80 FRANCE 



and children. The peasantry throughout Brit- 

 tany know that there is money to be made by 

 picking blackberries to send to England, and 

 every few days during the season — especially on 

 Thursdays, the school holiday — the women and 

 children of a household will turn out with their 

 tins and basins, and gather what blackberries they 

 can. These they put together, and take in the 

 afternoon or evening to some village tradesman 

 — no matter in what line of business he may 

 be — who owns a horse and trap, and has deal- 

 ings with St. Malo. The tradesmen will give at 

 the rate of about eight centimes a pound for the 

 blackberries, and as every centime has its value 

 in the eyes of the essentially thrifty French 

 peasant, the money thus earned represents an 

 acceptable addition to the weekly income. As 

 for the tradesman, when, probably, most of the 

 families in the village are out collecting, he may 

 expect to have a good supply by the evening to 

 take to the wholesale exporter at St. Malo, from 

 whom he will receive a price that gives him 

 about two centimes per pound profit. 



Applying this method of collection to practi- 

 cally every village or hamlet within a radius of, 

 say, a dozen miles of St. Malo, one will cease to 

 wonder how it is that the French wholesale fruit 

 merchant manages to get together blackberries 



