FRANCE. 289 



(he people carry all the marks of extreme 

 poverty and hunger; they are much op- 

 prefled, fo that many of them have hardly 

 any notion of property. 



I dined at Rodez the 3bth, arid enquiring 

 of the landlord of the inn, who was a civil 

 fellow for a French innkeeper, .concerning 

 the hufbandry of that country; he informed 

 me, that he had meadows which yielded 

 him four loads of hay a year in three cut- 

 tings, but that fuch products are wholly 

 owing to watering in a proper manner* 

 Upon my alking him what was efteemed the 

 proper manner, he replied, he knew not ; 

 for there were peafants who travelled the 

 country in parties, for the purpofe of wa- 

 tering, for about twenty-pence an acre : 

 they undertake the whole work by the year, 

 and are at all the labour, except the repara- 

 tion of the channels ; that they have a par- 

 ticular art in watering, in throwing on the 

 water at the right feafons, letting it be on 

 only a certain time, and in a certain quan- 

 tity ; that, from experience, thefe peafants 

 were able to conduct the buiinefs much 

 better than any farmer could do on his own 

 meadow, as was very apparent, from the 



VOL. IV. U fuperiority 



