No. 3. 



French Farming. 



83 



in relation to it, to send us minute accounts 

 of the same ; and such as appear at all new 

 or important, will be given to the public. — 

 Ohio Cultivator. 



French Farming. 



The general surface of France has by no 

 means that richness of rural aspect which 

 every traveller remarks in England. This 

 is owing, in some measure, to the more mo- 

 notonous surface of the country; for while 

 England is broken up into vast variety, by 

 plain, valley, ^ood, height, glen, and gently 

 undulating land, France, for the most part, 

 presents a succession of vast waving plains, 

 here and there channelled by slow running 

 rivers, or traversed by lines of mountains. 

 It is modelled upon a more gigantic scale 

 than England. Its rivers are longer; its 

 distances are more vast; and its hills, though 

 perhaps not higher than British hills, are 

 more sweeping in their forms, and less strik- 

 ing in outlines. Exception, however, is to 

 be made in favour of a large portion of Brit- 

 tany, the valley of the Seine, in its progress 

 through Normandy, the country of the Au 

 vergne, and that part of Burgundy adjoining 

 the Juras. 



Not only, however, is it in variety of sur- 

 face, that England surpasses France, but in 

 those country adornments, which make up 

 the pleasing rural aspect of the British isles. 

 The French farm house, though substantially 

 built of stone, and stuccoed, and convenient 

 in its interior arrangements, has nowhere 

 the prettily thatched roof, the embowering 

 vines, the rich shade trees, the encircling 

 bit of turf, the scattered flowers, the latticed 

 windows, which belong to the English cot- 

 tage. Add to this the unattractiveness 

 of its situation, upon the middle of some 

 broad plain — instead of quiet nook or valley, 

 or pleasant knoll — so common to English 

 landscape, and one may readily imagine the 

 superior beauty of the island farmery. 



Again, the French cottage, in most situa 

 tions, has few or no hedges. Its offices are 

 all thrown together within one common en- 

 closure of high stonewalls. From the road, 

 you enter by a large gateway into a slattern 

 court, about which carts are dropped here 

 and there, and poultry scratching in the ac- 

 cumulated dirt, and swine, perhaps, rooting 

 about the stagnant pool in the middle. On 

 one side of this court will be the doors and 

 windows of the farm-house — its walls white, 

 where not befouled with dirt — its roof ofi 

 heavy red tiles, and its chimney stiff and 

 clumsy. There is no vine beside the door — 

 not even a rose tree, or violet, or morning 

 glory; but there is a studied neglect of these 



ittle charms which would not do discredit 

 to many New England farmers. The sun 

 shines hotly upon the white walls, and upon 

 the red roofs of the offices by its side. 



Sheds of timber, and roofed with tiles, 

 stretch around upon another side of the 

 court, for the animals and best constructed 

 implements. A barn and granary of the 

 same sort of construction lie upon the third 

 side of the court, and the Qptrance gate, 

 with its high flanking wall, make up the 

 fourth. 



In the more pretending establishments, 

 the farm-house stands removed from the 

 common court of the farmery, and connects 

 with it by a little wing thrown back upon 

 the offices. 



The garden adjoins the enclosure, with its 

 skirt of fruit trees, stragglingly disposed, 

 except in the orchard provinces, where their 

 disposition is neat and beautiful. 



Fences, in the plain country — the country 

 most seen by the casual traveller — are very 

 rare; neither hedge, or ditch, or wall, and 

 the junction of farms or estates is desig- 

 nated by rows of trees, or mere ridges of 

 turff In the vine-growing countries, par- 

 ticularly such as furnish the best wines, as 

 Medoc and Burgundy, division of property 

 is marked simply by lines of vines, and size 

 of vineyards is reckoned only by the number 

 of lines. 



The great roads are broad and macadam- 

 ized, with frequently a strip of grass land 

 upon either side, which is depastured by 

 cows tethered to stakes, or by sheep under 

 guardianship of dogs. Rows of trees bor- 

 der the way, and beyond are yellow, broad- 

 waving fields of grain, barley and wheat ; 

 or perhaps the land is covered with a light 

 grass, on which immense flocks of sheep 

 are feeding. The first may be seen on the 

 route to the east, leading through Auxerre; 

 the sheep abound toward Chateaurou.x. 



Again, upon the best of the grass meadows, 

 eastward toward Dijon and Dole, you may 

 see great herds of cattle, or in the valley of 

 Limousin you will see scores of horses. 



Turning away from the great routes, one 

 finds little bye-lanes, which, with their trees 

 and occasional hedge rows, will remind of 

 England. The farm-houses, too, upon the 

 cross country roads, while they arc more un- 

 pretending in aspect, have more of that rural 

 simplicity which makes much of the charm 

 of an English cottage. 



The canals, stretching over the plains, are 

 not unfrequently gracefully shaded with wil- 

 lows, or lindens, and the sight of their shin- 

 ing surface, glimmering through a copse, the 

 high-collared, heavy Norman horse, toiling 

 along the tow-path — the quaintly clad la- 



