50 remain. Multiply by 100,
the result is 5,000 scudi (about L1,070), which will be the net income
arising from the 100 rubbia cultivated in corn. The same extent of
land under pasturage will produce L160 or L180.

Consider, moreover, that it is not the net, but the gross income,
which constitutes the wealth of a country. The cultivation of 100
rubbia, before it puts 5,000 scudi into the farmer's pockets, has put
some 8,000 scudi in circulation. These eight thousand scudi are
distributed among a thousand or fifteen hundred poor creatures who are
sadly in want of them. Pasture-farming, on the contrary, is only
profitable to three persons, the landlord, the breeder, and the
herdsman. Add to this, that in substituting arable for pasture
farming, you substitute health for disease, a more important
consideration than any other.

But churchmen who hold or administer lands in mortmain, will never
consent to such a salutary resolution. It does not profit them
directly enough. As long as they have the upper hand, they will prefer
their own ease, and the certainty of their income, to the future
welfare of the people.

Pius VI., a Pope worthy to have statues erected to him, conceived the
heroic project of forcing a change upon them. He decided that 23,000
rubbia should be annually cultivated in the Agro Romano, and that all
the land should in turn be subjected to manual labour. Pius VII. did
still better. He decided that Rome, the _origo mali_, should be the
first to apply the remedy. He had a circuit of a mile traced round the
capital, and ordered the proprietors to cultivate it without further
question. A second, and then a third, were to succeed to the first.
The result would have been the disappearance, in a few years, of
malaria, and the gradual population of the solitudes. The purification
of the atmosphere would, too, be further promoted by planting trees
round the fields. Excellent measures these, although tinged by
despotism. Enlightened despotism repairs the errors of clumsy
despotism. But what could the will of two men avail against the
passive resistance of a caste? The laws of Pius VI. and Pius VII. were
never enforced. Cultivation, which had extended over 16,000 rubbia
under the reign of Pius VI., is reduced to an annual average of 5,000
or 6,000 under the paternal inspection of Pius IX. Not only is the
planting of young trees abandoned, but the sheep are allowed to nibble
down the tender shoots of the old ones.