90 Foreign Notices : — Germani/. 



de Plessis, the remembrance of «oaie part of the liistory and horrors of 

 which Su' Walter Scott has revived in his well known novel of Queniiii 

 Durward. The former had been despotically wrested from the possession 

 of the no less celebrated Abbey of Marmoutier, in the year 1740, and 

 added to the already enormous possessions of the see of Tours. In con- 

 sequence of the Revolution of 1789 the government resumed both, as 

 belonging of right to the nation ; and the whole was sold out in small lots, 

 and for payment by easy instalments, to those who chose to purchase. 



This measure originated the great numbers of small proprietors in France 

 (said to amount to two millions of persons), which the present laws of 

 descent have certainly no tendency to diminish. Many of these properties, 

 though situated, of course, at greater distances from Tours, contribute 

 materially, in some respects, to the subsistence of that city ; and particu- 

 larly in the supply of several excellent varieties of beans or lentils, com- 

 monly called haricots, the cultivation of which is so much attended to in 

 this country, and so little in England j and of the potato, which is grown 

 in very large quantities, and of excellent quality. For the general introduc- 

 tion of this root into this neighbourhood, at least, and for the capital sorts 

 which they now possess, the natives are indebted chiefly to our country- 

 men, many of whom have so long resided amongst them. Turnips also 

 begin to be cultivated ; and, when dressed for the table, are not inferior in 

 quality to those grown in England. The lands on which these three sorts 

 of vegetables are grown are made to produce v/inter vetches in the inter- 

 vals ; and in the courses of their crops wheat is not forgotten, the produce 

 of which at harvest time, if at all in proportion to the present appearance 

 of the young plants, must be very great. Most of these crops are the pro- 

 duce of spade culture, which is adopted to a great extent in the rich lands 

 near the city. Fifty or a hundred persons are to be seen together at times, 

 in different portions of the flat lands, the proprietors and families of adjoin- 

 ing spots, all working vvith their spades, and not unfrequently shouting in 

 unison the Parisienne. Yesterday and the day before, in my morning rides, 

 I saw many of these persons thus employed, whilst others were carrying 

 earth in baskets on their backs, across land too tender to bear a wheel of 

 any description, to fill up holes, and to raise the ground into beds for cul- 

 tivation, which would have been otherwise too wet and low. This was in 

 the immediate neighbourhood, and partly within the boundary of the park 

 wall of Plessy, a considerable length of which still remains ; though of the 

 castle itself nothing is left but a single tower, to mark where once stood 

 that horrible fortress and favourite residence of Louis XI. of France, which 

 for so long a space of time spread terror and dismay throughout the sur- 

 rounding country. And, thank Heaven ! where " every yard of ground 

 around," except the " permitted path " itself, was formerly " rendered 

 dangerous, and well nigh unpracticable, by snares and traps, armed with 

 scythe-blades, which shred off the unwary passenger's limb as sheerly as a 

 hedge-bUl lops a hawthorn sprig ; and where tvere calthropes that would 

 pierce your foot through, and pitfalls deep enough to bury you in for 

 ever," * — now, women and children walk to and fro in perfect safety ; and 

 with a proud feeling of reconquered rights, and conscious property, the 

 men of Touraine cultivate their ow)i land. — John H. Moggridge. 



GERMANY. 



Prussian Horticultural Society. — At the Eighty-ninth Meeting of this 

 Society, held on the 12th of September, 1830, the following papers were 

 reported : — 



* Quentin Durward. 



