by everyday experience. In effect, all the
farmers whom I have consulted, affirm, that they invariably lose by
grain cultivation, and that they never resort to it, but to prevent the
land from being overgrown by brushwood or forests, and rendered unfit
for profitable pasturage."[36]

Extraordinary as these facts are, as to the difference between the
profits of pasturage and tillage in the Agro Romano, it is only by the
most rigid economy, and reducing the shepherds to the lowest amount of
subsistence consistent with the support of life, that the former yields
any profits at all. The wages of the shepherds are only fifty-three
francs (L2) for the winter season, and as much for the summer; the
proprietors, in addition, furnishing them with twenty ounces of bread
a-day, a half-pound of salt meat, a little oil and salt a-week. As to
wine, vinegar, or fermented liquors, they never taste any of them from
one year's end to another. Such as it is, their food is all brought to
them from Rome; for in the whole Campagna there is not an oven, a
kitchen, or a kitchen-garden, to furnish an ounce of vegetables or
fruits. The clothing of these shepherds is as wretched as their fare. It
consists of sheep-skin, with the wool outside; a few rags on their legs
and thighs, complete their vesture. Lodging or houses they have none;
they sleep in the open air, or nestle into some sheltered nook among the
ruined tombs or aqueducts which are to be met with in the wilderness, in
some of the caverns, which are so common in that volcanic region, or
beneath the arches of the ancient catacombs. A few spoons and coarse
jars form their whole furniture; the cost of that belonging to
twenty-nine shepherds, required for the 2500 sheep, is only 159 francs
(L7.) The sum total of the expense of the whole twenty-nine persons,
including wages, food, and every thing, is only 1038 crowns, or L250
a-year; being about L8, 10s. a-head annually. The produce of the flock
is estimated at 7122 crowns (L1780) annually, and the annual profit 1972
crowns, or L493.[37]

The other table given by Nicolai, exhibits, on a similar expenditure of
capital, the profit of tillage; and it is so inconsiderable, as rarely,
and that only in the most favourable situations, to cover the expense of
cultivation. The labourers, who almost all come from the neighbouring
hills, above the level of the malaria, are obliged to be brought from a
distance at high wages for the time of their empl