302 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



the great industry ; " * while a number of 

 small workshops for the fabrication of a variety 

 of hardware flourish by the side of, and owing 

 to the proximity of, the industrial centres. 



Pottery makes the fortune of the valley of the 

 Loire about Nevers. High-class art pottery is 

 made in this town, while in the villages plain 

 pottery is fabricated and exported by mer- 

 chants who go about with their boats selling it. 

 At Gien a large factory of china buttons (made 

 out of felspar-powder cemented with milk) has 

 lately been established, and employs 1,500 work- 

 men, who produce from 3,500 to 4,500 Ib. of 

 buttons every day. And, as is often the case, 

 part of the work is done in the villages. For 

 many miles on both banks of the Loire, in all 

 villages, old people, women and children sew 

 the buttons to the cardboard pieces. Of course, 

 that sort of work is wretchedly paid ; but it is 

 resorted to only because there is no other sort 

 of industry in the neighbourhood to which the 

 peasants could give their leisure time. 



In the same region of the Haute Marne, 

 especially in the neighbourhood of Nogent, we 

 find cutlery as a by-occupation to agriculture, 

 Landed property is very much subdivided in 

 that part of France, and great numbers of 

 peasants own but from two to three acrei per 



* Ardouin Dumazet, vol. i., p. 52. 



