64 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



festival. They do not receive any pay ; the goutd and the amusement of the evening are 

 their only reward." (Bake well.) 



371. The walnut kernels are laid on cloths to dry, and in about a fortnight are carried to the crushing, 

 mill, where they are ground into a paste; this is put into cloths, and undergoes the operation of pressing 

 to extract the oil. The best oil, which is used for salads and cooking, is pressed- cold ; but an inferior 

 oil for lamps is extracted by heating the paste. Thirty people in one evening will crack as many walnuts 

 as will produce sixty pounds of paste; this yields about fifteen wine-quarts of oil. The walnut-shells are 

 not lost among so frugal a people as the Savoyards, but are burned for the ashes, which are used for washing. 

 Two pounds of these ashes are equal in strength to three of wood-ashes ; but the alkali is so caustic, that 

 it frequently injures the linen. The paste, after it is pressed, is dried in cakes, called pain amerj this is 

 eaten by children and poor people, and it is sold in the shops in Savoy and Geneva. 



372. The best ivalnitt oil, pressed cold, has but very little of the kernelly taste ; but it may be easily 

 distinguished from the best olive oil, which it resembles in colour. If the peel were taken off the 

 walnuts, the oil would probably be quite free from any peculiar flavour; but this operation would he 

 too tedious. (76.) 



373. Tobacco, which is much used in Savoy, was cultivated with success in the 

 neighbourhood of Ramilly ; but on the restoration of the old despotism, its culture was 

 prohibited, and the implements of manufacture seized. 



374. The culture of artificial grasses is spreading in Savoy, but is not yet very general. 

 In the neighbourhood of Aix, Ramilly, and Annecy, wheat is succeeded by rye. The 

 rye-harvest being over in June, they immediately sow the land with buck- wheat (sarrasin), 

 which is cut in September ; the following year the land is sown with spring corn. 



375. The grass-lands are always mown twice, and the latter mowing is sufficiently 

 early to allow a good pasturage in the autumn. Water-meadows are occasionally found 

 near towns. The water is generally let down from mountain stieams ; but sometimes it 

 is raised from rivers by a sort of bucket- wheel (Jig. 44. ), which is called the Noj-ia of the 



Alps. This wheel is raised or lowered by means of a loaded lever (a), which turns on a 

 fulcrum (b), formed by a piece of wood with its end inserted in the river's bank. 



376. Agricultural improvement in Savoy must be in a very low state, if the answers 

 Bakewell received respecting the average quantity of the produce are correct. One of 

 the answers stated the average increase of wheat to be from three to five on the quantity 

 sown, and near the towns from five to seven. Another agriculturist stated the average 

 increase on the best lands to be nine, and, in the neighbourhood of Annecy, thirteen, fold. 

 One part of Savoy is, perhaps, the finest corn-land in Europe ; and the very heavy crops 

 Bakewell saw in the neighbourhood of Aix and Annecy, made him doubt the accuracy of 

 the above statements : but, on referring to Arthur Young's account of the agriculture of 

 France before the revolution, it appears that four and a half was regarded as the average 

 increase in that country, which is very similar in climate to Savoy. (Travels, i. 328.) 



377. The salt-works of Moutiers, in the valley of the Isere, in the Tarantaise, are parti- 

 cularly deserving attention, being perhaps the best conducted of any in Europe, with respect 

 to economy. Nearly three million pounds of oalt are extracted annually from a source of 

 water which would scarcely be noticed, except for medical purposes, in any other country. 



378. The springs that supply the salt-works at Moutiers, rise at the bottom of a nearly perpendicular rock 

 of limestone, situated on the south side of a deep valley or gorge. The temperature of the strongest 

 spring is ninety-nine Fahrenheit, it contains r83 per cent of saline matter. It may seem extraordmary 

 that the waters at Moutiers, which have only half the strength of sea-water, should repay the expense 

 of evaporation ; but the process by which it is "effected is both simple and ingenious, and might be 



