Cardinal Antonelli seized the opportunity to impose a tax of L74,680 upon the vines; and as there were no grapes that year to pay it, the amount was charged upon the different townships.

Now which has proved the heaviest scourge--the _Oidium_ or the Cardinal Minister?
Certainly not the _Oidium_, for that has disappeared.

The Cardinal remains.
All the corn harvested in the _Agro Romano_ pays a fixed duty of twenty-two pauls per rubbio.

The rubbio is worth, on an average, from 80 to 100 pauls; so that the government taxes the harvest to the amount of at least 22 per cent.

Here is a moderate tax.