COLTIVAZIONE DFf. COTONE
   166
   stretching from Cotrone to the neigbbourhood of Monopoli, there lie most extensive tracts of land hitherto quite abandoned, and only requi-ring very little care to become tbe most productive fields of Italy. These tracts of land posseas at present a very small commercial value, and in their immediate neigbbourhood are to be found labourers in abundance. Tbe four provinces alone in which these districts lie contain a population of more than 1400 000 inhabitants. The chief want of these districts is a proper drainage and irrigation system, which, however, would present no extraordinary diffienities; and in fact the question of cultivating cottoli in that region, or, to speak more correctly, of any species of cultivation whatever, simply resolves itself into the question of drainage and of irrigation. The moment that the soil sball become improved, the cultivation of cotton will followr as a naturai consequence, from its being the species of cultivation yielding the greatest profit.
   Brindisi Nor is tliere any other country, at the present
   day, which can hold out greater attraction than this to capital and to commercial enterprise. After so many centuries, this country, so highly favoured by nature; on account of its climate and its maritime position, is once more becoming, thanks to railways, one of the principal centres of the greatest world - commerce. There is si-tuated Brindisi, which, with the completimi of the railway along the coast of the Adriatic, and with the cutting of tffe Isthmus of Suez, is de-s ti ned to be the most important harbour of Europe for the trade with Asia.
   Other tracts of We bave marked down on the map appended
   hlUd to the present report, not only ali the districts
   in this region, but ali those districts in the Southern provinces of the main land, whither, on acco-