FRANCE. 129 



from fifteen to twenty-five years. Some 

 experiments have been made by a gentle- 

 man in the neighbourhood, M. de Pont- 

 cafre, on drilling it, inftead of fowing it in 

 the random method. He fallowed the 

 land in a very complete manner, and fowed 

 buck-wheat in the common method ; then 

 having harrowed the land to a great degree 

 of finenefs, he drilled the lucern over it in 

 equally diftant rows, one foot afunder. 

 After the buck-wheat was off the ground, he 

 cultivated the fpaces between the rows with 

 a horfe-hoe, which, from the peafants de* 

 fcription, I take to be a ploughing harrow. 

 In this method, the lucern yielded larger 

 crops than in the common method, and he 

 cut it once oftener than the farmers did 

 theirs, though the peafant did not think 

 this would anfwer, from the extraordinary 

 expenceSj which may probably be the cafe, 

 not in the light an Englimman would view 

 it, but in the peculiar circumftances of the 

 French peafant having his taxes raifed, not 

 only on what vifibly is a profit to him, but 

 from the fuppofition, that, if he is able to be 

 expenfive in his culture, he is able to pay 

 more than the amount commonly taken 

 VOL. IV. K from 



