IS 15.] Scientific hitelUgence. 231 



a quarter past ten to a quarter past eleven, for the convenience of 

 students attending the hospitals. 



II. French Agriculture. 



Tlie following account is given of the present agriculture of 

 France, by Mr. Morris Birkbeck, in his Notes on a Journey through 

 France, in July, August, and September, ISH, page 109. 



" In the agriculture of France there is a great sameness. The 

 arable land, which comprises almost the whole surface of the 

 country, the vineyards and a few tracts of mountains excepted, 

 may be divided into five classes, according to its fertility, without 

 regard to the nature of the soil. The first bears a crop every year, 

 as in Auvergne, in the neighbourhood of Thoulouse, in some parts 

 of Normandy, &c. This description is highly cultivated, and on a 

 principle well adapted to soil and circumstances. The second 

 somewhat inferior in quality, but good land, is also judiciouly cul- 

 tivated, with the intervention of a fallow once in six years, as 

 about Dieppe and Rouen. The third land of middhng quality, 

 which embraces a very large part of the kingdom, is managed on 

 the old plan of fallow, wheat, oats. The fourth, poor land, which 

 also covers a large space, is fallow and wheat alternately. The 

 fifth, poor land, is cultivated in the round of fallow, rye, rest, 

 without grass seeds. The first and second classes include what 

 there is of variety and spiiit in French husbandry. In the south, 

 Indian corn alternating with wheat, exhibits management as good 

 as the beans and wheat of the best English farmer : and the varied 

 outline observable in the north, aifords many proofs of a spirited 

 and judicious culture. It is the three last which betray its weak- 

 ness ; if they comprise half the cultivated surface, which I believe 

 is not over-rating their extent, half of tliat portion heing fallow, 

 it appears that one fourth of the whole country is lying in a state 

 entirely unproductive; a few weeds, mostly thistles, excepted. A 

 very few iialf starved sheep are kept to pick over the constantly 

 recurring barren fallows, often accompanied by three or four long 

 legged hogs. On the borders, and out of the way corners, you 

 may see a cow or two, with an attendant ; but there appears so 

 little for any of these animals to eat, tliat you wonder how even 

 they are supported. Tlic prairies arlificiolles, (the artificial grasses, 

 as we less properly call them,) of which so much is said by the 

 amateurs, are like specks of green on a desert. Clover and lucern 

 are cultivated with great success, on the two first classes of land ; 

 but very rarely indeed on the others. Thus there is probably as 

 much really waste land in France as in England, and it is of an 

 expensive kind ; whereas our wastes support niucli more stock than 

 theirs, without any expense whatever." 



By Mr. Birkbeck's account, the lalxiuring classes in the country 

 parts of France are in much better circumstances, and receive 

 much better wages than the labouring people in England. Most of 

 them are proj)rictors of eight or ten acres of land, having beca 



