Book I. 



AGRICULTURE IN FRANCE. 



69 



402. Poulhy is an important article of French husbandry, and well understood as far 

 as breeding and feeding. Birkbeck thinks the consumption of poultry in towns may be 

 equal to that of mutton. The smallest cottage owns a few hens, 4^ 

 which often roost under cover, in a neat little structure (Jig. 47. ), 

 elevated so as to be secure from dogs, wolves, and foxes. 



403. The breed of suine is in general bad ; but excellent hams are 

 sent from Bretagne, from hogs reared on acorns, and fatted off 

 with maize. Pigeon-houses are not uncommon. 



404. The manage meyit of Jish-ponds is well understood in France, 

 owing to fish in all catholic countries being an article of necessity. 

 In the internal district there are many large artificial ponds, as well 

 as natural lakes, where the eel, carp, pike, and a few other species, are 

 reared, separated, and fed, as in the Berkshire ponds in England. 



405. The implements and operations of the common farms of 

 France are in general rude. The ploughs of Normandy resemble 

 the large wheel-ploughs of Kent. Those farther south are generally 

 without wheels ; often without coulters ; and an iron mould-board 

 is rare. In many parts of the south the ploughs have no mould- 

 board, and turn the earth in the manner of the simplest form of 

 Roman plough. (110.) Harrows are in general wholly of wood; and, 

 instead of a roller, a plank is for the most part used. Large farmers, as in Normandy, 

 plough with four or six oxen : small farmers with two, or even one ; or, when stift* 



soils are to be worked out 

 of season, they join to- 

 gether, and form a team of 

 four or six cattle. Their 

 carts are narrow and long, 

 with low wheels, seldom 

 shod in the remote parts 

 of the country. The gnim- 

 barde of the Seine and 

 Oise {fig. 48.) is a light 



and useful machine. Corn is reaped with sickles, hooks, and the Brabant and cradle 



scythes, {fig- 49.) Threshing, in 



Normandy, is performed with the flail 



in houses, as in England ; in the 



other climates, in the open air with 



flails, or by the tread of horses. There 



are few permanent threshing-floors ; 



a piece of ground being smoothed in ' 



the most convenient part of the field 



is found suflSciently hard. Farmers, 



as we have already observed, perform 



most of their operations without extra 



labourers ; and their wives and daugh- 

 ters reap, thresh, and perform almost every part of the farm and garden work indifferently. 



Such farmers " prefer living in villages ; society and the evening dance being nearly as 



indispensable to them as their daily food. If the farm be distant, the farmer and his 



servants of all descriptions set off early in the morning in a light waggon, carrying with 



them their provisions for the day." {Neill) Hence it is, that a traveller in France may 



pass through ten or twenty miles of corn-fields, without seeing a single farm-house. 



406. Large farms, which are extremely rare, have generally farmeries on the lands ; 

 and there the labour is in great part performed by labourers, who, as well as the tradesmen 

 employed, are frequently paid in kind. (Birkbeck.) 



407. u4ll the plants cultivated by the British farmer are also grown in France ; the 

 turnip not generally, and in the warm districts scarcely at all, as it does not bulb; but 

 it is questionable, whether, if it did bulb, it would be so valuable in these districts as the 

 lucerne, or clover, which grow all the winter ; or the potato, from which flour is now 

 made extensively ; or the field beet, which may be used either as food for cattle, or for, 

 yielding sugar. Of plants not usually cultivated on British farms may be mentioned, 

 the chiccory for green food, fuller's tliistle for its heads, furze and broom for green 

 food, madder, tobacco, poppies for oil, rice in Dauphine (but now dropped as pre- 

 judicial to health), saffron about Angouleme, iathyrus sativus, the pois Breton or 

 lentil of Spain, iathyrus setifolius, Ficia Zathyroides and sativa, Cicer arietinum, ^'rvum 

 i<^ns, ilfelilotus sibirica, Coronilla varia, IZedysarum coronkrium, &c. They have a hardy 

 red wheat, called Vepcautre (spelt), which grows in the worst soil and climates, and is 

 common in Alsace and Suabia. Thev grow the millet, the dura or douro of Egvpt 



F 3 



