Book I. AGRICULTURE IN FRANCE. Gj 



introduced with great advantage on many parts of our own coast, more particularly in Ireland It 

 IS obvious that water, so weakly impregnated with salt as to contain only one pound and a half in every 

 thirteen gallons, could not repay the expense of evaporating by fuel in any country. The water of the 

 North Sea contains two and a quarter' per cent of salt, and yet it has never been attempted to make 

 salt from it by evaporation with coal-fires, even on the coast of Northumberland or Durham where 

 refuse coal, suited to the purpose, might be purchased for one shilling and sixpence per ton. In order to 

 make salt from the saline water at Moutiers, it was necessary to concentrate it by natural evaporation 

 and to effect this speedily, it was required to spread the surface of the fluid over as large a space as 

 possible, the ratio of evaporation being, ctEteris paribus, in proportion to the extent of the surface exposed 

 to the action of the atmosphere. The first attempt at Moutiers was made in 1550, by arranging pyramids 

 of rye straw in open galleries, and letting the water trickle through the straw gradually and repeatedly 

 This was abandoned, and faggots of thorns were substituted : these faggots are suspended on frames the 

 water is raised to their height, and spread by channels so as to trickle through them : it passes through 

 three separate sets or frames of thorns, and has then become so concentrated as to contain nearly 22 per 

 cent of salt : it is then boiled in pans in the usual manner. 



379. Evaporating on verticaf cords, erected in a house open on all sides, is a third method, which 

 succeeds even better than the mode by thorns. The water, by repeatedly passing over the cords, is found 

 in forty.five days to deposit all its salt on thiem, and the saline cylinder is then broken off. The cords are 

 renewed once in twenty or thirty years, and the faggots once in seven years. Minute details of these 

 simple but very ingenious processes will be found in the very scientific Travels of Bakewell (vol, i. 230.). 



Sect. III. Of the present State of Agriculture in France. 



380. The first agricultural survey of France was made in 1787, 8, and g. by the 

 celebrated Arthur Young. Since that period no similar account has been published either 

 in France or England : but several French writers have given the statistics and culture of 

 different districts, as the Baron de la Peyrouse, Sinetti, Cordier, &c. ; and others have 

 given general views of the whole kingdom, as La Statistique Generale de la France, by 

 Penchet ; De V Industrie Franqoise, by Chaptal ; and Les Forces Productes et Commer- 

 ciales de la France, &c., by Dupin. From these works, some recent tours of Englishmen, 

 and our own observations in 1815, 1819, and 1828, we have drawn the following outline 

 of the progress of French agriculture since the middle of the sixteenth century, and 

 more especially since the time of Louis XIV. ; including the general circumstances of 

 France as to agriculture, its common culture, its culture of vines and maize, and its 

 culture of olives and oranges. 



SuBSECT. 1. Of the Progress of French Agriculture, from the Sixteenth Century to tlie 



present Time. 



381. That France is the most favourable country in Europe for agriculture, is the opinion 

 both of its own and foreign writers on the subject. For, though the country " suffered 

 deeply from the wars in which she was engaged, first by a hateful conspiracy of kings, and 

 next, by the mad ambition of Bonaparte, the purifying effects of the revolution have 

 indemnified her ten fold for all the losses she has sustained. She has come out of the 

 contest with a debt comparatively light, with laws greatly amended, many old abuses 

 destroyed, and with a population more industrious, moral, enlightened, and happy, than 

 she ever had before. The fortunate change which peace has made in her situation, has 

 filled her with a healthy activity, which is carrying her forward with rapid strides ; she has 

 the most popular, and therefore the most rational, liberal, and beneficial, system of govern- 

 ment of any state in Europe, Britain not excepted ; and, altogether, she is perhaps in a 

 condition of more sound prosperity than any other state in the old world." (Scotsman, 

 vol. xii. No. 861.) 



382. The agriculture of France at present, as^ Mr. Jacob has observed {Itqiort, ^c, 

 1828), occupies one of the lowest ranks in that of the Northern States of Europe; 

 but the fertility of the soil, the suitableness of the subsoil and of the surface for aration, 

 and, above all, the excellence of the climate, are such as are not united to an equal extent 

 in any other European State. When we consider these circumstances in connection 

 with the extraordinary exertions now making for the education of the laborious classes, 

 and the no less extraordinary progress that has been made within these few years in 

 manufactures {For. Rev., Jan. 1829, art. 1.), it is easy to see that in a few years the 

 territorial riches of France will be augmented to an extraordinary extent. 



383. Of the agriculture of France, previous to the middle of the sixteenth century, scarcely 

 any thing is known. Chopin, who it appears resided in the neighbourhood of Paris, 

 wrote a treatise on the Privileges of Labourers, in 1574, which, M. Gr^goire remarks 

 {Hist, of Agr. prefixed to edit, of Olivier de Serres, pub. in 1804), is calculated rather 

 for the advantage of the proprietor than of the farmer. A Code Rural, published some 

 time after, is characterised by the same writer as a Manual of Tyranny. 



384. French agriculture began to flourish in the beginning of the seventeenth centur)-, 

 under Henry IV., and its precepts at that time were published by Olivier de Serres, and 

 Charles Estienne. In 1621, great quantities of corn were exported to England, in con- 

 sequence of a wdse ordinance of Sully, passed some years before, permitting a free 

 commerce in corn. In 1641, the draining of fens and bogs was encouraged; and, in 

 1756, the land-tax taken off newly broken up lands for the space of twenty years. 

 Mazarin, during the minority of Louis XIV., prohibited the exportation of corn, and 

 checked the progress of its culture, This circumstance, and the wars of that king, greatly 



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