A Good
Tree, He Told Me, Would Give Its Forty Francs A Year.
This seems
as though chestnut-growing must be lucrative, for an acre should
carry some five or six trees, and there is no outlay to speak of.
Besides the chestnuts, the land gives a still further return by way
of the grass that grows beneath them.
Walnuts do not yield nearly
so much per tree as chestnuts do. In three-quarters of an hour or
so we reached Signor Bonaudo's farm, which was called the Casina di
Banda. The buildings had once been a monastery, founded at the
beginning of the seventeenth century and secularised by the first
Napoleon, but had been purchased from the state a few years ago by
Signor Bonaudo, in partnership with three others, after the passing
of the Church Property Act. It is beautifully situated some
hundreds of feet above the valley, and commands a lovely view of
the Comba, as it is called, or Combe of Susa. The accompanying
sketch will give an idea of the view looking towards Turin. The
large building on the hill is, of course, S. Michele. The very
distant dome is the Superga on the other side of Turin.
The first thing Signor Bonaudo did when he got to his farm was to
see whether the water had been duly turned on to his own portion of
the estate. Each of the four purchasers had his separate portion,
and each had a right to the water for thirty-six hours per week.
Signor Bonaudo went round with his hind at once, and saw that the
dams in the ducts were so opened or closed that his own land was
being irrigated.
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