FRANCE. 9 



ragement is principally agriculture; alfo 

 commerce, and ufeful arts. They have 

 given feveral medals to the improvers of 

 wafte and barren tracts of land; alfo for 

 improvements in the making their wines ; 

 particularly for a prefs of a new invention, 

 alfo for the culture of flax and African 

 millet. They likewife offered their medal 

 for improvements in fpinningand weaving, 

 and likewife for the greatefl crops raifed 

 of wheat on given quantities of land. One 

 of the moft remarkable inftances of their 

 fucccfs was in the cafe of one Piere dc 

 Laurete, a peafant at St. Agnel, in the fo- 

 reft, who farms his own lands. This man 

 improved a very poor fandy tra& of land, 

 which never had yielded any valuable pro- 

 duce; and his progrefs, in as few words as 

 I can give it, was as follows : with the 

 permiflion of the principal owners of the 

 adjacent parifhes, he inclofed it; (no great 

 favour in fo wafte and neglected a part of 

 the country) ; this he did, by planting a 

 hornbeam hedge around it, having firft 

 thrown up a fmall parapet of the fand. 

 This hedge profpered very much. His next 

 bulinefs was to manure a part of his inclo- 



fure 



