FRANCE. 107 



general maxim can be deduced from it : 

 for certainly it is a national advantage, as I 

 before obferved, for fome people to prefer 

 the vineyard-culture, that fuch foils as are 

 particularly adapted to vines may be culti- 

 vated under them. 



At Sillery, I faw a very extenfive vine- 

 yard, which the people allured me contained 

 eighty- feven acres; and they told me of 

 fome between Sillery and Rheims, of above 

 an hundred acres, the property of iingle 

 noblemen. All this country is exceedingly 

 populous; the villages ftand very thick, be- 

 Jides many fcattered cottages. The vine- 

 yards do not join; they are fcattered about 

 the country in fpots that fuit them, inter- 

 mixed with corn, fainfoine, and fallows. 

 Wheat here yields a poor produce of not 

 more than a quarter and a half an acre ; rye, 

 which is more generally fown, produces 

 two quarters and a half $ barley rather more 

 than two. Sainfoine they value as the bed 

 crop they have after vines : it yields great 

 products of hay for twenty years ; fome 

 fields even fo great as three loads an acre ; 

 but two, and two and a half, are not un- 

 common. They apply it to the ufe of every 



fort 



