106 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



sheltered them from th: northern winds. Now, whole 

 fields are covered with strawberries, roses, violets, cherries 

 and plums, down to the very sea beach.* Even the 

 landes are reclaimed, and we are told that in five years 

 or so there will be no more landes in that district (p. 

 265). Nay, the marshes of the Dol " The Holland of 

 Brittany" protected from the sea by a wall (5050 

 acres), have been turned into market gardens, covered 

 with cauliflowers, onions, radishes, haricot beans and 

 so on, the acre of that land being rented at from 2 ios. 

 to 4. 



About Paris no less than 50,000 acres are given to 

 the field culture of vegetables and 25,000 acres to the 

 forced culture of the same. Already fifty years ago the 

 yearly rent paid by market gardeners attained as much 

 as iS and 24 per acre, and yet it has been increased 

 since, as well* as the gross receipts, which were valued 

 by Courtois Ge'rard at 240 per acre for the larger 

 market gardens, and twice as much for the smaller ones 

 in which early vegetables are grown in frames. 



The fruit culture in the neighbourhoods of Paris is 

 equally wonderful. At Montreuil, for instance, 750 

 acres, belonging to 400 gardeners, are literally covered 

 with stone walls, specially erected for growing fruit, 

 and having an aggregate length of 400 miles. Upon 

 these walls, peach trees, pear trees and vines are 

 spread, and every year something like 12,000,000 

 peaches are gathered, as well as a considerable amount 

 of the finest pears and grapes. The acre in such con- 

 ditions brings in 56. This is how a "warmer cli- 

 mate " was made, at a time when the greenhouse was 

 still a costly luxury. All taken, 1250 acres are given 

 to peaches (25,000,000 peaches every year) in the 

 close neighbourhood of Paris. Acres and acres are 

 also covered with pear trees which yield three to five tons 



* Ardouin Dumazet, Voyeur* en France, vol. v., p. 200. 



