367. A beautiful beautiful road reaches from Rome to Genoa.
Following it, one sees that Italy is a very hilly country. The smooth stone road follows the shore of the sea, but even here in many places it must go over high hills. This is because the waves beat at the base of the rocky cliffs, so that there is no room for a road along the shore. Villages are often perched along the hillside almost like birds' nests, and every little patch of ground, if only as big as a table, is carefully planted with vegetables or flowers.
In the vicinity of Genoa, this beautiful coast is called the Italian Riviera. It is warm because the Apennines and the Alps keep off the cold north winds. There are big hotels in every little town along the Gulf of Genoa, and we see people from the United States, England, Holland, Norway, and many other countries, for Italy is a country that travelers love to visit.
We stand on a hill looking down over Genoa, the city where Columbus was born. We see a long curved wall built out into the sea, and a lighthouse on the end of it. This wall makes the harbor, and the lighthouse shows ships where to go. As Genoa has no natural harbor, men had to build this wall. Inside of it we see ships from New Orleans, Buenos Aires, Antofagasta, and England. What did they bring? 368. The plains of go northward from Genoa through a tunnel under the Apennines, and are soon on a wide, level, plain, the basin of the Po River, sometimes called the plains of Lombardy. This is the best farm land in Italy. Some of the land is being irrigated with water from Alpine snow fields, and every foot of it is being cultivated. In this fertile region the people grow wheat and corn, rice and vegetables, as well as mulberry trees. These trees furnish food for the silkworms that help the people make one of the valuable exports of Italy. The plains of Lombardy are not as large as the plains of eastern Eng land, and it would take fifty Lombardies to equal the level land of our North Central States.
Italy has so many people that she can not grow food enough for all of them. Is
it any wonder that so many Italians want to come to the United States where there is so much mod land unused? 369. Oranges and Lemons. —Italy is warmer than Eng land and France, so warm that oranges and lemons grow south of Naples, where the influence of the warm air from Africa is felt. These fruits; in fact, are one of the chief exports of the island of Sicily. Palermo ships thou sands and thousands of boxes of lemons and oranges to New York and Liverpool.
370. Italian climate suits wheat, because it can be planted in the autumn at the time the Mediterranean rains begin. . The plants grow all winter, and the grain ripens in the early summer. This shows why Italians grow more wheat than corn. The summer is hot enough to grow corn, but corn needs many showers, so the Italians can grow it only in those few places that they can irrigate. Macaroni and spaghetti are made from the wheat flour.
The climate is also suited to the growing of grapes. The grape vine sends its roots far down into the earth, and thus gets the moisture that has soaked deep into the ground during the winter rains. Many thousands of people in Italy make their liv ing by growing grapes. Often they culti vate the ground at cost of very hard work, using spades instead of plows. In the au tumn they are busy making wine from the grapes. Wine is one of the chief exports. The summer is like that of California.
371. The olive.—Many an Italian hill side is green with olive orchards. The olive is a wonderful tree. It lives for many centuries, sometimes a thousand years.
Like the grape, it needs little water. In the autumn everybody who can work is busy picking olives. The fruit is then crushed under a big stone wheel and put into a press that squeezes oil out of the pulp. Olive oil keeps much better than butter, and is much used in its place in Italy and Spain and other countries along the Mediterranean. It is exported from all three of the southern peninsula coun tries of Europe.