, and with kinds adapted to a greater variety of soils; such as orchardgrass (dactylis glomerata), for dry land, foul-meadow-grass (agrostis stricta), for very wet land; herds'-grass or timothy (phleum pratense), for stiff, clayey soils, &c. &c. 6. The substitution of fallow crops (or such crops as require cultivation and stirring of the ground while the plants are growing), in the place of naked fallows, in which the land is allowed to remain without yielding any profitable product, in order to renew its fertility. Fields may be so foul with weeds as to require a fallow, but not what is too of ten understood by that term in this country. "In England, when a farmer is compelled to fallow a field, he lets the weeds grow into blossom, and then turns them down; in America, a fallow means a field where the produce is a crop of weeds running to seed, instead of a crop of grain." 7. The art of breeding the best animals and the best vegetables, by a judicious selection of individuals to propagate from.-These improvements, with others too numerous to be here specified, have rendered the agriculture of the present period very different from that of the middle ages when it had sunk far below the degree of perfection which it had reached among the Romans.

AGRIGENTUM, in ancient geogr.; now Girgenti or Agrigenti; a town in Sicily, in the valley of Mazara, about three miles from the coast. The modern town is near the ruins of the ancient one, is a bishop's see, and lies on the river St. Blaise, 47 miles S. Palermo; long. 13° 33′ E.; lat. 37° 22′, N.; pop. 11,876.-A. was much renowned among the ancients. Different stories are told of its foundation, among which is the fabulous tale, that Dædalus, who fled to Sicily from the resentment of Minos, erected it. Its situation was peculiarly strong and imposing, standing as it

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did on a bare and precipitous rock, 1100 feet above the level of the sea. To this military advantage, the city added those of a commercial nature, being near to the sea, which afforded the means of an easy intercourse with the ports of Africa and the south of Europe. The soil of A. was very fertile. By means of these advantages, the wealth of A. became very great. It was therefore considered the second city in Sicily, and Polybius says (1. ix.) that it surpassed in grandeur of appearance, on account of its many temples and splendid public buildings, most of its contemporaries. Among the most magnificent of these buildings were the temples of Minerva, of Jupiter Atabyris, of Hercules, and of Jupiter Olympius; the latter, which vied in size and grandeur of design with the finest buildings of Greece, is said by Diodorus (Sic. l. xiii.) to have been 340 feet long, 60 broad, and 120 high, the foundation not being included, which was itself remarkable for the immense arches upon which it stood. The temple was ornamented with admirable sculpture. But a war prevented the completion of it, when the roof only remained unfinished. Near the city was an artificial lake, cut out of the solid rock, about a mile in circuit, and thirty feet deep; from which fish were obtained in abundance for the public feasts. Swans and other water-fowl frequented it. Afterwards, the mud having been suffered to accumulate in this basin, it was turned into a remarkably fruitful vineyard. Both the temple of Jupiter Olympius and the lake were the work of a number of Carthaginian captives. The people of Agrigentum were noted for their luxurious and extravagant habits. Their horses were also famous. (Virgil, Æn. 1. iii. v. 705.) After the expulsion of the Carthaginians from Sicily, it fell, with little resistance, under the power of the Romans. Diodorus states the population, in its best days, to have been not less than 120,000 persons. Many of the modern writers describe minutely this interesting spot. Christian churches have there, as in many other places, been erected out of the remains of temples.

AGRIONIA; a Grecian festival, solemnized at night in honor of Bacchus. He was supposed to have fled, and the females assembled to seek him. At length, tired of their vain search, they exclaimed, that he had taken refuge with the Muses, and concealed himself among them. These mysteries have been thought to signify that learning and the muses should accompany good cheer. This solemnity

was followed by a banquet, at the close of which it was customary to propose to each other riddles, whence A. is used to denote a collection of riddles, charades, &c. AGRIPPA, Henry Cornelius, born in 1486, at Cologne, was a man of talents, learning and eccentricity. In his youth, he was secretary to the emperor Maximilian, subsequently served 7 years in Italy, and was knighted. He says that he was acquainted with 8 languages. On quitting the army, he devoted himself to science, and made pretensions to an acquaintance with magic. In certain lectures, he advanced opinions which involved him in contests with the monks for the remainder of his life. In 1530, he wrote a treatise "On the Vanity of the Sciences," which was a caustic satire upon the inefficiency of the common modes of instruction, and upon the monks, theologians and members of the universities. At a subsequent period, he produced another treatise at Antwerp, "On the Occult Philosopher." This was a sketch of mystical theology, explaining, on the principles of the emanative system, the harmony of the elementary, celestial and intellectual worlds. His pretensions to skill in occult science, particularly alchymy, led to his receiving numerous invitations from royal personages and others of high rank, and his inability to answer their absurd expectations produced their subsequent neglect of him. After an active, varied and eventful life, he died at Grenoble, in 1539.

AGRIPPA, Marcus Vipsanius; à Roman, the son-in-law of Augustus, with whom he was twice consul. Although not of high birth, his talents soon raised him to honor. He distinguished himself as a general, and commanded the fleet of Augustus in the battle at Actium. As the minister and friend of the emperor, he rendered many services to him and the Roman state. He was impartial and upright, and a friend of the arts. To him Rome is indebted for 3 of her principal aqueducts, and several other works of public use and ornament. (See Augustus.)

AGRIPPINA. 1. The wife of the emperor Tiberius, who very reluctantly_divorced her, when obliged to marry Julia, the daughter of Augustus, after the death of her first husband, Agrippa. A. was subsequently married to Asinius Gallus, whom Tiberius, still retaining his love for his former wife, condemned to perpetual imprisonment, in the spirit of a jealous rival. -2. The daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, by Julia, daughter of Augustus;