224 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



vines, or chestnuts will grow on it. The other 

 sort is in horizontal strata, mixed with great quan- 

 tities of spar. On it these planis ilirive well. 

 This kind ofgraniieand cheslnuls appear togelher, 

 on entering Limosin ; but on the road to Toulouse, 

 where there is about a league of hard granite, 

 this tree disappears. Berry has a poor soil, though 

 not so poor as that of Sologne. In some places it 

 is sandy or gravelly ; in other places the loams are 

 more tenacious, lying on quarries ol stone or lime. 



Vll. The provinces of Auvergne, Dauphiny, 

 Provence, the Lyonnois, Languedoc, and Rou- 

 eillon, contain the mountainous district. The 

 mountains that surround the vale of the Limagne 

 of Auvergne are various. The white argillaceous 

 stone in the hills, between Riom and Clermont, is 

 calcareous. The volcanic mountains (as they 

 are deemed) are more fertile than the others, ex- 

 cept where they are composed of lufa, or cinders, 

 which are so burnt as to be good lor nothing. 

 The calcareous and clayey mountains are good ; 

 and the basaltic, when decomposed, form excel- 

 lent clay. The base is commonly granite. Many 

 considerable mountains, in the tract from Le Puy 

 to Montelimart, are also what are deemed volca- 

 nic, and they are also extremely fertile. Provence 

 and Dauphiny, with the exception of a few plains 

 and valleys, are mountainous. Of these, the for- 

 mer is the driest with respect to soil in the king- 

 dom. Rock and sandy gravels abound ; and the 

 course of tiie Durance is so ruined by sand and 

 shingle, that, on a moderate calculation; above 

 130,000 acres have been destroyed. If Dauphiny 

 were divided into three parts, three-fourths of one 

 part, it is calculated, would be cultivated land ; 

 more than three-fourths of another part would be 

 mountainous and uncultivated ; and half the third 

 part mountainous and in culture. The mountain- 

 ous districts of Dauphiny and Provence are gene- 

 rally calcareous. The whole coast of Provence 

 is a poor stony soil, with very few exceptions. 

 The Lyonnois is mountainous in many parts, the 

 soil being poor, stonj', and rough, with much 

 was'e land. Seven-eighths of the province of 

 Languedoc are mountainous. The vale lands are 

 rich. Rousillon is in general calcareous. Much 

 of it flat and very stony, as well as dry and barren. 

 Mr. Young observes, "that the proportion of 

 poor land in England to the total of the kingdom, 

 is greater than the similar proportion in France ; 

 nor have they any where such tracts of wretched 

 blowing sand, as are to be met with in Norfolk 

 and Suffolk. Thin heaths, moors, and wastes, 

 not mountainous, which they term Landes, and 

 which are so frequent in Brittany, Anjou, Maine, 

 Guienne, and Gascony, are infinitely better than 

 our northern moors ; and the mountains of Scot- 

 land and Wales cannot be compared, in point of 

 soil, with those of ihe Pyrenees, Auvergne, Dau- 

 phiny, Provence, and Languedoc." According 

 to the same author, the Ibllowing are the propor- 

 tional areas of the several divisioiisof the kingdom, 

 classed according to their respective soils : " 

 Rich district of the north-east, containing the pro- 

 vinces of Flanders, Artois, 

 Picardy, Normandy, the yfcres. j^cres. 

 Isle of France, &c. . 18,179,590 

 Plain of the Garonne . . 7,654,564 

 Plain ofAlsace .... 637,880 



Lower Poitou, &c. . . . 1,913,641 



Rich loam 28,385,675 



jlcres. Acres. 



The heath district of 

 Brittany, Anjou, and 

 parts ()fNormandy,&c. 15,307,128 



The heaih distticl of'Gui- 



enne and Gascony 10,206,085 



Heath 25,513,213 



The mountainous district of Auvergne, 

 Dauphiny, Provence, Languedoc, 

 &c 28,707,037 



The chalky district of Champagne, So- 

 logne, Tourraine, Poitou, Saintonge, 

 Aniioumois, &c 16,581,889 



The district of gravel of the Bourbon- 



nois and Nivernois 3,827,282 



The district of stony soils in Lorraine, 



Burgundy, Franche Compte, &c. 20,412,171 



The district of various loams in the Li- 

 mosin, Betry, La Manche, &c. . . 8,292,444 



Total ]31,722,711 

 It is to be remarked, however, that this admea- 

 surement includes the whole surface of the king- 

 dom ; deductions ought therelbre to be made for 

 roads and rivers, &c. According to M. Neckar, 

 there are 9000 leagues of roads in France. On 

 the supposition that their average breadth is 10 loi- 

 ses, this will give (or the whole area occupied by 

 roads, about 193,207 acres, A much larger space 

 must be allowed for rivers ; so that probably the 

 number of acres may be estimated at 131,000,000, 

 the proportional areas of rhe different divisions of 

 soil remaining the same. 



The climate of so extensive a kingdom as France 

 must be very various ; but [)erhaps, on the whole, 

 it is more favorable to the sustenance and rom- 

 Ibrt of human lile, than any other in Europe. The 

 climate of the northern districts is hotter, and at 

 the same time more moist in summer, than the 

 counties in the south-west of England. In the de- 

 partment of Finisterre, the sky is obscured by an 

 almost cot)tinual mist. In Brest and Morlaix, it 

 rains almost incessantly ; and the natives are said 

 to be so habituated to dampness and wet, that too 

 dry seasons prove prejudicial to their health. The 

 heat in summer is never excessive, and the cold 

 likewise is between six and seven degrees less than 

 in Paris. The beautiful verdure of the rich pas- 

 tures in Normandy sufficiently proves the humidity 

 of the climate of this province ; but, even at a dis- 

 tance from the coast, the rains in the north of 

 France are extremely heavy, and continue longer 

 than they generally do in England. In the winter, 

 heavy snows and severe frosts are expf^rlenced lo 

 a greater degree than in the south of England ; 

 and it is remarked there, whenever there is a long 

 and sharp frost in the north of Europe, it is felt 

 much more severely in Paris than in London. 



The central division of France possesses a vvon- 

 derlijlly fine climate, especially the provinces of 

 Tourraine and the Limosin. In many years there 

 is no enow, and frosts are not frequent. There are 

 no fogs and vapors, as in Bretagne, nor the great 

 humidity of Normandy ; and yet they are equally 

 free from the burning sun of the southern provin- 

 ces. The air is light, pure, and elastic. The spring 

 is a continuance of such weather as is seen in 

 England about the middle of May. The harvest 

 begins about the latter end of June, but is some- 

 times so late as the middle of July. The great 

 heats arc from the middle of July to the middle cfr 



