Crossing the Piana, drove near four hours over horrible roads across
waste land, thinly wooded, without houses or cultivation. On my
expressing surprise that the territory of so enlightened a prince would
lie thus neglected, the abate said this land was a fief of the see of
Pianura, and that the Duke was desirous of annexing it to the duchy. I
asked if it were true that his Highness had given his people a
constitution modelled on that of the Duke of Tuscany. He said he had
heard the report; but that for his part he must deplore any measure
tending to debar the clergy from the possession of land. Seeing my
surprise, he explained that, in Italy at least, the religious orders
were far better landlords than the great nobles or the petty sovereigns,
who, being for the most part absent from their estates, left their
peasantry to be pillaged by rapacious middlemen and stewards: an
argument I have heard advanced by other travellers, and have myself had
frequent occasion to corroborate.
On leaving the Bishop's domain, remarked an improvement in the roads.
Flat land, well irrigated, and divided as usual into small holdings. The
pernicious metayer system exists everywhere, but I am told the Duke is
opposed to it, though it is upheld not only by the landed class, but by
the numerous economists that write on agriculture from their closets,
but would doubtless be sorely puzzled to distinguish a beet-root from a
turnip.
The 3rd.
Set out early to visit Pianura.
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