GENERAL VIEWS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 501 



sometimes prove destructive, against which remedies are pre 

 scribed like those employed against the insects which infest the 

 apple-trees. How far it might be successful to introduce the 

 cultivation of the olive-tree into the Southern States of the 

 United States, I must, after the above account, leave the parties 

 interested to judge. 



The fig was growing freely in Italy in the open air, and by 

 the road-side. This was in the month of August. 



CXXVIL GENERAL VIEWS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 



I have now gone over the principal crops produced in France, 

 with the exception of some which will come under review in 

 treating of the husbandry of Flanders, where these crops are 

 grown with more skill and success than in France. 



I think my readers will have reached a conclusion to which I 

 early arrived, which is, that the agriculture or husbandry of 

 France is a subject of much greater importance, and conducted 

 with much more skill than is generally thought. There are 

 several subjects connected with it upon which I shall speak here 

 after. In many parts, I may add in large parts of the country, the 

 cultivation is inferior, negligent, and extremely discreditable. 

 France, however, is not the only country to which these remarks 

 apply ; but it must be said of France, that in some of their prin 

 cipal crops, those to which their climate is adapted, to which 

 they have been habituated, and which they have found to yield 

 the largest profit, no persons have advanced further than they. 

 I instance only the production of beet-sugar, which must be 

 taken in connection with the residue or refuse of the manufacture, 

 furnishing so rich and useful an aliment for cattle and sheep. 

 This production is enormous, and constantly increasing ; next, 

 the production of silk, which furnishes so valuable and simple a 

 resource for the poor, and which, followed out in its various 

 ramifications, will be found to set so many thousands, riay, hun 

 dreds of thousands, of industrious hands in motion ; and lastly, 

 its production of wine, so important an article of domestic con 

 sumption, and so large an article of commerce. I am not of 



