70 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



SuBSECT. 4. Farming in the warmer Climates of France. 



403. Ihe culture peculiar to the vine, maize, olive, and orange climates, we shall extract 

 from the very interesting work of Baron La Peyrouse. The estate of this gentleman 

 is situated in the maize district at Pepils, near Toulouse. Its extent is 800 acres ; and 

 he has, since the year 1788, been engaged, and not without success, in introducing a 

 better system of agriculture. 



404. IVie farm-houses and offices in the warm districts are generally built of brick ; 

 frame-work tilled up with a mixture of straw and clay ; or, en pise ; and they are 

 covered with gutter-tiles. The vineyards are enclosed by hawthorn hedges, or mud^ 

 walls ; and the boundaries of arable farms by wide ditches ; and of grass-lands by iixed 

 stones, or wild quince-trees. Implements are wretched, operations not well performed, 

 and laborers, and even overseers, paid in kind, and al- JL-s^:^' 53 

 lowed to soAv flux, beans, haricots, &c. for themselves. ' ~~ 

 The old plough fig. 53.) resembles that used by the 

 Arabs, and which tlie French antiquarian Gouguet "^^^ 

 (Origine des Lois, &c.) thinks very probably the 

 same as that used by the ancient Egyptians. They have also a light one-handled 

 plougli for stirring fallows, called the . j^ 

 araire (Jig. 54. ) A plough with coul- 

 ters was first employed at Pepils ; and 

 a Scotch plough, with a cast-iron 

 mould board, was lately sent there, 

 and excited the wonder of the whole 

 district. In nothing is France so 

 deficient as in agricultural imple- 

 ments. 



405. Fallow, wheat, and maize is the 

 common rotation of crops. 



406. The live stock consists chiefly of oxen and mules ; the latter are sold to the 

 Spaniards. Some flocks of sheep are kept ; but it is calculated that the rot destroys 

 them once in three years. Beans are the grain of the poor, and are mixed with wheat 

 for bread. The chickpea [Cicer arietinum,) (Jig. 55. ) is^ 

 a favorite dish with the provencals, and much cultivated. 

 Spelt is sown on newly broken -up lands. Potatoes were* 

 unknown till introduced at Pepils from the Pyrenees, where 

 they had l)een cultivated fifty years. In the neighborhood 

 they are beginning to be cultivated. Turnips and rutabaga 

 were tried often at Pepils, but did not succeed once in ten/ 

 years. Maize is reckoned a clearing crop, and its grain is^ 

 the principal food of the people. 



407. The vine is cultivated in France in fields, and on 

 terraced hills, as in Italy, but managed in a different man- 

 ner to what it is in tliat country. Here it is kept low, 

 and treated more as a plantation of raspberries or currants 

 are in England. It is either planted in large plats, in 

 rows three or four feet apart, and the plants at two or 

 three feet distance in the row ; or it is planted in double 

 or single rows alternating with ridges of arable land. In 

 some cases also two close rows, and a space of six or seven^ 



feet alternate, to admit a sort of horse-hoeing culture in the'vvide interval. Most gene- 

 rally, plantations are made by dibbling in cuttings of two feet in length ; pressing the 

 earth firmly to their lower end, an essential part of the operation, noticed even by 

 Xenophon. In pruning, a stem or stool of a foot or more is left above ground, and 

 the young shoots are every year cut down within two buds of this stool. These 

 stools get very unwieldy after sixty or a hundred years, and then it is customary, in 

 some places, to lay down branches from them, and form new stools, leaving the old 

 for a time, which, however, soon cease to produce any but weak shoots. The winter 

 pruning of the vine generally takes place in February : a bill is used resembling that of 

 Italy ijig. 37.) ; the women faggot the branches, and their value, as fuel, is expected to 

 pay the expense of dressing. In summer, the ground is twice or thrice hoed, and the 

 young shoots tied to short stakes with wheat or rye straw, or whatever else comes 

 cheapest. The shoots are stopped, in some places, after the blossom has expanded, and 

 the tops given to cows. In some places, also, great part of the young wood is cut oft' 

 before vintage for feed to cows, and to let the sun directly to the fruit. The sorts cul- 

 tivated are almost as numerous as the vineyards. Fourteen hundred sorts were collected 

 from all parts of France, by order of the Comte Chai)tal, and are now in the nursery 



