Alen^on 1 15 



are now worth 5 or 6 livres each. I walked into the boggy bit 

 that produced the great cabbages he mentioned, it joins a large 

 and most improvable bottom. Piron informed me that the 

 marquis pared and burnt about 100 arpents in all, and he folded 

 250 sheep. On our return to the chateau, ^lonsieur de Galway, 

 finding what an enthusiast I was in agriculture, searched among 

 his papers to find a manuscript of the Marquis de Tourbilly's, 

 written with his own hand, which he had the goodness to make 

 me a present of, and which I shall keep amongst my curiosities 

 in agriculture. The polite reception I had met from Monsieur 

 Galway and the friendly attention he had given to my views, 

 entering into the spirit of my pursuits, and wishing to promote 

 it, would have induced me very cheerfully to have accepted his 

 invitation of remaining some days with him, had I not been 

 apprehensive that the moment of Madame Galway's being in 

 bed would render such an unlooked-for visit inconvenient. I 

 took my leave therefore in the evening and returned to La 

 Fleche by a different road. — 25 miles. 



2,0th. A quantity of moors to Le ilans, they assured me at 

 Guerces that they are here sixty leagues in circumference with 

 no great interruptions. At Le Mans I was unlucky in Monsieur 

 Tournai, secretar}^ to the Society of Agriculture, being absent. 

 — 28 miles. 



October i. Towards Alen^on, the country a contrast to 

 what I passed yesterday; good land, well enclosed, well built, 

 and tolerably cultivated with marling. A noble road of dark- 

 coloured stone, apparently ferruginous, that binds well. Near 

 Beaumont vineyards in sight on the hills, and these are the last 

 in thus travelling northwards ; the whole country finely watered 

 by rivers and streams, yet no irrigation. — 30 miles. 



2nd. Four miles to Nouant, of rich herbage, under bullocks. 

 — 28 miles. 



yd. From Gace towards Bernay. Pass the Marishal Due 

 de Broglio's chateau at Broglio, which is surrounded by such a 

 multiplicity of clipped hedges, double, treble, and quadruple, 

 that he must half maintain the poor of the little town in clipping, 

 — 25 miles. 



^th. Leave Bernay, where, and at other places in this 

 country, are many mud walls made of rich red loam, thatched 

 at top and well planted with fruit trees: a hint very well worth 

 taking for copying in England where brick and stone are dear. 

 Come to one of the richest countries in France or indeed in 

 Europe. There are few finer views than the first of Elbeuf, 



