THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



417 



such, but among the long list of honourable, distin- 

 guished men who are always ready, with time and money, 

 to help forward any project having in view " the health, 

 the wealth, the happiness of the working classes." One 

 word in conclusion. If tlie working men would rise to a 

 position of greater respectability and influence in this 

 coimtry, they can do so by becoming more intelligent. We 

 are approaching a time when men will be respected accord- 

 ing to their knowledge and conduct ; and nothing can pre- 

 vent you from becoming more powerful thaTi you already 

 are, but from remaining less intelligent tlian the classes 

 above you. A long line of distinguished men has sprung 

 up from your ranks — men whom any class might be proud 

 to rank among their number. \Vatt, a mechanic, gave us 

 the steam engine ; Stephenson, a pitman, gave us the rail- 



way. Ileie arc two men, sprung from your rauks, who 

 have done more for trade, and towards developing the re- 

 sources of this country, than all the mechanical men who 

 evei liveil. And have you no men to boast of, who have 

 conferred beneiits on mankind of a higlicr order ? Look 

 through the pages of the British Workman ; and you will 

 be proud of what the world owes to working men. I could 

 enumerate them, but will only remind you of one — a name 

 which will live as long as time lasts ; a man of whoifl the 

 woiking men of Bedford maj' feel justly proud, and whose 

 works tlii'y will do well to study. I nie;in the immortal 

 John Bunyan. May you follow in the footsteps of that 

 noble man, and at last, wheu the labour of life has termi- 

 nated, enter into rest ! 



AN ENGLISH FARMER IN FRANCE. 



Sir, — My last letter, on the growth of beet for sugar, 

 has rather interrupted my narrative ; but 1 thought it so 

 interesting a subject to your readers, I could not for- 

 bear sending it. 



Having seen the town of Dunkirk, the country next 

 became of course the object of attraction. As the popu- 

 lation is a trifle under 30,000, half a mile from the 

 centre brings you to any one of the nine gates, at each 

 of which is an " octroi" office, and a couple of men to 

 attend to it. I thought, perhaps, tbey might have 

 asked me for ray passport ; but, no, that is one of the 

 duties of the gendarmes ; but I believe you may travel 

 from one end of France to the other, without being re- 

 quested to show it, unless you stop more than one night 

 at the same hotel. 



Directly you are outside the fortifications it is the 

 country ; and I will endeavour to describe my first coup 

 d'ceil of a foreign landscape, to me a most interesting 

 moment. 



A straight snd well-paved road and footpath ; a row 

 of stunted elms on one side, and willows on the other -^ 

 canal running parallel (the earth excavated in the 

 making it having evidently been used to raise the road 

 some feet higher than the adjoining land) ; half-a-dozen 

 windmills and some small white houses with only a 

 ground floor and a garret under the pantile roof; the 

 land dotted with fruit trees, and divided into small 

 market gardens by narrow hedges full of willows polled; 

 and here you have the view. 



At the moment, two fine barges were passing, loaded 

 with coals from Belgium. They had a sail each, but the 

 first was assisted by three men and a woman, at the end 

 of a long tow rope, and both were guided by a woman 

 at each helm. 



'Twaa market-day at Bergue, another old fortified 

 frontier town, 4J miles distant ; so I walked there. 

 As I proceeded, I was indeed surprised at the surpassing 

 richness of tlie soil. Round Dunkirk it is a blackish 

 sandy loam, which varies throughout this splendid 

 district of 100 miles south (and I am told over Belgium 

 and Holland), in all the gradations of colour ando- 

 hesiveness of loam, with a top-soil of a yard in depth, 

 and a subsoil of brick -earth and marl, requiring no foot 

 on the tool which digs it. We have land as fine in Eng- 

 land, but certainly not in such a continuous length. 



The cultivation is most excellent; leveller, straighter, 

 or deeper ploughing I never saw, and executed with a 

 pair of horses in a most primitive drap plough, so short 

 in beam and handles that, had I not seen it, I never 

 could have believed it possible to have produced such 

 superior work. They go quite close to the ditch, and 

 the few inches left they dig ; so not an inch is lost. The 

 Icind is all as clean as a garden : even the old hedges are 



hoed ; and we certainly might with advantage copy their 

 mode of making them. AH is alive. The stakes are 

 nine inches apart, three feet high ; and the plashes, at an 

 angle of forty-five degrees, are all tied with a small 

 willow twig at every place where they cross the stakes, 

 the whole being eithered at top, and that also tied to 

 every stake in same manner. It is often not more than 

 three inches diameter, and is the neatest hedge I ever 

 saw, quite impervious to pigs and sheep, and well 

 adapted to arable land. Some may fancy the labour of 

 it expensive, but I think not more so than ours. It is 

 sometimes quick, but olten elm ; the seed of which is 

 sown to procure the plants, which are inserted in a single 

 row. 



Some grass orchards I have seen enclosed with a live 

 hedge, six or seven feet high, of hornbeam, as large as 

 your arm or leg, a very few inches apart, and the 

 branches interwoven and tied, as the other ; it is a fence 

 for a lion, and, like the other, taking but a little space : 

 both these are worthy of imitation. 



One hundred acres are here considered a good-sized 

 farm : many are owned by the occupiers. 



I gave you, in a few lines back, my first view of this 

 immense vale ; I will now, having penetrated some miles 

 into it, endeavour to depict its general appearance. 



I expected to "find the country have a very dotted 

 appearance, from its numerous subdivisions among small 

 owners ; but it is not so, the marks being small square 

 stones, half buried, and no " grass baulks" being left ; 

 and all now being ploughed for wheat or spring crops, 

 T could often fancy myself in a level parish in England, 

 under the (recently altered) old "common-land" system. 

 The land has the appearance of immense ploughed fields, 

 with occasionally smaller ones, of the richest grass, 

 nearly all water-meadows, the ditches on both sides 

 being thickly planted with willows. Sometimes ap- 

 parently unmeaning rows of tall branchless wych elms 

 are seen, and always on the sides of accommodation- 

 roads to the farms, and now and then in square clumps, 

 like Indian topes, giving an appearance in the distance 

 of a wooded district, which it is not. Windmills, barns 

 standing singly, small round ricks of corn, cottages and 

 square-enclosed farmyards — all combine to make a 

 pleasing landscape, for a flat one. You may consider 

 this a picture of the whole country. 



They were wheat-sowing, and I saw one harrow 

 drawn by two men, which may give you some idea of 

 the tenderness of the soil. They are excellent seeds- 

 men, seldom drilling the wheat, but generally sowing 

 five pecks an acre, and ploughing it in with one horse. 

 It lies usually in large lands, and the smaller pieces 

 seem often to have been ploughed many times one way, 

 so that no furrow is seen, and all slopes from centre to 



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