384 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



Markets of a general character are held once or twice a week 

 in all the principal towns ; and in those cases where the farms 

 are small, the farmers wives and daughters will be seen going 

 six or eight miles on foot, or in vans, (i. e. lumber and freight 

 coaches or wagons,) to sell the week s product of their dairy or their 

 poultry-yard. In this case, they are always found, with their neat 

 baskets upon their arms, in a particular part of the market as 

 signed to them. Their neatness of dress and person commend 

 them to attention. It requires some courage to elbow your way 

 among them, if you do not design to be a purchaser ; and their 

 chaffering and courteous solicitations to buy, with the emphatical 

 recommendations of the articles for sale, together with the usual 

 chatter and gossip to be expected among such a collection of 

 gude wives and bonnie lasses, are sufficiently amusing. 



