561. By farming land, is understood, letting it at a fixed rent, to be paid according to the value of the produce, taken at an average of ten years.

32. By grangers, or renting land à moitié fruit, is understood, that the proprietor takes half of all the grain and fruit, half the produce or increase of the cows, half the eggs, and, in short, half of every thing which is productive

363. By tacheurs, is another mode of cultivating land, in the immediate vicinity of towns. The proprietors, to avoid keeping too many servants in their own houses, place a father of a family in the house upon the farm. This man is called le tacheur. He takes care of the cows, for half their produce: he ploughs the ground, receiving for every pair of oxen employed, or for three horses, from seventy to eighty francs per annum: he has half the wine: the share he receives of the wheat and grain is in the proportion of two parts for every nine taken by the proprietor. The latter pays all the taxes, and keeps the accounts, The tacheur may be changed every year. When he is employed in repairing fences, &c., he is paid by the day; this is always undertaken when he enters the farm.

364. The leases granted to the farmers and grangers are on terms of three, six, or nine years; but when the leases are for six or nine years, a reservation is always made, that at the expiration of every three years the proprietor may revoke the lease, by giving three months' notice, if he be not satisfied with the tenant. The proprietor always supplies the farmer or granger with a sum of money without interest, called chaptal (capital), to aid him in buying oxen: for a farm of two oxen it is generally about twenty louis; for a farm of four oxen, forty louis; and so on. The proprietor, for this sum, has an exclusive right to seize the cattle of the farmer, should he sell them clandestinely. 365. The mode of pasturage in Chamouny will apply, with little variation, to all the Alpine communes in Savoy. The rich peasants in the Alps possess meadows, and even habitations, at different heights. In winter they live in the bottom of the valley, but they quit it in spring, and ascend gradually, as the heat pushes out vegetation. In autumn they descend by the same gradation. Those who are less rich have a resource in the common pastures, to which they send a number of cows, proportionate to their resources, and their means of keeping them during the winter. The poor, who have no meadows to supply fodder for the winter, cannot avail themselves of this advantage. Eight days after the cows have been driven up into the common pasture, all the owners assemble, and the quantity of milk from each cow is weighed. The same operation is repeated one day in the middle of the summer, and at the end of the season, the quantity of cheese and butter is divided, according to the quantity of milk each cow yielded on the days of trial. (Bakewell.)

366. There are chalets, or public dairies, near the mountain pastures in Savoy, as well as in Switzerland; persons reside in these chalets during the summer months, to make cheese and butter. In many situations it is the labour of a day to ascend to these chalets, and return to the valleys immediately below them. There are also public dairies in some of the villages, where the poorer peasants may bring all the milk they can spare, from the daily consumption of their families. The milk is measured, and an account kept of it; and at the end of the season the due portion of cheese is allotted to each, after a small deduction for the expense of making. (Id.)

567. No large flocks of sheep are kept in Savoy, as it is necessary to house them during the winter, at which time they are principally fed with dried leaves of trees, collected during the autumn. Many poor families keep a few sheep to supply them with wool for their domestic use. These little flocks are driven home every evening, and are almost always accompanied by a goat, a cow, a pig, or an ass, and followed by a young girl spinning with a distaff As they wind down the lower slopes of the mountains, they form the most picturesque groups for the pencil of the painter; and, seen at a distance, carry back the imagination to the ages of pastoral simplicity, sung by Theocritus and Virgil. (Id.)

968. The vineyards in Savoy are cultivated for half the produce of the wine. The cultivator pays the whole expense, except the taxes, which are paid by the proprietor. 369. Walnut trees, of immense size and great beauty, enrich the scenery of Savoy, and supply sufficient oil for the consumption of the inhabitants, and for the adjoining canton of Geneva. The walnut has been called the olive of the country. The trees belong principally to the larger proprietors. They are planted by nature, being scattered over the fields, and in the woods and hedge-rows, intermixed with chestnuts and forest trees of various kinds. (Bakewell.)

370. The walnut harvest at Chateau Duing commences in September. "They are beaten off the trees with long poles; the green husks are taken off as soon as they begin to decay; the walnuts are then laid in a chamber to dry, where they remain till November, when the process of making the oil commences. The first operation is to crack the nuts, and take out the kernel. For this purpose several of the neighbouring peasants, with their wives and elder children, assembled at the chateau of an evening, after their work was done. The party generally consisted of about thirty persons, who were placed around a long table in the kitchen. One man sat at each end of the table, with a small mallet to crack the nuts by hitting them on the point: as fast as they are cracked, they are distributed to the other persons around the table, who take the kernels out of the shell, and remove the inner part; but they are not peeled. The peasants of Savoy are naturally lively and loquacious; and they enliven their labour with facetious stories, jokes, and noisy mirth. About ten o'clock the table is cleared to make room for the gouté, or supper, consisting of dried fruit, vegetables, and wine; and the remainder of the evening is spent in singing and dancing, which is sometimes continued till midnight. In a favourable season, the number of walnuts from the Duing estate is so great, that the party assemble in this manner every evening for a fortnight, before all the walnuts are cracked;

festival. They do not receive any pay; the gouté and the amusement of the evening are their only reward." (Bakewell.)

$71. The walnut kernels are laid on cloths to dry, and in about a fortnight are carried to the crushingmill, where they are ground into a paste; this is put into cloths, and undergoes the operation of pressing to extract the oil. The best oil, which is used for salads and cooking, is pressed cold; but an inferior oil for lamps is extracted by heating the paste. Thirty people in one evening will crack as many walnuts as will produce sixty pounds of paste; this yields about fifteen wine-quarts of oil. The walnut-shells are not lost among so frugal a people as the Savoyards, but are burned for the ashes, which are used for washing. Two pounds of these ashes are equal in strength to three of wood-ashes; but the alkali is so caustic, that it frequently injures the linen. The paste, after it is pressed, is dried in cakes, called pain amer; this is eaten by children and poor people, and it is sold in the shops in Savoy and Geneva.

372. The best walnut oil, pressed cold, has but very little of the kernelly taste; but it may be easily distinguished from the best olive oil, which it resembles in colour. If the peel were taken off the walnuts, the oil would probably be quite free from any peculiar flavour; but this operation would be too tedious. (Ib.)

373. Tobacco, which is much used in Savoy, was cultivated with success in the neighbourhood of Ramilly; but on the restoration of the old despotism, its culture was prohibited, and the implements of manufacture seized.

374. The culture of artificial grasses is spreading in Savoy, but is not yet very general. In the neighbourhood of Aix, Ramilly, and Annecy, wheat is succeeded by rye. The rye-harvest being over in June, they immediately sow the land with buck-wheat (sarrasin), which is cut in September; the following year the land is sown with spring corn.

375. The grass-lands are always mown twice, and the latter mowing is sufficiently early to allow a good pasturage in the autumn. Water-meadows are occasionally found near towns. The water is generally let down from mountain streams; but sometimes it is raised from rivers by a sort of bucket-wheel (fig. 44.), which is called the Noria of the

Alps. This wheel is raised or lowered by means of a loaded lever (a), which turns on a fulcrum (b), formed by a piece of wood with its end inserted in the river's bank.

376. Agricultural improvement in Savoy must be in a very low state, if the answers Bakewell received respecting the average quantity of the produce are correct. One of the answers stated the average increase of wheat to be from three to five on the quantity sown, and near the towns from five to seven. Another agriculturist stated the average increase on the best lands to be nine, and, in the neighbourhood of Annecy, thirteen, fold. One part of Savoy is, perhaps, the finest corn-land in Europe; and the very heavy crops Bakewell saw in the neighbourhood of Aix and Annecy, made him doubt the accuracy of the above statements: but, on referring to Arthur Young's account of the agriculture of France before the revolution, it appears that four and a half was regarded as the average increase in that country, which is very similar in climate to Savoy. (Travels, i. 328.) 377. The salt-works of Moutiers, in the valley of the Isere, in the Tarantaise, are particularly deserving attention, being perhaps the best conducted of any in Europe, with respect to economy. Nearly three million pounds of salt are extracted annually from a source of water which would scarcely be noticed, except for medical purposes, in any other country. 378. The springs that supply the salt-works at Moutiers, rise at the bottom of a nearly perpendicular rock of limestone, situated on the south side of a deep valley or gorge. The temperature of the strongest spring is ninety-nine Fahrenheit, it contains 1-83 per cent of saline matter. It may seem extraordinary that the waters at Moutiers, which have only half the strength of sea-water, should repay the expense of evaporation; but the process by which it is effected is both simple and ingenious, and might be

It

introduced with great advantage on many parts of our own coast, more particularly in Ireland. is obvious that water, so weakly impregnated with salt as to contain only one pound and a half in every thirteen gallons, could not repay the expense of evaporating by fuel in any country. The water of the North Sea contains two and a quarter per cent of salt, and yet it has never been attempted to make salt from it by evaporation with coal-fires, even on the coast of Northumberland or Durham, where refuse coal, suited to the purpose, might be purchased for one shilling and sixpence per ton. In order to make salt from the saline water at Moutiers, it was necessary to concentrate it by natural evaporation; and to effect this speedily, it was required to spread the surface of the fluid over as large a space as possible, the ratio of evaporation being, cæteris paribus, in proportion to the extent of the surface exposed to the action of the atmosphere. The first attempt at Moutiers was made in 1550, by arranging pyramids of rye straw in open galleries, and letting the water trickle through the straw gradually and repeatedly. This was abandoned, and faggots of thorns were substituted: these faggots are suspended on frames, the water is raised to their height, and spread by channels so as to trickle through them: it passes through three separate sets or frames of thorns, and has then become so concentrated as to contain nearly 22 per cent of salt: it is then boiled in pans in the usual manner.

379. Evaporating on vertical cords, erected in a house open on all sides, is a third method, which succeeds even better than the mode by thorns. The water, by repeatedly passing over the cords, is found in forty-five days to deposit all its salt on them, and the saline cylinder is then broken off. The cords are renewed once in twenty or thirty years, and the faggots once in seven years. Minute details of these simple but very ingenious processes will be found in the very scientific Travels of Bakewell (vol. i. 230.).

SECT. III. Of the present State of Agriculture in France.

380. The first agricultural survey of France was made in 1787, 8, and 9. by the celebrated Arthur Young. Since that period no similar account has been published either in France or England: but several French writers have given the statistics and culture of different districts, as the Baron de la Peyrouse, Sinetti, Cordier, &c.; and others have given general views of the whole kingdom, as La Statistique Générale de la France, by Penchet; De l'Industrie Françoise, by Chaptal; and Les Forces Productes et Commerciales de la France, &c., by Dupin. From these works, some recent tours of Englishmen, and our own observations in 1815, 1819, and 1828, we have drawn the following outline of the progress of French agriculture since the middle of the sixteenth century, and more especially since the time of Louis XIV.; including the general circumstances of France as to agriculture, its common culture, its culture of vines and maize, and its culture of olives and oranges.

SUBSECT. 1. Of the Progress of French Agriculture, from the Sixteenth Century to the present Time.

981. That France is the most favourable country in Europe for agriculture, is the opinion both of its own and foreign writers on the subject. For, though the country "suffered deeply from the wars in which she was engaged, first by a hateful conspiracy of kings, and next, by the mad ambition of Bonaparte, the purifying effects of the revolution have indemnified her ten fold for all the losses she has sustained. She has come out of the contest with a debt comparatively light, with laws greatly amended, many old abuses destroyed, and with a population more industrious, moral, enlightened, and happy, than she ever had before. The fortunate change which peace has made in her situation, has filled her with a healthy activity, which is carrying her forward with rapid strides; she has the most popular, and therefore the most rational, liberal, and beneficial, system of government of any state in Europe, Britain not excepted; and, altogether, she is perhaps in a condition of more sound prosperity than any other state in the old world." (Scotsman, vol. xii. No. 861.)

382. The agriculture of France at present, as Mr. Jacob has observed (Report, &c., 1828), occupies one of the lowest ranks in that of the Northern States of Europe; but the fertility of the soil, the suitableness of the subsoil and of the surface for aration, and, above all, the excellence of the climate, are such as are not united to an equal extent in any other European State. When we consider these circumstances in connection with the extraordinary exertions now making for the education of the laborious classes, and the no less extraordinary progress that has been made within these few years in manufactures (For. Rev., Jan. 1829, art. 1.), it is easy to see that in a few years the territorial riches of France will be augmented to an extraordinary extent.

383. Of the agriculture of France, previous to the middle of the sixteenth century, scarcely any thing is known. Chopin, who it appears resided in the neighbourhood of Paris, wrote a treatise on the Privileges of Labourers, in 1574, which, M. Grégoire remarks (Hist. of Agr prefixed to edit. of Olivier de Serres, pub. in 1804), is calculated rather for the advantage of the proprietor than of the farmer. A Code Rural, published some time after, is characterised by the same writer as a Manual of Tyranny.

384. French agriculture began to flourish in the beginning of the seventeenth century, under Henry IV., and its precepts at that time were published by Olivier de Serres, and Charles Estienne. In 1621, great quantities of corn were exported to England, in consequence of a wise ordinance of Sully, passed some years before, permitting a free commerce in corn. In 1641, the draining of fens and bogs was encouraged; and, in 1756, the land-tax taken off newly broken up lands for the space of twenty years. Mazarin, during the minority of Louis XIV., prohibited the exportation of corn, and checked the progress of its culture. This circumstance, and the wars of that king, greatly

discouraged agriculture, and produced several dearths. Fleury, under Louis XV., was not favourable to agriculture; but, in 1754, an act was passed for a free corn trade, which effected its revival. The economists of this time, however mistaken in their views, inspired a taste for the art; and agricultural societies were first established in France under the patronage and at the expense of government. In 1761, there were thirteen such societies in France, and nineteen cooperating societies. Those of Paris, Lyons, Amiens, and Bourdeaux, have distinguished themselves by their published Memoirs. At Tours a georgical society was established and directed by the Marquis of Tourbili, a patriot and agricultural writer. Du Hamel and Buffon gave eclat to the study of rural economy, and many other writers might be mentioned as having contributed to its improvement. M. de Trudaine introduced the Merino breed of sheep in 1776, and Comte Lasteyrie has studied that breed in Spain, and written a valuable work on the subject; as has the Baron de Mortemart on the English breeds, some of which he has introduced. 385. The agriculture of France in 1819, as compared with what it was in 1789, presents, Chaptal observes, astonishing improvements. Crops of every kind cover the soil; numerous and robust animals are employed in labouring it, and they also enrich it by their manure. The country population are lodged in commodious habitations, decently clothed, and abundantly nourished with wholesome food. The misery which existed in France in former times, when properties of immense extent supported little more than a single family, is banished, and its place supplied by ease and liberty. We are not to suppose, however, the same author observes, that the agriculture of France has arrived at perfection; much still remains to be done: new plans of improvement should be more generally introduced; and a greater quantity of live stock is wanted for every province of France, except two or three which abound in natural meadows. Few domains have more than half the requisite number of labouring cattle; the necessary result of which is a deficiency of labour, of manure, and of crop. The only mode of remedying these evils is to multiply the artificial pastures, and increase the cultivation of plants of forage. Abundance of forage is indeed the foundation of every good system of agriculture, as a proper succession of crops is the foundation of abundance of forage. The rich inhabitants of France have already adopted these principles; but they have not yet found their way among the lowest class of cultivators. According to M. Dupin, four fifths of the peasantry of France are proprietors of land, which they cultivate themselves; and though they are at present very ignorant, yet knowledge of every kind is rapidly advancing. The wages of labourers in France, compared with the price of corn, are calculated to be higher than the wages paid to labourers in England.

SUBSECT. 2. Of the general Circumstances of France, in respect to Agriculture. 386. The surface of France has been divided by geographers into what are called basins, or great plains, through which flow the principal rivers, and which basins are separated by original or secondary ridges of mountains. The chief basins are those of the Loire (fig. 45. a), of the Seine (b), of the Garonne (c), and of the Rhone and Saone (d). (Journal de Physique, tom. xxx.)

387. The soil of France has been divided by Arthur Young into the mountainous district of Languedoc and Provence (e); the loamy district of Limosin (f); the chalky districts of Champagne and Poitiers (g); the gravelly district of Bourbonnois (h); the stony district of Lorraine and Franche Comté (i); the rich loam of Picardy and Guienne (k); and the heathy surface on gravel, or gravelly sand, of Bretagne and Gascoigne (1). (Agr. France, chap. ii.)

388. The climate of France has been ingeniously divided by the same author into that of corn and common British agriculture, including Picardy, Normandy, French Flanders, Artois, Hainault, &c. (fig. 45. l, b, k); that of vines, mulberries, and common culture (y, a, h, g, i); that of vines, mulberries, maize, and common culture (c, f, d, i); that of olives, vines, mulberries, maize, oranges, and common culture (o, e). It is singular that these zones (m m, nn, and o o) do not run parallel to the degrees of latitude, but obliquely to them to such an extent that the climate for the vines leaves off at 46° on the west coast (y m), but extends to 4940 on the east (gm). The cause is to be found chiefly in the soil and surface producing a more favourable climate in one place than in another; but partly also in the wants of cultivators. The vine is cultivated in Germany in situations where it would not be cultivated in France, because wine is of more value in the former country than in the latter. The northern boundary of the vine culture has even extended in France since the revolution, from the natural wish of small proprietors to supply themselves with wine of their own growth. In Germany the vine is cultivated as far north as latitude 52°, on the warm sides of dry rocky hills.

389. The central climate, which admits vines without being hot enough for maize (y, a, h, g, i), Young considers as the finest in the world, and the most eligible part of France or of Europe as to soil. "Here," he says, " you are exempt from the extreme humidity which gives verdure to Normandy and England; and yet equally free from the

burning heats which turn verdure itself into a russet brown: no ardent rays that oppress with their fervour in summer, nor pinching tedious frosts that chill with their severity in winter, but a light, pure, elastic air, admirable for every constitution except consumptive ones." This climate, however, has its drawbacks; and is so subject to violent storms of rain and hail, that "no year ever passes without whole parishes suffering to a degree of which we in Britain have no conception." It has been calculated, that in some provinces the damage from hail amounts, on an average of years, to one tenth of the whole produce. Spring frosts are sometimes so severe as to kill the broom: few years pass that they do not blacken the first leaves of the walnut trees; the fig trees are protected with straw.

390. Of the vine and maize climate (c, f, d, i) some account is given by M. Picot, Baron de la Peyrouse, an extensive and spirited cultivator. He kept an accurate account of the crops and seasons in his district for twenty years from 1800; and the result is, twelve years of fair average crops, four years most abundant, and four years attended with total loss. 391. In the olive climate (o, e) insects are incredibly numerous and troublesome, and the locust is injurious to corn crops; but both the olive and maize districts have this advantage, that two crops a year, or at least three in two years, may be obtained. The orange is cultivated in so small a proportion of the olive climate as scarcely to deserve notice. The caper (Cápparis spinosa) (fig. 46.) and the fig are also articles of field culture in this climate.

392. The climate of Picardy and Normandy is the nearest to that of England, and is rather superior. The great agricultural advantage which France possesses over Britain, in regard to climate, is, that, by means of the vine and olive, as valuable produce may be raised on rocky wastes as on rich soils; and that in all soils whatever, root weeds may be easily and effectually destroyed without a naked fallow. (Young's France, ch. iii.)

393. The lands of France are not generally enclosed and subdivided by hedges or other fences. Some fences are to be seen near towns, and in the northern parts of the kingdom more especially: but, in general, the whole country is open; the boundaries of estates being marked by slight ditches or ridges, with occasional stones or heaps of earth, rows of trees, or occasional trees. Depredations from passengers on the highways are prevented by gardes champêtres, which are established throughout all France. Farms are sometimes Compact and distinct, but generally scattered, and often alternating in the common field manner of England, or run-rig of Scotland. The farm-houses of large farms are generally placed on the lands; those of smaller ones in villages, often at some distance.