172 MADDER 



where madder is grown is a flat basin, bounded on the north and north-east by 

 mountains of limestone, spurs of which, gradually declining in height, run east and 

 west. This basin is plentifully watered : in the north by several streams which rise 

 in the mountains towards the north-east, and run, in a south-westerly direction, into 

 the Khone ; along the south-west boundary runs the fine river Durance, which, like all 

 the other streams, joins the Kh6ne in this case below the town of Avignon ; between 

 the Durance and the mountains, and about the centre of the Comtat rises the celebrated 

 fountain of Vaucluse, or the river Sorgue. This remarkable river rises as a spring, 

 in an amphitheatre of perpendicular rocks, about eighteen miles north-east of Avignon. 

 A prodigious volume of water issues from a deep pool at the foot of a high precipice, 

 and in the course of two hundred or three hundred yards the stream is augmented by 

 numerous lateral springs ; so that, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from the 

 source, the fountain has become a considerable river, running at the rate of seven or 

 eight miles an hour. After running a mile or two the stream divides into two main 

 branches, which, lower down, subdivide ; the one into four branches, the other into 

 three, or seven streams in all, each of considerable volume. These seven streams 

 permeate the central and southerly portions of the basin above described ; and it is to 

 these waters that I unhesitatingly ascribe the wonderful fertility of the district of 

 which Avignon is the capital. The Sorgue waters are again subdivided, artificially, 

 in a great variety of ways. Small streams run along the roadside and across the 

 fields in every conceivable manner ; the volume of water being so great and flowing so 

 rapidly, that the agriculturist can divert it, dam it up, and irrigate his fields just as 

 he wants, in the same manner as the people of the ' Garden of Valencia,' in Spain, 

 apply the waters flowing through the old Moorish aqueducts, and produce thereby, 

 with the aid of a southern sun, a fertility perhaps without parallel anywhere. 



* The result of this abundance of water is that the soil is kept naturally moist not, 

 be it understood, wet, but to such a degree of moisture as naturally occurs when water 

 is found anywhere from two to four yards below the surface. In some parts of the 

 basin are patches of land, where formerly were small lakes, which have dried up. 

 These patches were occupied during the drying-up, and for years subsequently, by a 

 dense growth of reeds ; and at the present time the ditches bordering these lands, and 

 any portion of them still covered with water, grow plentifully, tall reeds. These 

 ancient lakelets form the lands known as ' Paluds,' where the finest quality of madder 

 grows. The soil here, when dry, is of a light drab colour, very pulverulent, and 

 containing about half its weight of chalk, which has been washed down from the 

 limestone hills. When freshly turned up, this soil is dark brown, showing the presence 

 of considerable quantities of humus. 



' In the higher portions of the basin grows the quality of madder called Rosee. 

 The soil here contains more clay and less chalk, and when dry it is much more tenacious 

 and not so easily powdered in the fingers. It is, when moist, of not quite so dark a 

 colour as the palitds land. The coxirse of cultivation for the rosee lands is to plough 

 up and clean the land in autumn and winter. In spring, stable or cow manure is 

 freely applied over the ground, and then ploughed in. Beds of about three feet wide 

 are made by cutting trenches about one foot deep, and throwing the soil on the beds. 

 Madder-seed is now sown in drills, running lengthwise down the beds, to the number 

 of four or five to each bed. The quantity of manure given per acre varies with the 

 number of cattle kept by the farmers ; they give as much as they can muster, as they 

 know very well that plenty of manure increases the yield of roots. In the trenches 

 between the madder beds, or more generally only in every other trench, white-sugar 

 beet is always sown ; probably as the beet, when growing is a very bulky, leafy 

 plant, the beds would be too much shaded from the sun by sowing it in every drill. 

 Nothing is done during the summer but weeding, and before winter comes on the young 

 plant is covered entirely with earth taken from the trenches after the beet-crop (three 

 to five tons per acre) is removed. Next spring and summer nothing but weeding is 

 done, if we except plucking the seed and sowing beet-root in the trenches which were 

 left vacant the former year. In the late autumn, or about October, the crop is 

 generally dug up, or at eighteen months old. The farmers know perfectly well that 

 to leave the madder in the ground another year, or in all thirty months, is a gain to 

 them both in quantity and quality, but they are generally poor, the French laws of 

 inheritance tending to constantly subdivide the lands into very small farms, and they 

 are obliged to realise upon the crop as soon as they possibly can, which is as soon as 

 the roots are of a saleable size. The paluds madder is always planted in the spring, 

 not sown, the plants being obtained from the year-old crops. I could not ascertain 

 why this difference is made, further than that it is found to suit paluds land better 

 than rosee. 



4 On the two great cardinal points I satisfied myself, viz. : that manure is always 

 given, and that no artificial irrigation is practised, the natural freshness of the soil 





