94 A CONTEMPORARY FRENCH AGRICULTURIST 



De Serres was prominent among the Protestants of 

 the Vivarais (the modern Ardeche). The Thedtre shows 

 that besides being a seigneur who tilled his own lands, 

 he was a wide reader and a practised writer. 



Faujas de Saint-Fond,^ writing in 1802, describes the 

 large and beautiful meadow which gave the name of Le 

 Pradel to Olivier de Serres' estate, a league distant from 

 Villeneuve-de-Berg. It sloped gently from the chateau, 

 was watered by a spring issuing from its upper end, and 

 fringed by a triple row of fine oaks. In the background 

 rose a volcanic mountain, crowned with basaltic columns. 

 The chateau had been thrice fired during the wars of 

 religion, and only one of its towers was standing in 

 1802. All the trees which De Serres had planted 

 had been cut down, and little remained of his improve- 

 ments except the fragments of an aqueduct made for 

 watering his gardens and turning his mills. The house 

 still stands, though much altered. 



The Thedtre opens with a discussion on soils. Some 

 of the indications of fertility are taken from the Georgics. 

 De Serres prefers a mixture of plain, hillside and 

 mountain, and praises as " bon et beau " a site 

 which not a little resembles his own domain of Le 

 Pradel. 



De Serres is far from vulgar superstition ; if he 

 collects old saws about lucky and unlucky days, it is 

 only to laugh at them. Nevertheless he does not reject 

 the prevalent opinion that the heavenly bodies exert an 

 influence upon the afi^irs of men. The moon especially, 

 as the nearest of them, may, he thinks, afiect the 

 weather and the growth of plants and animals. The 



1 An early geologist of great mark (1741-1819), who described the trachytie 

 mass of the M^zenc {Becherches sur lea volcana 6teints du Vivarais et du Velay, 

 1778), the basalt of Fingal's cave, &c. 



