114 1 ravels in r ranee 



my regret was that, though married, he left no family; so that 

 his ashes will sleep in peace without his memory being reviled 

 by an indigent posterity. His ancestors acquired the estate 

 by marriage in the fourteenth century. His agricultural im- 

 provements, Monsieur Galway observed, certainly did not hurt 

 him; they were not well done nor well supported by himself, 

 but they rendered the estate more valuable; and he never heard 

 that they had brought him into any difficulties. I cannot but 

 observe here that there seems a fatality to attend country 

 gentlemen whenever they attempt trade or manufacture. In 

 England I never knew a man of landed property, with the edu- 

 cation and habits of landed property, attempt either but they 

 Avere infallibly ruined; or if not ruined considerably hurt by 

 them. Whether it is that the ideas and principles of trade have 

 something in them repugnant to the sentiments which ought to 

 flow from education— or whether the habitual inattention of 

 ■country gentlemen to small gains and savings, which are the 

 soul of trade, renders their success impossible; to whatever it 

 may be owing, the fact is such, not one in a million succeeds. 

 Agriculture, in the improvement of their estates, is the only 

 proper and legitimate sphere of their industry; and though 

 ignorance renders this sometimes dangerous, yet they can with 

 safety attempt no other. The old labourer, whose name is 

 Piron (as propitious I hope to farming as to wit), being arrived, 

 we sallied forth to tread what to me was a sort of classic ground. 

 I shall dwell but little on the particulars: they make a much 

 better figure in the Memoire sur les defrichemens than at Tour- 

 billy; the meadows, even near the chateau, are yet very rough; 

 the general features are rough, but the alleys of poplars, of 

 which he speaks in the memoirs, are nobly grown indeed and 

 •do credit to his memory'; they are 60 or 70 feet high and girth a 

 foot; the willows are equal. Why were they not oak ? to have 

 transmitted to the farming travellers of another century the 

 pleasure I feel in viewing the more perishable poplars of the 

 present time; the causeways near the castle must have been 

 •arduous works. The mulberries are in a state of neglect; 

 Slonsieur Galway 's father not being fond of that culture de- 

 stroyed many, but some hundreds remain, and I was told that 

 the poor people had made as far as 25 lb. of silk, but none 

 attempted at present. The meadows had been drained and 

 improved near the chateau to the amount of 50 or 60 arpents, 

 they are now rushy but valuable in such a country. Near them 

 is a wood of Bourdeaux pines, sown thirty-five years ago, and 



