64 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



and the poor people look forward to these meetings, from year to year, as a kind of 

 festival. They do not receive any pay ; but the goutd and the amusements of the evening 

 are their only reward." (BakewelL) 



364. The walnut kernels are laid on cloths to dry, and in about a fortnight are carried to the crushing- 

 miU, where they are ground into a paste ; this is put into cloths, and undergoes the operation of pressing 

 to extract the oil. The best oil, which is used for salads and cooking, is pressed cold ; but an inferior 

 oil for lamps is extracted by heating the paste. Thirty people in one evening will crack as many walnuts 

 as will produce sixty pounds of paste ; this yields about fifteen wine quarts of oil. The walnut-shells are 

 not lost among so frugal a people as the Savoyards, but are burned for the ashes, which are used in wash- 

 ing. Two pounds of these ashes are equal in strength to three of wood-ashes ; but the alkali is so 

 caustic, that it frequently injures the linen. The paste, after it is pressed, is dried in cakes, called pain 

 amer ; this is eaten by children and poor people, and it is sold in the shops in Savoy and Geneva. 



365. The best walnut oil, pressed cold, has but very little of the kernelly taste ; but it may be easily dis- 

 tingushed from the best olive oil, which it resembles in color. If the peel were taken off the walnuts, the 

 oil would probably be quite free from any peculiar flavor; but this operation would be too tedious. {lb.) 



SGG. Tobacco, which is much used in Savoy, was cultivated with success in the neigh- 

 borhood of Ramilly ; but on the restoration of the old despotism, its culture was pro- 

 hibited, and the implements of manufacture seized. 



367. The culture of artificial grasses is spreading in Savoy, but is not yet very general. 

 In tlje neighborhood of Aix, Ramilly, and Annecy, wheat is succeeded by rye. The 

 rye-harvest being over in June, they immediately sow the land with buck-wheat (Sar- 

 rasi'n), which is cut in September; the following year the land is sown with spring-corn. 



368. The grass-lands are always mown twice, and the latter mowing is sufficiently 

 early to allow a good pasturage in the autumn. Water-meadows are occasionally 

 found near towns : the water is generally let down from mountain-streams ; but some- 

 times it is raised from rivers by a sort of bucket-wheel {Jig' 47.), which is called the Noria 



of the Alps. This wheel is raised or lowered by means of a loaded lever (a), which turns 

 on a fulcrum (6), formed by a piece of w^ood, with its end inserted in the river's bank. 



369. Agricultural improvement in Savoy must be in a very low state, if the answers 

 Bakewell received respecting the average quantity of the produce be correct. One of 

 the answers stated the average encrease of wheat to be from three to five on the quantity 

 sown, and near the towns from five to seven. Another agriculturist stated the average 

 encrease on the best lands to be nine, and in the neighborhood of Annecy thirteen fold. 

 One part of Savoy is, perhaps, the finest corn-land in Europe ; and the very heavy crops 

 Bakewell saw in the neighborhood of Aix and Annecy, made him doubt the accuracy of 

 the above statements. But on referring to Arthur Young's account of the agriculture of 

 France before the revolution, it appears that four and a half was regarded as the 

 average encrease in that country, which is very similar in climate to Savoy. ( Travels, 

 i. 328.) ^ ^ , 



370. The salt-works ofMoutiers, in the valley of the Isere, in the Tarantaise, are par- 

 ticularly deserving attention, being perhaps the best conducted of any in Europe, with 

 respect to economy. Nearly three million pounds of salt are extracted annually from a 

 source of water which would scarcely be noticed, except for medical purposes, in any 

 other country. 



371. The springs that supply the salt-works at Moutiers, rise at the bottom of a nearly perpendicular rock 

 of limestone situated on the south side of a deep valley or gorge. The temperature of the strongest 



