Milan, Thursday, July 10, 1851.

Lombardy is of course the richest and most productive portion of Italy. Piedmont alone vies with her, and is improving far more rapidly, but Lombardy has great natural capacities peculiarly her own. Her soil, fertile and easily tilled from the first, was long ago improved by a system of irrigation which, probably from small and casual beginnings, gradually overspread the whole table land, embracing, beside that of the Adige, the broad valley of the Po and the narrower intervals of its many tributaries, which, rushing down from the gorges of the Alps on the west and the north, are skillfully conducted so as to refresh and fertilize the whole plain, and, finding their way ultimately to the Po, are thence drawn again by new canals to render like beneficence to the lower, flatter intervals of Venezia and the Northern Papal States. Nowhere can be found a region capable of supporting a larger population to the square mile than Lombardy.

American Agriculture has just two arts to learn from Lombardy—Irrigation and Tree-Planting. Nearly all our great intervales might be irrigated immensely to the profit of their cultivators. Even where the vicinity of mountains or other high grounds did not afford the facility here taken advantage of, I am confident that many plains as well as valleys might be profitably irrigated by lifting water to the requisite height and thence distributing it through little canals or ditches as here. Where a head of water may be obtained to supply the requisite power, the cost need not be considerable after the first outlay; but, even though steam-power should be requisite, in connection with the admirable Pumping machinery of our day, Irrigation would pay liberally in thousands of cases. Such easily parched levels as those of New-Jersey and Long Island would yield at least double their present product if thoroughly irrigated from the turbid streams and marshy ponds in their vicinity. Water itself is of course essential to the growth of every plant, but the benefits of Irrigation reach far beyond this. Of the fertilizing substances so laboriously and necessarily applied to cultivating lands, at least three times as great a proportion is carried off in running water as is absorbed and exhausted by the crops grown by their aid; so that if Irrigation simply returned to the land as much fertility as the rains carry off, it would, with decent husbandry, increase in productiveness from year to year. The valley of the Nile is one example among many of what Irrigation, especially from rivers at their highest stage, will do for the soil, in defiance of the most ignorant, improvident and unskillful cultivation. Such streams as the Raritan, the Passaic and most of the New Jersey rivers, annually squander upon the ocean an amount of fertilizing matter adequate to the comfortable subsistence of thousands. By calculation, association, science, labor, most of this may be saved. One hundred thousand of the poor immigrants annually arriving on our shores ought to be employed for years, in New-Jersey alone, in the construction of dams, canals, &c., adequate to the complete irrigation of all the level or moderately sloping lands in that State. Farms are cheaper there to-day than in Iowa for purchasers who can pay for and know how to use them. Long Island can be rendered eminently fertile and productive by systematic and thorough Irrigation; otherwise I doubt that it ever will be.Much of Lombardy slopes very considerably toward the Po, so that the water in the larger or distributing canals is often used to run mills and supply other mechanical power. It might be used also for Manufacturing if Manufactures existed here, and nearly every farmer might have a horse-power or so at command for domestic uses if he chose. We passed yesterday the completely dry beds of what seemed to be small rivers, their water having been entirely drawn away into the irrigating canals on either side, while on either hand there were grist-mills busily at work, and had been for hundreds of years, grinding by water-power where no stream naturally existed. If I mistake not, there are many such in this city, and in nearly all the cities and villages of Lombardy. If our farmers would only investigate this matter of Irrigation as thoroughly as its importance deserves, they would find that they have neglected mines of wealth all around them more extensive and far more reliable than those of California. One man alone may not always be able to irrigate his farm except at too great a cost; but let the subject be commended to general attention, and the expense would be vastly diminished. Ten thousand farms together, embracing a whole valley, may often be irrigated for less than the cost of supplying a hundred of them separately. I trust our Agricultural papers will agitate this improvement.

As to Tree-Planting, there can be no excuse for neglecting it, for no man needs his neighbor's coÖperation to render it economical or effective. We in America have been recklessly destroying trees quite long enough; it is high time that we began systematically to reproduce them. There is scarcely a farm of fifty acres or over in any but the very newest States that might not be increased in value $1,000 by $100 judiciously expended in Tree-Planting, and a little care to protect the young trees from premature destruction. All road-sides, steep hill-sides, ravines and rocky places should be planted with Oak, Hickory, Chestnut, Pine, Locust, &c., at once, and many a farm would, after a few years, yield $100 worth of Timber annually, without subtracting $10 from the crops otherwise depended on. By planting Locust, or some other fast-growing tree, alternately with Oak, Hickory, &c., the former would be ready for use or sale by the time the latter needed the whole ground. Utility, beauty, comfort, profit, all combine to urge immediate and extensive Tree-Planting; shall it not be commenced?

Here in Lombardy there is absolutely no farm, however small, without its rows of Mulberry, Poplar, Walnut, Cherry, &c., overshadowing its canals, brooks, roads, &c., and traversing its fields in all directions. The Vine is very generally trained on a low tree, like one of our Plum or small Cherry trees, so that, viewed at a distance or a point near the ground, the country would seem one vast forest, with an undergrowth mainly of Wheat and Indian Corn. Potatoes, Barley, Rye, &c., are grown, but none of them extensively, nor is much of the soil devoted to Grass. There are no forests, properly so called, but a few rocky hill-sides, which occur at intervals, mainly about half way from Venice to Milan, are covered with shrubbery which would probably grow to trees if permitted. Wheat and all Summer Grains are very good; so is the Grass; so the Indian Corn will be where it is not prevented by the vicious crowding of the plants and sugar-loaf hoeing of which I have frequently spoken. I judge that Italy altogether, with an enormous area planted, will realize less than half the yield she would have from the same acres with judicious cultivation. With Potatoes, nearly the same mistake is made, but the area planted with these is not one-tenth that of Corn and the blunder far less vital.

This ought to be the richest country in the world, yet its people and their dwellings do not look as if it were so. I have seen a greater number of Soldiers and Beggars in passing through it than of men at work; and nearly all work out-doors here who work at all. The dwellings are generally shabby, while Barns are scarce, and Cattle are treading out the newly harvested wheat under the blue sky. New houses and other signs of improvement are rare, and the people dispirited. And this is the garden of sunny, delicious Italy!

THE ITALIANS.

I leave Italy with a less sanguine hope of her speedy liberation than I brought into it. The day of her regeneration must come, but the obstacles are many and formidable. Most palpable among these is an insane spirit of local jealousy and rivalry only paralleled by the "Corkonian" and "Far-down" feud among the Irish. Genoa is jealous of Turin; Turin of Milan; Florence of Leghorn; and so on. If Italy were a Free Republic to-day, there would be a fierce quarrel, and I fear a division, on the question of locating its metropolis. Rome would consider herself the natural and prescriptive capital; Naples would urge her accessible position, unrivaled beauty and ascendency in population; Florence her central and healthful location; Genoa her extensive commerce and unshaken devotion to Republican Freedom, &c., &c. And I should hardly be surprised to see some of these, chagrined by an adverse decision, leaguing with foreign despots to restore the sway of the stronger by way of avenging their fancied wrongs!

And it is too true that ages of subjugation have demoralized, to a fearful extent, the Italian People. Those who would rather beg, or extort, or pander to others' vices, than honestly work for a living, will never do anything for Freedom; and such are deplorably abundant in Italy. Then, like most nations debased by ages of Slavery, these people have little faith in each other. The proverb that "No Italian has two friends" is of Italian origin. Every one fears that his confederate may prove a traitor, and if one is heard openly cursing the Government as oppressive and intolerable in a cafÉ or other public resort, though the sentiment is heartily responded to, the utterer is suspected and avoided as a Police stool-pigeon and spy. Such mutual distrust necessarily creates or accompanies a lack of moral courage. There are brave and noble Italians, but the majority are neither brave nor noble. There were gallant spirits who joyfully poured out their blood for Freedom in 1848-9, but nine-tenths of those who wished well to the Liberal cause took precious good care to keep their carcases out of the reach of Austrian or French bullets. Even in Rome, where, next to Venice, the most creditable resistance was made to Despotism, the greater part of the actual fighting was done by Italians indeed, but refugees from Lombardy, Tuscany and other parts of Italy. Had the Romans who heartily desired the maintenance of the Republic shown their faith by their works, Naples would have been promptly revolutionized and the French driven back to their ships. On this point, I have the testimony of eye-witnesses of diverse sentiments and of unimpeachable character. Rome is heartily Republican to-day; but I doubt whether three effective regiments could be raised from her large native population to fight a single fair battle which was to decide the fate of Italy. So with the whole country except Piedmont, and perhaps Genoa and Venice. I wish the fact were otherwise; but there can be no use in disguising or mis-stating it. Italy is not merely enslaved but debased, and not till after years of Freedom will the mass of her people evince consistently the spirit or the bearing of Freemen. She must be freed through the progress of Liberal ideas in France and Germany—not by her own inherent energies. Not till her masses have learned to look more coolly down the throats of loaded and hostile cannon in fair daylight and be a little less handy with their knives in the dark, can they be relied on to do anything for the general cause of Freedom.

THE AUSTRIANS.

I have not been able to dislike the Austrians personally. Their simple presence in Italy is a grievous wrong and mischief, since, so long as they hold the Italians in subjection, the latter can hardly begin the education which is to fit them for Freedom. Yet it is none the less true that the portion of Italy unequivocally Austrian is better governed and enjoys, not more Liberty, for there is none in either, but a milder form of Slavery, than that which prevails in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, and the paltrier native despotisms. I can now understand, though I by no means concur in, the wish of a quasi Liberal friend who prays that Austria may just take possession of the whole Peninsula, and abolish the dozen diverse Tariffs, Coinages, Mails, Armies, Courts, &c. &c., which now scourge this natural Paradise. He thinks that such an absorption only can prepare Italy for Liberty and true Unity; I, on the contrary, fear that it would fix her in a more hopeless Slavery. Yet it certainly would render the country more agreeable to strangers, whether sojourners or mere travelers.

The Austrian soldiers, regarded as mere fighting machines, are certainly well got up. They are palpably the superiors, moral and physical, of the French who garrison Rome, and they are less heartily detested by the People whom they are here to hold in subjection. Their discipline is admirable, but their natural disposition is likewise quiet and inoffensive. I have not heard of a case of any one being personally insulted by an Austrian since I have been in Italy.—Knowing themselves to be intensely disliked in Italy and yet its uncontrolled masters, it would seem but natural that they should evince something of bravado and haughtiness, but I have observed or heard of nothing of the kind. In fact, the bearing of the Austrians, whether officers or soldiers, has seemed to evince a quiet consciousness of strength, and to say, in the least offensive manner possible—"We are masters here by virtue of our good swords—if you dispute the right, look well that you have a sharper weapon and a vigorous arm to wield it!" To a rule which thus answers all remonstrances against its existence by a quiet telling off of its ranks and a faultless marching of its determined columns, what further argument can be opposed but that of bayonet to bayonet? I really cannot see how the despot-governed, Press-shackled, uneducated Nations are ever to be liberated under the guidance of Peace Societies and their World's Conventions; and, horrible as all War is and ever must be, I deem a few battles a lesser evil than the perpetuity of such mental and physical bondage as is now endured by Twenty Millions of Italians. When the Peace Society shall have persuaded the Emperor Nicholas or Francis-Joseph to disband his armies and rely for the support of his government on its intrinsic justice and inherent moral force, I shall be ready to enter its ranks; but while Despotism, Fraud and Wrong are triumphantly upheld by Force, I do not see how Freedom, Justice and Progress can safely disclaim and repudiate the only weapons that tyrants fear—the only arguments they regard.

LEAVING ITALY.

I have not been long in Italy, yet I have gone over a good share of its surface, and seen nearly all that I much desired to see, except Naples and its vicinity, with the Papal territory on the Perugia route from Rome to Florence. I should have liked more time in Genoa, Rome, Florence and Venice; but sight-seeing was never a passion with me, and I soon tire of wandering from ruin to ruin, church to church, and gallery to gallery. Yet when I stop gazing the next impulse is to move on; for if I have time to rest anywhere, why not at home? Hotel life among total strangers was never agreeable to me—(was it to any one?)—and I do not like that of Italy so well as I at first thought I should. The attendance is well enough, and as to food, I make a point of never quarreling with that I have; though meals far simpler than those served at the regular hotel dinners here would suit me much better. The charges in general are quite reasonable, though I have paid one or two absurd bills. It was at first right pleasant to lodge in what was once a palace, and I still deem a large, high, airy sleeping-room, such as we seldom have in American hotels, but are common here, a genuine luxury. But when with such rooms you have doors that don't shut so as to stay, windows that won't open, locks that won't hold, bolts that won't slide and fleas that won't—ah! won't they bite!—the case is somewhat altered. I should not like to end my days in Italy.

As to the People, if I shall seem to have spoken of them disparagingly, it has not been unkindly. I cherish an earnest desire for their well-being. They do not need flattery, and do not, as a body, deserve praise. Of what are sometimes called the "better classes" (though I believe they are here no better), I have seen little, and have not spoken specially. Of the great majority who, here, as everywhere, must exert themselves to live, whether by working, or begging, or petty swindling, I have seen something, and of these certain leading characteristics are quite unmistakable. An Italian Picture-Gallery seems to me a pretty fair type of the Italian mind and character. The habitual commingling of the awful with the paltry—the sacred and the sensual—Madonna and CircÉ—Christ on the Cross and Venus in the Bath—which is exhibited in all the Italian galleries, seems an expression of the National genius. Am I wrong in the feeling that the perpetual (and often execrable) representation of such awful scenes as the Crucifixion is calculated first to shock but ultimately to weaken the religious sentiment? Of the hundreds of pictures of the infant Jesus I have seen in Italy, there are not five which did not strike me as utterly unworthy of the subject, allowing that it ought to be represented at all. "Men of Athens!" said the straight-forward Paul, "I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." I think the Italians, quite apart from what is essential to their creed, have this very failing, and that it exerts a debilitating influence on their National character. They need to be cured of it, as well as of the vices I have already indicated, in order that their magnificent country may resume its proper place among great and powerful Nations. I trust I am not warring on the faith of their Church, when I urge that "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice"—that no man can be truly devout who is not strictly upright and manly—and that one living purpose of diffusive, practical well-doing, is more precious in the sight of Heaven, than the bones of all the dead Saints in Christendom.

Farewell, trampled, soul-crushed Italy!